We have arrived, had a great dinner, slept soundly and are up early the morning of December 3. Helen adjusted perfectly. I have a ways to go. I was up early and went outside looking for Kangaroos and wallabies, but saw none.
Some details about the flight and Australian customs. We exited the plane and immediately encountered a group of drug sniffing dogs. Thank heaven they were in training and Helen had packed the 8 pounds of bacon in the luggage and not in her backpack.
After the dogs, we encountered a lane where we inserted our passport for identification, then we had to answer several display based questions about our visit to Australia, then a final question that asked were we telling the truth about the questions we just answered, e.g. had we just come from Africa and were we telling the truth? I guess that was an IQ test. Then, we had our picture taken by another monitor, called the yellow monitor and were allowed to pass. No one is immigrating, without permission, to Australia. Then we collected our bags, another brief stop and we were through. Kevin and Mia met us at the exit and in another 25 minutes we were at the Sherwood home. Impressive.
The plane ride was tolerable- 14 hours, 4 movies, 4 snacks, two dinners, 4 trips to the restroom, and endless readjusting my position in my seat.
One quick story. To be admitted to Australia, we had to complete several custom forms. One form required us to insert the address and phone number of where we were staying in Australia. When I was completing the form, I did not have Kevin's address handy so I left it blank. Here is the dialogue as we passed through the custom's agent.
"You did not fill out where you are staying."
"We are staying with our son in Australia." We replied.
"Where does he live?"
"I do not know." We replied.
"How long has he been been in Australia?"
"A year." We replied
"And you do not know his address?"
"mumble mumble." We replied.
"Next time take more time and fill the form out properly."
The end.
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