Update from the land of the Seppos

Tote · 31-03-2005, 05:23 PM

Oh well, I've eaten enough sugar to become a little less cynical so I thought it was time for an update.
We went back to San Francisco on Sunday and had another look around, unfortunately a lot of stuff was closed due to it being Easter Sunday. I'm afraid that the middle of town makes me nervous, we emerged from the railway station to find about a dozen people trying to shove God brochures at us, or asking us for money or trying to sell us something. It sure is the land of the hard sell. As we were walking away I muttered something to the bloke I'm here with about people foisting shit on us and this tall black dude chases us and demands to know what we were saying about him. Thankfully he was easily assured that we did indeed value the documentation he had given us and that we appreciated his help immensley. To which he replied "theres a lot of anger around today considering its a holy day." hmmmm, yep.
To prove there's always two sides to a story we got talking to a family while we were sitting in the spa drinking beer (as you do) The father was 40ish and they had late teens/early twenties kids. He was an army reservist and had been staying in the Hotel of the Lonely Nerds (TM) while he was getting ready to be deployed to Iraq. Whilst we were very careful to avoid giving the impression that we were anything other than Bush supporters I can understand why he would feel that he was doing his bit to support his country and had been training hard for the last three months in preparation for his stint over there. He left for 12 months on Tuesday to be an engineer rebuilding infrastructure. They were surprised that we were prepared to talk to them at all as they had recently been in Ireland on holidays and had got a less than friendly reception most places they went. I wish him well as he has a difficult job to do.
Its amazing how the media here has found a way to dehumanise the Iraqi fighters. All the media reports refer to the way the troops are fighting "the insurgents", never a mention of a human face to the other side. It's a long way from Gallipoli where there was mutual respect for the enemy.
Since Terri Schaivo's parents lost their appeal the media has dropped them like a hot potato, it seems the rising cost of petrol is a more appealing subject, it's about $1.22 a gallon or a bit less than 60c a litre.
I went looking at a couple of car yards on Saturday, unfortunately I forgot my camera but I can tell you the supercharged Mustang is most pretty indeed.
The dodge dealers are currently full of great big V10 Ram trucks with letterboxes on the front which are rather impressive as well. Most of them seem to be yellow so they must be last years stock. Have a look here: http://www.dodge.com/srt-10/index.html

I've seen the occasional nice car but the vast majority of the cars are about as exciting as the Pontiac we're driving. I found a Bullitt Mustang in a car park the other day though, pictures below:

Regards
Tote

Steffo · 31-03-2005, 05:28 PM

The more I read your posts.. the more I'm glad that I live in Australia.

MotherNatureVer2 · 31-03-2005, 05:39 PM

Great to hear from you again Tote, Happy Belated Easter btw ;)

Im glad you are meeting at least some people who are seemingly human who are making us all realise there are many facets to the human race & we rarely get to see the good ones ........

Keep us updated regularly ;)

Gammaboy · 31-03-2005, 06:34 PM

After spending 5 weeks over there recently, I agree, but something you haven't mentioned is how fanatically patriotic they are over there... Its really impressive, especially compared to Aussie attitudes...
They wholeheartedly support their troops, even though they may not believe they should be there, while here our troops are berated when they return from a war that wasn't their choice. It sickens me the way people here can be towards the people who are willing to die for our country, to keep our lifestyle *our* lifestyle....
I should mention I spent a bunch of time there working with guys who've been in Afgahnistan and Iraq on active duty, career soldiers rather than reservists, they were great guys, but when it comes down to it they joined cos they wanted to protect their country.

GTP 320 · 31-03-2005, 06:59 PM

Great read again there Tote,keep it up.It's facinating the lifestyle of the Americans compared to us.
Cheers John

Yum-Yum · 31-03-2005, 08:05 PM

Another awesome read there Tote, how long to go now man?

MO · 31-03-2005, 09:57 PM

G'day Tote, not being critical but paragraphs would have made it a easy read.

Anyway they are very different to us over there,so keep your head down,learn lots and come back safe. I used to know a few yanks who worked at the space base in The Alice...you never knew what their real job was...they were all gardeners or groundsmen.

FordFan86 · 31-03-2005, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MotherNature

Great to hear from you again Tote, Happy Belated Easter btw ;)

Im glad you are meeting at least some people who are seemingly human who are making us all realise there are many facets to the human race & we rarely get to see the good ones ........

Keep us updated regularly ;)

well said