Transferred from my old blog: Home from my trip to Sydney

April 19, 2004

Yay I'm home again. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it home at some points in the journey. Bryan and Carolyn were also wondering if I would ever arrive. It turns out that at the moment nobody is travelling to Australia from North America, but hundreds of people are going from Australia to North America. On the journey to Sydney, I had three seat, three blankets and three pillows to myself, which quickly became a semi-comfortable bed. It was a great journey, with loads of sleep. It also helped that the journey was overnight. Queues for customs and immigration were really short, and my baggage appeared straight away. I was in the car on the way to my parents place only 20 minutes after my plane landed.
Coming home wasn entirely different matter. The line ups for check-in and security had been huge in Sydney (there are not one, but two security checks for anyone travelling to North America). I know now why they tell you to arrive at the airport 2-3 hours before your flight - it takes 2 hours and 45 minutes to actually get to the plane. Luckily our flight was delayed, because otherwise they would have been waiting quite a while for most of the passengers to arrive through security. The plane from Sydney to LA was jam-packed. Despite booking an aisle seat I found myself stuck in the middle of the row of 4 seats in the middle of the plane. And the woman next to me not only didn't speak english, but also had an unnaturally strong bladder. Thus I had to resort to jumping over her to get to the loo. And because it was a daytime flight, I didn't get much sleep. I managed to watch a few movies, and played tetris for a while. Finally I got so bored that I made myself swallow some temazepam and Gravol, and woke up 4 hours later. Sleeping is such a great way to pass a long flight. I was woken up though by some pretty major turbulence. It was probably nothing for a seasoned traveller to concern themselves with, but I can get a bit nervous when I'm 4 km above sea level. Anyway, my knuckles were white as they gripped the armrests. I was trying to watch a movie to take my mind off it. But they kept flashing a sign on the TV screens in big yellow print "All passengers and crew return to seats. There will be no cabin service while the seatbelt sign is illuminated". Its hard to relax with that interrupting the movie at 30 second intervals. Anyway we landed safely, 12 hours and 35 minutes later.
In LA, we had to go through immigration (a huge queue), pick up our baggage, which thankfully was waiting for me because I had been so long in the immigration queue. Then we had to take our baggage through a customs check (regardless of the fact my baggage was going straight on to Canada). Then we had to re-check our baggage. Then we had to stand in a huge queue for more security checks. The metal detectors are extra-sensitive at LAX, and while I had not set off any metal detectors in Sydney, I managed to create quite a fuss at LAX. Having set off the walk-through metal detectors twice, I was led off for a hand held metal detector check. They seemed okay that my earrings, watch, bracelet, ring and belt buckle had set off the machine. But they were very concerned when the metal detector picked up something on my upper left arm. "What's beeping on your arm?" The security woman yelled at me. I had a bandage on my arm which was secured with an elastic and metal grip. I was waiting for her to make me remove the bandage (which wouldn't have been pretty), but they didn't. Instead they swabbed my bandage for traces of drugs and explosive materials. There were no traces of banned substances on my bandage. I shouldn't laugh about it though - clearly someone has tried to conceal nasty things under a bandage before.
I waited nearly 3 hours for my plane from LA to Vancouver. I was really tired by now, and there were only about 20 seats available at the gate for about 100 passengers. I cheered myself up with a US $6 frozen white chocolate mocha slurpee.
Finally we were on our way to Vancouver. I was ready for my breakfast by now, but all I got were two diet cokes and three packets of peanuts. We were served a pretty yummy sandwhich on the same flight two weeks earlier, so I was surprised to find out that peanuts were to make up my breakfast. My tummy growls let them know in no uncertain terms that I was unamused with eating peanuts for breakfast.
We finally landed in Vancouver at 1:20 pm. The line for immigration was huge. I got to the front of it at about 2 pm. I found my baggage straight away thanks to all the time in the immigration queue. But then, I had to go and join another queue to get my work permit renewed. There were only about 12 people in the queue, but only 2 immigration officers serving customers. And at about 15-20 minutes per customer, I was waiting for a heck of a long time. While I was waiting to be served I listened in on a conversation between the guyt who jumped the queue in fron of me and one of the officials. He was applying for a visa, but had been given a deportation notice due to overstaying a previous visa and a conviction of smuggling. I couldn't quite hear what he had been smuggling, but it sounded bad. The man ended up being led away by 3 official looking people. But I stopped caring, because that meant it was almost my turn to be served. Finally at 2:55 pm I was served. My immigration officer disappeared straight away with my letter requesting a post-doc work permit. After 10 minutes I wondered if she would ever come back. Finally she came back and asked me in a tone of voice that sounded like she was trying to trick me into something "Have you got your PhD?". She seemed shocked when I said yes, probably because I look young, and I was looking particularly dishevelled after all that time travelling. Then she said she wanted proof that I had my Ph.D. Who normally carries their degrees around with them? Luckily I had graduated only 3 days earlier, and I had a copy of my academic transcripts in my hand luggage. So I got my work permit which is valid until August 2005. I'm happy now, because it means I won't be deported at the end of my current job.
Finally at 3:10 pm, almost 2 hours after my plane landed I walked out of the airport to see Bryan and Carolyn waiting for me with a big smily face helium balloon. They must have been beginning to think that I'd missed the plane by then, but I'm so glad they stuck around to drive me home. It was SO GOOD to be home.