it's a bit last minute but: cash; it suddenly occured to me that it might be useful. who would have thought that there'd be bundles and bundles of kinas on hand in adelaide? (lucky for me.)
*

…a part of her said, things happen everywhere, and after all…there’s only the world. Travel ends and routine begins and old habits which you thought you had left behind in one country catch up with you in the next, and old problems resurface, but if you are lucky you carry as part of your baggage the means of solving those problems and accommodating those habits, and you take with you an open mind, and discretion, and common sense; if you have those with you, you can manage anywhere. I make large claims for myself, she thought…(Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, Hilary Mantel)

And she does - make large claims. But who wouldn't? It seems so reasonable. What she isn't counting on are the differences between countries and cultures, and their affects. That is: she doesn't count on an environment where she cannot use her reason to 'manage'; an environment which doesn't run on her reason. The book is excellent; the clarity of its descriptions of increasing ambiguity make it unnerving. a bit like the feel of 'The Yellow Wallpaper', but where the latter offers a neat end, this one refuses reconciliation.

*
bean. i will miss the early morning coffees, but it's not those beans i mean; it's you who will be missed keenly. i try not to think about it.