On the ground

I finally arrived in Australia. A delayed flight caused me to miss my connection, but I wasn't alone. There were half a dozen other passengers in the same boat, and we bonded while waiting for hours in the customer service line to get hotel rooms for the night. The following day was better than expected, got to see some family and rest before heading back to the airport. All 6 of us who were stranded ended up being seated in two rows on the same side of the plane, so we got to compare notes about our experiences and how the day had been. These people were random strangers, but we had some really good conversations and realized we had a lot in common.

I've been talking to a lot of people lately. Normally I interact a lot with a few people, but this was a lot of shorter exchanges. Part of me thinks that when people are traveling they're more likely to initiate / accept conversation with someone they don't know. But there is something else going on here. When I was in Argentina, people were nice to me after they got to know me. But it was rare for random people to offer to help before they knew who I was. It only happened once or twice as far as i know.

Australians are some of the nicest people I have ever met. I know it's a broad generalization, but I had people I barely knew volunteering to give me Australian dollars in case there was a fee for a shuttle and I hadn't had a chance to exchange money yet. Someone else explained tipping to me on the spur of the moment. I learned about how speech pathology services are provided by the state government and how the PD for teachers is different from that for speech pathologists. Upon hearing about my fellowship, a couple on a shuttle bus explained the idea of the OP exams (which have apparently been phased out). I've been blown away by how kind people are and I have only met one person who agreed to help me beforehand- all of these other interactions were random. I could get used to this!