There's hope for Humanity yet...

I saw something lovely today. I arrived early at Southern Cross stn for once and so had no real need to race over the concourse to catch my connection, but was doing so out of habit, when the fire alarms went off... very loudly. I'm not actually sure they were fire alarms as I didn't see any fireies or any other EM units around and everyone ignored the sounds as far as I could tell... so, there was some very loud whooping sounds of unknown purpose echoing throughout the station deafening everyone.

In my no-need-to-hurry-hurry, I got stuck on the escalators behind a school kid by his bag - always annoying - but I decided not to push the issue so I just hopped from foot to foot behind him hoping he would notice I was there. There are literally hundreds of school kids on the route I take, wearing a variety of uniforms, with only one uniform characteristic that I can tell - they're all more formal than my school uniform ever was. Blazers and ties for the main part - toff schools in other words. I've made a bit of a game of the uniforms - I keep trying to guess where they're from. So far I only recognise Xavier, MLC and Kew Grammar on sight. I've not discovered who the olive and yellow nor the blue on blue uniforms belong to. And I'd love to know the boys' school that sports the very garish blue, green and yellow stripped jersey - it's so very colourful it's an eyesore!

Anyway, halfway down the escalator and I'm thinking of pushing past this particular school kid, and trying to work out what school he came from at the same time, when he decides to take a flying leap from dead stationary to a full out run down to the platform like his pants were on fire. Well, that vaguely caught my attention, so I watched him, and what do you know? The boy was rushing onto the platform to help a blind man, who looked awfully confused, whilst his dog was hunched up at his feet with an expression of pain clearly not liking the deafening whooping. Because of the noise the poor man couldn't hear the train announcements you see. The kid assured this guy that he hadn't missed his train and stayed by him until the right train came along - missing his own connection I believe as all the other uniforms like his got onto an earlier train - and then made sure the guy and his dog got on safely.

It made me feel very proud of the kid and very happy with humanity in general. Very nicely done!

Four methods of transportation in one day

I am working in Melbourne. I have a two month contract so I've got no idea what happens after, but I do have work. However, in order to do this comfortably, I'm living at Dad & Carols... which means I have a two-hour, one-way commute.

Yep, that's right, I'm spending 4 hours a day going to and from work.

It takes me ~10 mins to drive to the Vline train station, then it's a 40 min trip to Southern Cross stn, then I transfer to a Met train, which takes ~15min to get to Glenferrie stn, then I have a 15 min tram trip, and then a 15 min walk. With time for transfers in between each leg, excepting the walk, it makes for a mighty lot of time staring out the window.

Melbourne reminds me a lot of London though, so I'm feeling less disoriented than I'd thought. And Melbourne's transport systems is no where near as polluted so that is definitely a plus. Just think of spending four hours a day on the tube!! Fawrrr!

The down side is that when it rains here, you don't get damp, you get drenched, as happened to me last night. Mind you, walking through the rain doesn't bother me as much any more. I used to be almost phobic of getting wet when living in Adelaide, but since I was drizzled on so often in London, I have become inured.

Interestingly, there seem to be communities on the train. I catch the same VLine service every morning, so I'm slowly becoming more familiar with the habitual passengers. There are groups of students as you'd expect, but several groups of professionals for various offices meet on the platform and talk animatedly to each other all the way in, and also a gaggle of between ten and fifteen well-dressed Philippineo women also gather and chat. There are a couple of guys who take their bikes to the luggage section, and a lovely plump tranny and her friend who get on mid-route and sit next to me and who have the most amazing fingernails I've ever seen.

The passengers are all pretty friendly in the main too. Melton is on the edge of Melbourne, and I don't know if it's the relative near-by location to country areas or it's socio-economic composition, but I've had many people say hello to me - which is extremely weird coming as I recently have from London - but without the generally very annoying attempts at follow up conversation afterwards.

Strange, but kind of nice. Still. FOUR HOURS. I hope I get used to it quickly.