Rubbish Free Lunches

This sounds like a great idea and I am sure the schools around Oz are proud to have come up with it. Kids bring lunches to school that do not leave the school with any rubbish, such as wrappers, plastic spoons, and Ziploc bags. Ideally, the kid brings the snack and main dish in containers, and a piece of fruit, whose leftover pit or seeds, if any, are thrown in the compost bin. This scenario is ideal, but nowadays it is most unrealistic. There will always be rubbish, and the school would do better to ask kids and parents to minimize the amount of rubbish produced. Cheese, yoghurt, cracker snacks, fruit snacks, they ALL come in some recyclable container, and if the kid throws it out at school or at home, it will make no difference for the environment. What makes a difference is if containers are recycled and what ways to find to reduce the amount of recyclable rubbish by buying larger containers maybe. But the school counts the rubbish-free lunches and gets points that downstream translate into green stars for the school, and whatever accolades further down... The stars should be for deferring rubbish home instead of school, an unrealistic goal, and a misleading way of teaching kids to keep a clean environment. Today's picture is that of a huge orb spider who keeps the rubbish in his own web, until rain decomposes it completely.

Fear of Parking Inspectors

I wrote about parking before without discussing the diligence of the parking inspectors. They are employees of city councils and, as mentioned in the press, they are often given quotas for how many drivers to fine in order to meet city budgets. Their numbers are overwhelming and I believe the parking regulations are designed while keeping in mind that the inspectors need to be paid AND the city has to make an income. Shopping areas with plenty of parking will often have 2-hour limited spots, 1-hour and 4-hour, even if they never fill out, just so in case one overstays, they can be fined. What happened to me yesterday was in fact funny and made me aware of how other people feel about the parking fines. Our hospital recently added another large, new building, but didn't create one new parking space. There is a continuous crisis for parking and by noon not even patients can park. This results in the overloading of the surrounding parking areas. When I arrive at work before 7:30AM, I park on the street for $4/day, the cheapest one can find and the only parking that is not limited to 1h or 2h. I parked at 7:30 yesterday and I went to get a ticket from the ticket machine. The machine said "Ticket machine closed. No tickets available." I celebrated with a huge smile, but while walking back to my car to take my stuff, I noticed on the dashboard of all other parked cars, people put a note saying "No tickets available from the machine/ (the time when they parked)/ Displayed in the car" I paused, read again and decided that all these other drivers must have been afraid that if the machine is fixed later, but they do not return to their car during that time to buy a ticket, the hungry parking inspectors may be leaving them a fat fine. So not even when the city council doesn't fix a broken ticket machine can you be certain that they will take responsibility. You still have to find a way to avoid a false fine. I wasn't going to put any note, just out of curiosity and rebellion, to see if I ever get fined. But the headache of having to fight an unfair fine is so much worse, I left a note, too, on my dashboard. Today's picture is another tropical flower, which looks like a bird-of-paradise flower, but I am not 100% sure what it is.

Our Postman

I wonder if you find today's post funny. The postman here rides a red (maybe orange or yellow sometimes) Honda motorcyle on the sidewalk. He (I have never seen a she) wears fluoro orange clothes, including pants, jacket or vest, and a hat with a skirt around the neck for full sun protection. He throws the mail in the mail box with the skill of a bowler launching the ball right against the pins. Maybe this is not a good comparison, because although he hits the mailbox slot, most of the time half of the mail remains hanging outside the box, getting soaked in the frequent rains. I had so many important tax documents and magazines dripping wet and with messy ink splotches that I contemplated writing a little note to the mailman kindly asking him to push the mail all the way inside the box. But since he never stops and never takes any mail that I may want to send, I am sure he would not slow down to read a note... Yes, I remember the cute red flag American people put up on their mailbox when they want the mailman to pick up post. No such service here. And no mail service on Saturdays. Plus no mail forwarding beyond a month after you move, even if the Post charges a nice fee for this service. I played ping-pong for over two years with all kinds of government agencies who were sending mail to the person who rented this house before us, but didn't update her details with them (maybe she didn't want to). So I returned all mail to senders without even the help of the postman, who of course, never stopped to pick up anything from me. I felt as if I worked for the post, because since they do not offer the forwarding service and I had to return the mail to senders, I filled in for the mailman. I only didn't deliver this mail to the door of the senders. FULL STOP Today's picture is that of a tropical plant, the Indonesian wax ginger, which I took on our trip to Darwin.

Fund Raising in Schools

The primary school and the dance school are trying to raise money by selling Cadbury Freddo chocolates. Children whose parents agree to sell the chocolates ($1 each) will have to bring home at least one box of 50 chocolates, which then they sell to raise funds. The child who sells most chocolates gets a prize. But if a child cannot sell all the chocolates (after his/her parents alienate colleagues, neighbors and friends with desperate pledges to buy "some" chocolates), for safety regulations, none of the unsold chocolates can be returned to school. Parents can send a decline to school, opting not to have children pick chocolates for the fund raising (and I did, because I would rather donate some cash to the school than be forced to deal with 50 x 200 calories). I know schools all around the world need funds and depend on such fund raising, but do they really have to sell chocolates for this? It is known that kids should not be eating too much chocolate and should not be tempted with such sugar loaded sweets. School health programs promote these ideas themselves. Of course, schools "believe" that the chocolates will be sold to others and very few will decay the school children's teeth, but we all know, especially when none of the unsold chocolates can be returned to school, that the kids will buy and eat most of the chocolates themselves. I admired the school for doing a recent fund raising with flower bulbs, which were preordered and nobody had to be stuck with loads of unsold bulbs. And because I said flowers, here are some amazing frangipani (aka plumeria in the US) from the Botanical Garden in Darwin (Northern Territory).

Road Oddities

I'll enumerate just a few: roundabout, taxi and bus lane on the shoulder of the highway, and what I call "the third lane." I think the concept of roundabout annoys all Americans traveling to Europe, but once you figure out that a roundabout is the circular equivalent of an American four-way stop, things make more sense. Traffic flows and you always give priority to the car on your right. Ideally. If you drive a tiny car like me, you get the right to pass half of the times. Second odd thing: I just recently discovered the taxi and bus lane that is basically the shoulder of the highway. If I didn't almost get hit by a taxi coming from my left, I would never have realized there was such a lane. And if this didn't happen at around 7:30AM during the week, again I wouldn't have noticed the lane. This lane runs on the shoulder and often overlaps with the entry and exit onto the highway, so it is on the opposite side of the road compared with where the HOV lane is on the American highways. What I don't like is that any other vehicle carrying maybe more people than the taxis are not allowed on the taxi/bus lane, and also many taxis drive on it even when they are without customers, which I find abusive. Finally, the last odd thing about the roads in Oz (at least for now) is the so called "third lane," which is a short lane that is created to accommodate left turns, but instead of ending in the intersection, continues for a short distance afterwards. I have no idea why this lane exists. And it is a dangerous lane that is used by aggressive drivers to bypass others by suddenly bursting ahead of them and often pushing them to a stop just so they can move right in front of them. It's a cheaters lane. Odd! Today's picture could not be about boring roads, so I used instead a beautiful hibiscus from the Northern Territory.

Churchill National Park

We went on Sunday to visit this place, Churchill National Park, which is about 20 km East from us. It is one of the few places in the suburbs of Melbourne where the "bush" was left mostly untouched, free to exist the way it did for many thousands of years. Foot paths and bicycle paths divide the park, but the closeness of nature is not interrupted. My proof for this is the kangaroo in the picture! Like many others, and we saw at least 20, he was nibbling at grass, but he stood to check us out when we approached on the path. Roos are smart creatures, which blend so well in the landscape with their grey fur, but also stand upright to check the surroundings at every noise. Their big black eyes staring at you hypnotize, and the thick tail scares. Yet, I just see them as creatures who own this place and we disturb with our curiosity and desire to explore the bush.

Low Density

This is another Aussie aspect that I find striking, the very low density of the population. It is true that the 21.8 million Aussies are distributed on a large continent, but since most of the continent is uninhabitable, they live in pockets of high density on the South and East Coasts predominantly. Even in these areas of higher density, the number of high-rises is lower than in most large European and American cities. The overwhelming majority of people live in houses, not apartments (because there are just too few), and the majority of houses are on one level, with large gardens. The Aussie beaches are not dense even in top season, which may have to do with the presence of dangerous jellys or sharks in the water and with the high number of beaches relative to the small number of Aussies and the much smaller number of tourists. I remember the crowded Italian beaches and the Santa Monica beach in the summer, especially, when it was difficult to step close to the water without walking on someone’s beach towel. That is never a pleasant thing, so I am always so amazed to see entire beaches here that have maybe a handful of people spread on some square kilometres of sand. Not such low density is shared by some insect species; for example, today’s picture represents caterpillars at “maximum density” on a eucalyptus branch.