You can always tell when you are back in Oz, even with the jet lag, as there's bound to be an advert for Vegemite on the tv. Or a trailer for a miracle cure/shonky tradesman/neighbours at war episode of Today Tonight. And so it was yesterday when I got back. The final flight was pretty uneventful as I slept the whole way from Singapore to Perth, which is a first, but meant that I missed my last delightful airline meal. Actually that's no loss. Even up the front of the 'plane the food is still pretty average, although allegedly cooked up by Gordon Ramsey.
The relief of finally arriving back in Perth after a two day journey was tempered somewhat by the joys of Perth "International" Airport. Firstly there is the queue for immigration control. But I'll give you a tip, if you go through the automatic facial recognition gate, but don't take off your specs, it doesn't work and you get to jump to the front of the regular queue! I knew there must be a use for the passports with RFID chips in them, apart from tracking my every move. After immigration it all went very downhill. Even though I got my bag in about 10 minutes the queue for Quarantine and Customs was beyond a joke. It wove back and forwards for about 100 metres moving very, very slowly. It is a complete farce. The signs everywhere from the Government tell me that "QUARANTINE IS IMPORTANT", but not important enough to pay for more than two scanners and three staff to man them apparently. If this is what people have to tolerate when they first get to Australia then it is a very poor first impression. It took me 40 minutes to get out of the arrival hall after getting my bag and I didn't even have to open my bags or get them scanned. Which is another tiny flaw with quarantine in my opinion, even though I declared the wooden replica of London in my luggage nobody wanted to look at it. Surely a system to stop items entering the country only works if it checks everyone in the same way. Not that would be a good idea in Perth, I'd probably still be there in the queue.
It was nice to get back though. Walking out of the airport at 7 am into 26º heat and sunshine was a tonic after all the snow and ice at home. What wasn't quite so good is the jet lag. I tried to stay up as long as possible yesterday, went for lunch by the beach, but at 3 pm I was totally exhausted and had to crash. Just a couple of hours did the trick and I managed to stay awake till 11pm. I have however now got a stinking, snotty head cold. I hardly ever get colds, now I've had two in two months. It's a bugger to say the least. I have taken to blaming the climate change and being trapped in an aluminium flying tube for 18 hours.
Anyhow I'm back, settled in and restocked with food. That's my next task; to shift the 5 kgs I've put on over Christmas. Wish me luck.
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