Well, I made it to Australia safely. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it is still nice to know I have two weeks before I have to get back onto the plane.

I left Raleigh about 5pm on Thursday the 10th. I was unable to get a decent seat on the Qantas flight in LA from the American agent (the flight was booked solid), but she told me to check with the agent at that gate, so I started working up my best story to see about getting a better seat.

The flight to Dallas was uneventful. American now has power at most seats on domestic flights, and I was eager to try out my power supply. It worked just fine, but you had to make sure it was solidly connected.

Dallas to LA was also pretty smooth, and I had time to watch a movie. We had received “The Exorcist” from the OpenNMS wishlist, and Andrea wasn’t too eager to see it at home, so I watched it on the plane. It’s a wonderfully directed movie, but it didn’t scare me nearly as much as it did the first time I saw it. Even the famous “spider walk” scene was a little bit of a disappointment.

I used to think Kennedy was the worst airport to travel through, but LAX may take the prize. Once you arrive domestically, you have to exit the building to get to the “Tom Bradley International Terminal”. I went to the huge Duty Free shop to get a bottle of Scotch for my host in Australia, and since all I had had to eat since lunch was two packs of pretzels, I stopped by McDonalds.

This was a mistake, as something had caused them to shut down both security screening stations and the lines were huge. The terminal is shaped like a “T”. You enter through the bottom and you have to work your way to a checkpoint at either side of the top of the “T”. The lines were so long that they crossed each other, and the TSA staff was not doing a very good job at directing traffic.

I finally made it to the gate and told my sob story to the gate attendant. Although I would have considered an upgrade in class to be a “win”, everything was booked. I did get a seat on an exit row, however, between a gentleman named “Emelio”, originally from Italy, and an Aussie named Chris.

Emelio was funny. He was an olive oil exporter who was in Australia to ink a deal on some sort of protein bar. I didn’t quite understand it. We both like food, however, so we had a lot to talk about.

Chris was a venture capitalist in the biotech market. Also a delightful person, and it made the 15 hour flight much more bearable.

We were seated right next to the galley (I was in seat 58B – go to
Seat Guru and click on the Qantas tab if you want to check it out) and thus we got to spend some time talking with the Sydney-based flight crew. As Emelio and I were talking about food, the topic turned to “Aussie” food. Of course, Vegemite came up. This is a dark brown paste that is a residual product of the beer making process. Apparently, if you haven’t had it by age 7, you won’t ever like it.

I was eager to try it, even though experimenting with food on a long flight is not always the best idea. One of the flight attendants brought me some and I had it on a roll with butter. Not bad, actually. Very salty – it tasted somewhat like anchovy paste.

After several movies (including “Spartan” with Val Kilmer, which wasn’t bad, and “50 First Dates” with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, which was better than expected) we landed in Melbourne. It was about 8am Saturday morning.

Immigration went smoothly, but the baggage claim situation was a bit FUBAR. They had spread our luggage across two belts, and I could only find one of my cases. Luckily, I had the large one with all of my clothes, but my shoes, jacket and GSM cell phone were in the other. When all the belts stopped I realized that the second bag was probably not in Australia.

A quick chat with the Qantas agent started the trace, and I was given a little slip of paper with a number to call to inquire about my bag. So it was now off to find Euan – my host here.

Couldn’t find him, in part because I had no idea what he looked like. I had sent him a picture of me, so there was some hope. I used the time to get some Aussie currency from the ATM (probably the most beautiful money made) and I decided to rent a cell phone, in part to call Euan. It was fairly inexpensive (less than US$4 a day) and once activated I found Euan in about 30 seconds.

We hopped into his Toyota Corolla and headed for the city. It’s very pretty, although the weather was cloudy and cool. The hotel I am staying at is on the Yarra river, and as Euan had to get the car back to his fiance (she was wedding dress shopping that day) he dropped me off at the hotel with plans to meet later that night for a “footy” game (Australian Rules Football).

In keep with the lost bag and cell phone, the first room I was given was, well, under repair. There was a wet/dry vacuum in it, as well as one of those fans you use to dry damp carpet. Plus, the drapes were on a pile by the window. 15 minutes later I was in another room, and I was finally able to get some sleep.

The alarm went off at 4:30, and it was the hardest thing to do to get out of bed. I knew I needed to get up in order to start the transition to Aussie time, so I took a long shower and headed downstairs to meet Euan.

I found him surrounded by a large number of athletic women, apparently all basketball (“net ball”) players. He claimed that he sat down first, but I’m not sure that’s entirely true (grin).

We left the hotel and headed for the walkway by the Yarra, which was lined with a number of restaurants. We went to a Thai place called Jasmine and waited for Suzie, his fiance, to show up. We ate a nice meal and headed up the street to the Telstra Dome, along with 50,000 of our closest friends.

Australian rules football, or “footy” is a great game to watch. It is played on a large, oval field, shaped somewhat like the football used in the game (very similar to an American football). At each end are four poles – two tall poles in the center about five meters apart, and then two smaller poles 5 meters on either side of those.

The object is to kick the ball through the two tall poles in the center. This scores a goal and is worth 6 points. Should the ball go between a tall poll and one of the smaller ones, or should it hit any pole, it is called a “behind” and is only worth one point.

There are 18 players on each side, seven referees, and numerous other people such as “runners” who may be on the field at any time (the runners bring messages from the coaches to the players, and other people may bring water, towels, etc.). It’s quite a lot to keep up with.

The game is started by bouncing the ball in the middle of the field, or “pitch”. Anyone who catches the ball can be tackled, so the object it to run, pass or kick the ball away.

If you run, every ten meters you must bounce the ball on the ground. This is more difficult than it sounds, as the ball is not round.

If you pass it, you need to “punch” the ball away, like in volleyball.

Finally, the best thing to do is to kick the ball away. First, this is the only way to score, but second, if a kick is caught, it is called a “mark” and things change slightly.

Once a ball is marked, the player catching it cannot be tackled (for some arbitrary time, but on the order of ten to twenty seconds it seemed). This mean he can take some time to choose where to kick the ball.

Around each goal is a line marked at 50 meters. If the ball is marked within that line, it means that the player had a decent shot at kicking a goal. Usually, unless the angle is really off, the player will attempt a goal kick and will almost always score at least a behind.

There are a number of other nuances about the game, but I don’t pretend to know them all. The tackles can be rough, as there are no pads, and a couple of times during the game there are fight (like in hockey). Each game is reviewed mid-week by a tribunal, and fighting players are usually suspended for some number of weeks.

We were there to cheer for the Essendon Bombers. They were playing the Brisbane Lions, and while Brisbane is quite far away (similar to LA and NY), the team was originally from Melbourne and is the result of a merger. So there were a lot of Lions supporters in the crowd, although most of the field sported the black and red of Essendon.

Since I was cold, I decided to by a Essendon Bombers sweatshirt. During halftime
(footy consists of four periods, with small breaks between 1 and 2, and 3 and 4, and a longer break in the middle in which everyone goes to the bathroom, to buy beer, and apparently to the “official merchandise” store). This would prove somewhat unfortunate for the Bombers, because as soon as I became a fan they proceeded to lose by a considerable margin.

It was still a fun game, and I think I would like to see more Australian Rules Football.

Anyway, more updates to come later. I have added some pics to the gallery of the trip so far, if anyone is interested.