The Australian girl on the bus is college-age, say 20. She spent the winter here. Now she's escorting her grandmother, and aunt, I think, from the airport. She tells them something about her life, and then laughs, to show how much she loves it. The grandmother has a mischevious smile and her hair is dyed blonde, as she says. They sound Austrian, or German, the older women do.

The girl wants to know if they want to do tourist stuff: see the castle, hike up Arthur's Seat. She's been saving herself, she says, until they come. The grandmother wants to do it all, she is courageous, wants adventure, like the best twenty-year-olds. The grandmother is very curious, wants to know about all the people she's met, wants to know where she's traveled, which country was the nicest, wants to extract a good story from the younger girl with her puckish smile.

She, the girl, worked in a diner until recently; she quit a couple weeks back and now works two hours a day at her hostel, to pay the bill. Loads of Australians at her hostel, she says—they always go out to pubs together, or hang out on the patio, or have barbecues. Two of the guys are chefs and so they all get good meals cheap.

She quit working just to take it easy, she says. Next winter she wants to spend in the Alps, working there, for something different. She quit working at the diner, but her best friend in town, a guy, works there now so she goes back. "Your boyfriend?" asks the grandmother in her Austrian accent. "No, just a a friend," the girl says, and laughs loudly.