Around 5:30 on Sunday morning, we touched down in Brisbane after a fifteen and a half hour flight from Dallas. We passed through a completely useless security checkpoint (we were allowed to leave anything we wanted on the plane - I guess if the plane was checked in some fashion the security was useful). It was nice to be back on Australia soil and I felt a distinct spring in my step as I reboarded the plane an hour or so later.
Though we landed in Sydney a little late, immigration took a minute or so and collecting my bag and going through customs less than 10, and I was on the train platform at 9:10. Due to trackwork, I had to catch the train in to Central and the bus from there to Wollongong, where I had arranged to meet my parents. The journey was smooth, comfortable (especially after 21 hours on planes) and not too time-consuming.
Mum was waiting for me at the station and we went to the mall to find Dad and Tom, who had been shoe shopping. Tom now towers over me, and given my height that is a fair achievement (I have checked height charts, and my 186 cm puts me around 85% for my age, while Tom's 194 cm is something like 99%).
We then drove down to Kiama to meet Jacqui and Vik. We had arranged to join them for a wedding tasting, to help them decide which dishes to serve at their reception. I enjoyed salt and pepper calamari, which will probably be one of the entrees (in the Australian sense - what Americans would call an appetiser), and a lamb parcel, which was ok but not good enough to land on the list (they'll probably go for barramundi and steak). It was nice to spend time with family, eating good food.
We wandered a little and then headed to Berry to drop off a freezer for Jacqui. Naturally I was rather tired in the car on the way home (it was 3 am back in Cambridge), but I was able to keep my eyes open through dinner and get to bed around 8:30.
YAY! Welcome back, Matt. I am glad you survived the insecure (not-up-to-American-security-standards) flight... I just flew from Townsville to Rockhampton with a Swiss Card - a device fitted with scissors, tweezers, a very large pin, a pen, a very sharp letter opener, an LED light, and a screw driver - in my possession (by accident, of course!). I could have killed at least six people! In other news, Townsville is very nice this time of year... :) Have fun!
ReplyDeleteThe strange thing about this security checkpoint is that we alighted from the plane, where we were allowed to leave anything we wanted except for our boarding pass, and went straight through security, to get to the departure lounge. Not only were we going from secure area to secure area, we were allowed to leave things behind and rejoin them!
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