Story Index:

Eclipse!!
08/29/2017

Summer Weekend in the Colorado Rockies
07/19/2016

Kim's Day In The Sun
02/28/2015

Tracing Roots
01/15/2015

Whitney Completes Her Master's Degree
01/10/2015

Day Trip to Moorea
11/01/2012

Stopover in Tahiti
10/30/2012

Exploring New Zealand's Northland
10/27/2012

Waiheke Island
10/24/2012

2012 Triathlon World Championships
10/23/2012

Travails with Tom-Tom
10/21/2012

Off to New Zealand!
10/18/2012

Cycling on the Oregon Coast
07/24/2012

Partial Solar Eclipse, May 20
05/23/2012

"Tour of California" Bike Race comes through town!
05/15/2012

Wildflower Triathlon a family affair
05/07/2012

Truth in Packaging?
04/01/2012

Nik Graduates from Cal Poly
12/10/2011

Cal Poly's Open House Weekend
04/17/2011

The 2010 US Census is here
03/16/2010

Cultural Musings...
09/18/2009

2009 Triathlon World Championships
09/12/2009

Sightseeing around the Gold Coast
09/09/2009

South Bank: Brisbane's Fine Arts center
09/05/2009

Brisbane, Australia
09/04/2009

Catching up . . .
08/31/2009

Summa Cum Laude, Baby!
06/15/2008

Kim completes her first Half-Ironman
06/10/2008

Kim Visits Home for Wildflower Triathlon
05/16/2008

The Last Supper
02/16/2008

Farewell, Dad
01/15/2008

Whitney Plays Final Soccer Game
12/10/2007

Watch the Women's World Cup!
09/12/2007

Kim Blazes Chicago Triathlon
08/27/2007

Nik Bicycles Pacific Coast
08/15/2007

Whitney Begins Final Season
08/13/2007

More Triathlons for Kim
06/15/2006

Corvallis gets snow!
03/09/2006

Pac-10 Conference Player of the Week
01/15/2006

Whitney's new cat
09/26/2005

Kim in Chicago Triathlon
08/31/2005

Rare family get-together
08/23/2005

Empty Nest
08/11/2005

Whitney Signs National Letter-of-Intent
02/08/2004

ODP cancels European tour
04/11/2003

Whitney renamed to Regional Team
08/07/2002

Kim graduates from Willamette
06/17/2002

Whitney Stars in High School Soccer
03/07/2002

Nik graduates from UTI
01/07/2002

2001 - A Year for Remembrance
12/30/2001

Whitney selected to the 2001 State ODP pool for U-15 Girls
03/22/2001

Kim returns from Europe
02/02/2001

2000: A Year for Traveling
12/15/2000

Kim Travels Europe
11/24/2000

Whitney selected to the US Far Western Regional ODP Pool!
07/14/2000

Congratulations to Nik, Ygnacio Valley High Graduating Class of 2000!
06/30/2000
Brisbane, Australia

Lucy and I arrive in Brisbane via an overnight flight. SFO to LAX, change planes, then LAX to BNE (Brisbane). Got some sleep, so the 13 hour flight seemed uneventful and not as grueling as I expected. Because of the date line/time zone changes, we left California Wednesday night and arrive in Australia Friday morning.

Judging by the flight crews making their way through Security, our Qantas Boeing 747 seems to have arrived about the same time as a couple other jumbo-jets from Singapore and Emirates Airlines. Must be 1500 passengers descending on the Customs checkpoint at the same time. It takes two hours getting through Customs--it was a humungous line (er.. "queue"), but at least it kept moving.

I spotted several racers arriving. (There were a couple dozen on our own flight.) Hmm... Customs personnel seem to be singling them out and opening bike boxes and wheel bags and inspecting them. Jerks. Are elite athletes really that suspicious looking?

Oh, wait a minute... the bicycle luggage isn't going through the x-ray machines. Officials are inspecting them by hand because they're too big to fit through the machines.

The Australian Customs officials actually seem to be making an effort to keep things moving along as efficiently as they can. At the front of the line, they're pleasant and courteous.

So, okay, not jerks. Shouldn't be too quick to jump to conclusions based on domestic US security checkpoints, where the attitude often seems to be, "Yeh, don't like all our silly little rules? Deal with it. You'll get through here when I'm good and ready."

Afterward I notice no lines at all, so I guess it was just the crush of three jumbo-jets arriving at the same time that backed things up.


(Correction: After picking up Kim later, she explained that the Customs inspectors were visually inspecting everybody's wheels to make sure they were clean. Apparantly, they don't want you bringing in any dirt into the country.)


Art sculpture on a Brisbane sidewalk. (That silver structure in the middle is a drinking fountain.)



Posted by Dan 09/04/2009, revised 09/23/2009 by Dan
FreeStyle Journal 19.03.21
©2003-2011 by Dan Goodell

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