Canberra
I’m writing this on the plane, which is kinda cool. The movie they are playing is so silly I can’t stand it any longer…The Perfect Guy starring Hilary Duff. My goodness…crazy cheesy.
On the 22nd, I left for Canberra, Australia via Sydney, for bilaterals with MAF’s counterparts in Australia – Biosecurity Australia. I traveled with quite the crew…nine of us in all. Much more than a normal delegation but there are many new people and it was deemed a good idea to meet our counterparts.
Our flight to Sydney was uneventful, but when we arrived at the airport we had an interesting incident. We had gone for tea at a Thai restaurant, which incidentally had excellent Pad Thai, when a guy walked by screaming obscenities and complaining to all that he was no terrorist and that “they” were the terrorists. ‘Yikes’ I thought ‘I hope he doesn’t end up on my flight’. Our flight was delayed by 45 minutes so I had lots of time to anticipate. We arrived at the gates and there was our friend arguing with the flight staff about something rather. I assumed at that point he would be told to go home and sleep it off….but no…he went through the gate…arguing again with the ticket person. As I handed my ticket to the lady, I could hear over the walkie talkie that he was disrupting the passengers of the bus that was to take us to the plane. Great! We got on the plane and there he was…yelling to everyone on the plane…and then he started picking a fight with a fellow passenger, who, against what I would have thought was better judgment, decided to argue back and it looked to me like he was going to get out of his seat to begin a fist fight on the plane. The stewardess said that they needed someone to complain, which everyone did vehemently, for them to be able to kick him off the plane, which finally they did. What a horrible system…they must have their own rules for not permitting someone to fly other than requiring a passenger complaint, especially in this age of air security. And…why wait until he was already on the plane and thereby putting the passengers in danger. Needless to say everyone was quite relieved to see him leave.
We arrived in Canberra 10pm local time, midnight NZ time, and we went for a quick drink in the lobby of the hotel and went to bed. I woke up feeling a little groggy but otherwise pretty good. I ate a nice breakie and walked over to the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries building for the meeting. What a huge complex…easy to get lost. The meeting started at 9am and I was only peripherally involved in that mornings discussions. At 10, I started to feel cold so I put my jacket on, then I got extremely hot so I took my jacket off. This was followed shortly by another cold and then hot. I could not pay attention and was getting dizzy. I went through hot and cold flashes for the next hour figuring it might pass. At lunch I had to excuse myself and returned to the hotel.
I napped all afternoon and felt a bit better by the evening so I walked over to the restaurant where we were to dine. The venue was a pub restaurant where you cook your own thick beef steaks on the grill and we got stamps on our wrists so we could drink all night…basically, heaven on earth for me. I drank a glass of ice water, again felt ill, and left without a beer or a side of beef. :( This time I added sore muscles to the list of symptom and thought “Oh no…here comes the flu”. I went to bed at half eight (8:30 NZ speak). Oh yeah, and that was my birthday too…not the most amazing birthday party.
I woke feeling better though not up to full speed. I had no appetite and when I did eat my taste buds were off. Weird!?! I made it through my bilateral items that day and no further chills. We made plans for side meetings Friday morning before our flight home.
I woke up feeling much refreshed, even getting up early to prepare for the mornings discussions. We had breakfast and I had an appetite again and could taste my meal. I felt good again. However, partway through the first meeting of the day I again began to get warm. I was hoping that the room was just hot but no one else seemed to be sweating like me. When I started to feel nauseous, I excused myself and washed my face in the bathroom (I was about to write toilet, which is what they call the washroom in NZ, but it might not read right :) ). Between meetings I left to get air, which is quite the event in a security conscious building…I had to get escorted out and, when the nausea finally passed, I had to be escorted back in. I returned and finished the next two meetings with no trouble. No idea what caused this illness…I even started to think perhaps a bit psychosomatic….perhaps I tired my body out and this is how it dealt with it.
After the meetings we took a walk around Canberra. What an interesting city…well not actually interesting…more weird and governmenty. From what I saw, the downtown is all government buildings…no shops, few restaurants…just sprawling government complexes. It was built to be the capital, like Brasilia, though much newer looking and less soviet-era architecture. The flies were amazingly annoying and seemed particularly interested in exploring our foreign eyes and noses. There were plenty of birds, including black and white ones, pink ones, and big black crows. As you can tell I’m no ornithologist but I did appreciate the diversity of birds there.
We visited the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which is set up in front of Parliament. It was set up as a protest and, as far as I understand, has been there for over twenty years. Quite the protest.
We visited the Old Parliament, which contained an amazingly interesting portrait gallery. Each portrait was accompanied by a story about the subject of the painting. Sometimes the portrait was interesting and sometimes the story was interesting. One particularly interesting story was about a Aboriginal painter, who was granted citizenship in 1957. An Australian Aborigine a citizen in Australia…one would have thought that would be a given, but not 50 years ago. The story went on to say that this painter, as a citizen, was now allowed to buy alcohol, which in line with his culture he shared with members of his tribe. This sharing caused the painter to be jailed. He never recovered from the conditions of the jail and died in 1959. What an awful story and the fact that it was only 50 years ago makes it more so.
We made it quickly to the airport to make the flight out. At the airport I got a chance to see the bomb squad at work. Someone had left a bag in the café and the bomb squad was called in to get rid of it. They scanned its contents with a portable x-ray machine and didn’t think it was too dangerous so they opened it. Turns out it was some Christmas gifts.
The whole schedule of flights home felt quite tight and due to the time change we didn’t arrive until just before midnight. I had a chance to start the blog and finish the book I had been reading – In Praise of Slow. It is a book written by a journalist so it has that kinda journalistic feel to it, which I don’t particularly enjoy, but the concept was interesting. Slowing everything down to get the most out it, especially in this speed obsessed culture.
My luck did not change for the last leg of the trip. We waited by the baggage claim for half-an-hour before finding out that all the checked luggage was still in Sydney. I am getting used to waiting for my stuff (still two weeks to go for our container) but it is difficult because I have so little clothing here. It is supposed to arrive today, direct to my door, but we’ll see.
So on the whole a very lucky trip. A crazy man could have taken control of the plane and brought it crashing into the ocean but instead he was removed from the plane. I could have had Ebola and started to bleed from all orifices but instead I had a relatively mild illness with funny symptoms. I could have lost my bags in the Tasman Sea but instead they’ll be arriving in the next few days. Man do I feel lucky! :)
On the 22nd, I left for Canberra, Australia via Sydney, for bilaterals with MAF’s counterparts in Australia – Biosecurity Australia. I traveled with quite the crew…nine of us in all. Much more than a normal delegation but there are many new people and it was deemed a good idea to meet our counterparts.
Our flight to Sydney was uneventful, but when we arrived at the airport we had an interesting incident. We had gone for tea at a Thai restaurant, which incidentally had excellent Pad Thai, when a guy walked by screaming obscenities and complaining to all that he was no terrorist and that “they” were the terrorists. ‘Yikes’ I thought ‘I hope he doesn’t end up on my flight’. Our flight was delayed by 45 minutes so I had lots of time to anticipate. We arrived at the gates and there was our friend arguing with the flight staff about something rather. I assumed at that point he would be told to go home and sleep it off….but no…he went through the gate…arguing again with the ticket person. As I handed my ticket to the lady, I could hear over the walkie talkie that he was disrupting the passengers of the bus that was to take us to the plane. Great! We got on the plane and there he was…yelling to everyone on the plane…and then he started picking a fight with a fellow passenger, who, against what I would have thought was better judgment, decided to argue back and it looked to me like he was going to get out of his seat to begin a fist fight on the plane. The stewardess said that they needed someone to complain, which everyone did vehemently, for them to be able to kick him off the plane, which finally they did. What a horrible system…they must have their own rules for not permitting someone to fly other than requiring a passenger complaint, especially in this age of air security. And…why wait until he was already on the plane and thereby putting the passengers in danger. Needless to say everyone was quite relieved to see him leave.
We arrived in Canberra 10pm local time, midnight NZ time, and we went for a quick drink in the lobby of the hotel and went to bed. I woke up feeling a little groggy but otherwise pretty good. I ate a nice breakie and walked over to the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries building for the meeting. What a huge complex…easy to get lost. The meeting started at 9am and I was only peripherally involved in that mornings discussions. At 10, I started to feel cold so I put my jacket on, then I got extremely hot so I took my jacket off. This was followed shortly by another cold and then hot. I could not pay attention and was getting dizzy. I went through hot and cold flashes for the next hour figuring it might pass. At lunch I had to excuse myself and returned to the hotel.
I napped all afternoon and felt a bit better by the evening so I walked over to the restaurant where we were to dine. The venue was a pub restaurant where you cook your own thick beef steaks on the grill and we got stamps on our wrists so we could drink all night…basically, heaven on earth for me. I drank a glass of ice water, again felt ill, and left without a beer or a side of beef. :( This time I added sore muscles to the list of symptom and thought “Oh no…here comes the flu”. I went to bed at half eight (8:30 NZ speak). Oh yeah, and that was my birthday too…not the most amazing birthday party.
I woke feeling better though not up to full speed. I had no appetite and when I did eat my taste buds were off. Weird!?! I made it through my bilateral items that day and no further chills. We made plans for side meetings Friday morning before our flight home.
I woke up feeling much refreshed, even getting up early to prepare for the mornings discussions. We had breakfast and I had an appetite again and could taste my meal. I felt good again. However, partway through the first meeting of the day I again began to get warm. I was hoping that the room was just hot but no one else seemed to be sweating like me. When I started to feel nauseous, I excused myself and washed my face in the bathroom (I was about to write toilet, which is what they call the washroom in NZ, but it might not read right :) ). Between meetings I left to get air, which is quite the event in a security conscious building…I had to get escorted out and, when the nausea finally passed, I had to be escorted back in. I returned and finished the next two meetings with no trouble. No idea what caused this illness…I even started to think perhaps a bit psychosomatic….perhaps I tired my body out and this is how it dealt with it.
After the meetings we took a walk around Canberra. What an interesting city…well not actually interesting…more weird and governmenty. From what I saw, the downtown is all government buildings…no shops, few restaurants…just sprawling government complexes. It was built to be the capital, like Brasilia, though much newer looking and less soviet-era architecture. The flies were amazingly annoying and seemed particularly interested in exploring our foreign eyes and noses. There were plenty of birds, including black and white ones, pink ones, and big black crows. As you can tell I’m no ornithologist but I did appreciate the diversity of birds there.
We visited the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which is set up in front of Parliament. It was set up as a protest and, as far as I understand, has been there for over twenty years. Quite the protest.
We visited the Old Parliament, which contained an amazingly interesting portrait gallery. Each portrait was accompanied by a story about the subject of the painting. Sometimes the portrait was interesting and sometimes the story was interesting. One particularly interesting story was about a Aboriginal painter, who was granted citizenship in 1957. An Australian Aborigine a citizen in Australia…one would have thought that would be a given, but not 50 years ago. The story went on to say that this painter, as a citizen, was now allowed to buy alcohol, which in line with his culture he shared with members of his tribe. This sharing caused the painter to be jailed. He never recovered from the conditions of the jail and died in 1959. What an awful story and the fact that it was only 50 years ago makes it more so.
We made it quickly to the airport to make the flight out. At the airport I got a chance to see the bomb squad at work. Someone had left a bag in the café and the bomb squad was called in to get rid of it. They scanned its contents with a portable x-ray machine and didn’t think it was too dangerous so they opened it. Turns out it was some Christmas gifts.
The whole schedule of flights home felt quite tight and due to the time change we didn’t arrive until just before midnight. I had a chance to start the blog and finish the book I had been reading – In Praise of Slow. It is a book written by a journalist so it has that kinda journalistic feel to it, which I don’t particularly enjoy, but the concept was interesting. Slowing everything down to get the most out it, especially in this speed obsessed culture.
My luck did not change for the last leg of the trip. We waited by the baggage claim for half-an-hour before finding out that all the checked luggage was still in Sydney. I am getting used to waiting for my stuff (still two weeks to go for our container) but it is difficult because I have so little clothing here. It is supposed to arrive today, direct to my door, but we’ll see.
So on the whole a very lucky trip. A crazy man could have taken control of the plane and brought it crashing into the ocean but instead he was removed from the plane. I could have had Ebola and started to bleed from all orifices but instead I had a relatively mild illness with funny symptoms. I could have lost my bags in the Tasman Sea but instead they’ll be arriving in the next few days. Man do I feel lucky! :)
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