Bus Adventures

I mistakenly believed that the worst of the homework was over. This week I can breathe a little easier, but not much. The design projects just keep coming and I have a feeling the last week of the semester, when all of them are due, is going to be insane…lucky me.

On the other side of the coin, I can’t believe I have to leave here in just over a month. That just isn’t enough time to do everything I want to do. Yesterday I got to see a little more of the city. Sam was flying up from New Zealand and we were going to meet at the opera house, but she couldn’t call my number from a pay phone and unfortunately we never got a hold of each other. I had decided just to take the afternoon and go into the city after class anyway so I’d be down there when she called, so I ended up discovering where the government house is and walking along the bay to Mrs. Macquarie’s chair. It is a beautiful walk along the harbour with the Royal Botanic Gardens on one side and the water on the other. Mrs. Macquarie was the wife of a governor of the Sydney colony and her chair is a rock ledge her husband had carved out on a point overlooking the Sydney Harbour. Apparently it was her favorite place to sit and look out over the water. The sign in front of the spot claims it is still one of most beautiful view in Sydney, but from what I could see, you’d be staring at a tree growing out of the side of the cliff in front of you.

There is something strange about me and old people at bus stops. Last week an elderly man came out of Five Dock Club and began to talk to me about how he went back to school when he was 70 and learned to speak Mandarin and his three wives, one of whom was a millionaire, all of whom he has outlived. A week or so before that an old homeless man tapped me on the shoulder and muttered something I couldn’t understand while pointing at another person waiting at the stop. Well this week I was headed to Burwood to buy art supplies and the bus stopped outside Burwood Girls High School, letting a huge mob of girls in plaid skirts on. The older lady sitting next to me “kindly” ordered them to move to the back of the bus so more people could get on. Then she turned to me and began to systematically unburden all of her pet peeves about society, beginning with the bus system and ending with how she didn’t believe women should be allowed maternity leave! She has rung up the transportation department to insist drivers make people move to the back of the bus and that people have their change ready when they get on. She also doesn’t like the way kids are these days and she cited a story she read in the paper about a 17 year old girl who overdosed on 3 drugs and died. Where were this girl’s parents? She may have not have had a wonderful childhood, but at least she knew where she was going at that stage in her life. I carefully pointed out that that is a difficult age to make decisions and she immediately countered the fact by giving me her life’s story, how she got married when she was 18 and a half and they lived off of her salary and her husband worked two jobs. After we got to the maternity leave part and I suggested that women might have to work just to support themselves, I just let her go. There was no changing her mind. Then she abruptly got up at her stop and turned to me and said, “You have a lovely day!” in the nicest way and got off the bus! Who’ll it be next week?