Monday, November 22, 2010

Last days and coming home

What do most people buy when they travel and are faced with weight restrictions? Me? I buy books. I simply can’t help myself. If there’s a bookshop in front of me, I’m there. I spent time in Borders this afternoon. Much bigger than I’m used to at home with a wider range of products available – not just books.

Senior 'chill out' area, Australian International School.
On Thursday I visited the Australian International School and had a quick look around. It’s amazing the sense of space they’ve achieved inside the buildings when the outside space is so limited. The buildings are very different to what I’m used to but it still felt like a school, with the focus being the students and their needs.

Afterwards I went back to Orchard Road as I hadn’t seen the other end of it earlier. I don’t know why, I know I’m not a shopper, but apparently it’s the place to go. The Christmas decorations are going up at a rate of knots. I went past one huge tree inside a centre and could feel the heat from the fairy lights about two metres away. The only shop I actually went into was the Longines shop. I should have tried to find the bird park as I’d intended. Next time.

The flight home was mostly uneventful. The Captain put the seat-belt sign on every time there was the slightest turbulance so I felt a bit like a jack-in-the-box. Again, I had three seats to myself so I raised the armrests, stacked the pillows behind me and stretched out to read. Not a bad way to travel. I thought I should buy something duty-free so I spent some time going through the catalogue and eventually chose four fragrances to buy. Unfortunately they wouldn't take my debit-VISA cards. Why would they prefer to do business with people who are using borrowed money? The reason I was given was they would land and process the sales and they would bounce. I would have thought they'd have the same problem with credit cards being over the limit. Ah well, all it means for me is I came home with a slightly lighter bag and $400 richer than I planned.

Since getting home I've dropped straight back into my routine. That basically means I'm alternating between reading (and hibernating) and picking up and cleaning up after other people (one of my least favourite things and the reason I read so much). Tonight I need to write. There are just six days left of NaNo. I know there's no way I'll make the 50K but I want to do something more than I did in the first week.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Very interesting. I had seen it many times yet not felt the urge to blog on it. When you blogged, it made interesting reading.
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