on my way home

I'm on my way home now, writing this on the plane. Hopefully I can find some free Internet access in Sydney airport to upload it! I'm transiting via Sydney so that I could come home. Mark and I were "wait listed" on our flights back to Melbourne on Saturday. So we pestered the travel agent about it. As it turns out, the end of school holidays causes busy times for airlines (who would have thought?!). We couldn't get flights on Saturday, nor Sunday, nor Monday. Since we had finished our part of the project, we could leave early. So we tried for a flight on Friday - unsuccessfully. Finally the travel agent said there was one seat left for Thursday, otherwise we could transit via Sydney or Adelaide. Mark was the one on the phone, so he wisely took the one seat on the direct flight! And hence, I'm on my way to Sydney.

With the changes to airport safety regulations, this transit has unfortunately put a dent in my planned alcoholic purchases. Carry on liquids are now restricted to 100-millilitres, ruling 1-litre bottles right out! You can still buy duty-free alcohol, and take it on board so long as you have a direct flight, and don't transit anywhere. The theory being that the alcohol goes directly from the duty-free store to the plane. If you transit however, then you may have the opportunity to turn your lovely gin or whisky into a plastic explosive. Bah humbug.

I've got a plan though. I bought one bottle of "getting around the restrictions" experimental gin. When I arrive in Sydney, I have to collect my check-in luggage and clear customs. Once I have the check-in luggage, I add the aforementioned bottle of gin, and the check it back in for the domestic flight. This way it's not in my carry-on luggage any more, and therefore not subject to restriction. Should work, but then I'm not gambling more than one bottle on it!

The duty-free industry must be screaming about this. When I went to make $150 worth of purchases, they found out I was transiting in Australia. They had to put it all back on the shelves. There must be a better way...

Some people out there in blog-land might want to see what I travelled 7,700 kilometres for. The photo below shows the "GGSN", this is what I've been installing. Fairly nondescript really. Normally it wouldn't even have that big yellow light turned on! In fact, in its final configuration it will not have two of the cables shown up the top connected either. It will however, gain one more orange fibre optic cable.

This beige and blue box makes the Internet work on mobiles phones. I'm listening to Nick Cave at the moment, and to take a lyric I just heard completely out of context... "we are magicians".

Compare my box with the box that Mark had to install (below). Heaps more cables and flashing lights on his! Essentially does the same thing however: cooperates with my box to make the Internet work on mobile phones. It looks more impressive with the extra cables and lights though.

I've crossed back over the equator, and dinner is about to be served. Time to wrap up this post. I'll be home in around 12-hours. : )

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Postscript #1. I'm at Sydney now. Observations:

1. Internet access is free
2. etickets are awesome - offers earlier flights by default!
3. The airport itself is stupid!! Three totally separate terminals?!

Postscript #2. As it turns out the Singaporeans don't know the restrictions like they think they do. There aren't any restrictions for liquids on domestic flights - so it would have been okay to buy drinks anyway.