Brush with a bus

Today we had two things we wanted to do. One was to send the dive bag to Cairns so we didn't have to lug it all around and the other was to visit the Tessuti fabric store in Sydney. We had success but it took a while. : > )

Steve carried the 18Kg dive duffel bag 2 km to the bus/train station where we found out the Australian Greyhound freight office had moved... one of the few times Google was wrong because it hadn't been updated. After asking several very polite and helpful people for help on where to find the office <insert blank looks and puzzled faces> we eventually found it. Then we found out that the freight office had moved totally somewhere else and the office we eventually found was a sales office.

Unlike Canada where you would have been told "too bad so sad..... here's the address of the place you need to get to" the manager at the Australian Greyhound office (which is now a sales office) took charge and arranged for our bag to be picked up from her office. She even produced a manifest and did everything officially. She said Australians like Canadians because we are so nice. I told her that Australians are way, way nicer than Canadians. We didn't quite hug and exchange phone numbers but we left feeling pretty happy with the experience.

On the way to the Greyhound office we saw a pretty cool bank crest. It's below.

I have never seen a crest with a kangaroo. It's nicely done don't you think?

Then we walked a few more blocks to the Tessuti fabric store. Many of the ladies in my sewing club love the patterns that the store produces. Although they are expensive the patterns allow a tailored finished product that look good on most bodies. The store also has one of the best selection of linen fabrics anywhere.... I just wandered around the store and looked at the fabrics.... not quite drooling but I touched almost all of the fabrics to feel the quality. I bought 3 patterns and now I need to decide if I want to buy fabric in Melbourne (yes - there is even a better store in Melbourne according to my sources) or risk buying the fabric in Canada. Fabricland just doesn't have the same type of quality.

The other excellent service the store offered is that they had all of their patterns made up into clothes. They even allowed you to try on the clothes to see if the style looked good on you. Sewing clothing from a pattern can be a bit of a risk if you don't have a good idea of design and fit so trying on the finished clothing was a real bonus.

On the way to the store I forgot that the traffic drives on the left hand side of the road. We were walking on a sidewalk on the left hand side of the road and a large double decker bus went by on my right in it's tiny bus lane, which meant it was quite close to me. The hair on my head and my clothes all were blown as the bus rushed by. It was about 12 to 18" from me... I won't tell you what I said but I was quite startled. We were a lot more mindful of the traffic after that!

Friday is out last day in Sydney. Saturday Steve heads to Melbourne and I fly to Port Lincoln for my Grey White Shark experience.

Cheers,

Ann