Made it to my hotel in Brisbane.
Interesting experience for me, I get anxious about the travel. I don’t mind the act of the traveling so much, it is the “where do I go next,” under a time limit that stresses me out, and whether there will be delays, and THEN what do I do…
None of that happened. My flight across the Atlantic took an hour longer than expected, but had 3 hour layovers so no issues.
I did manage to get the attention of security in various airports though. I read all up on what to do in the US when you get to the TSA checkpoint. Easy enough… and then I failed.
I left my keys in my pocket which the security guy helpfully pointed out to me. He said, “At least we know our equipment works.” Then my bag… (same checkpoint). I forgot to remove my kindle. I love how they don’t just come out and say we found your smuggled goods. Goes more like, “Did you not tell us about some electronic equipment bigger than a phone?” Clearly I did not! All settled, wait nope! They put my bag back through and found something else odd. That got me a nice thorough bag search. Last one wasn’t my fault! It was a neck pillow that was rolled up and tied small (like it said to do on the packaging).
Getting off the plane from LA to Auckland… I took my water bottle and stuffed it in my backpack. Turns out in Auckland, even when transferring, you end up going through security. They found my water, and took it. He was nice though. Way less stringent in Auckland too. Left my shoes on, didn’t take my belt off, didn’t take laptop out of case. Their line was also noticeably faster.
Nobody picked on me in Brisbane. I almost felt let down; breaking the security rules was kind of turning into a tradition.
Aging Skater 