G'Day, Mate

Soooo...we're in Australia. 

Jaron emailed me on 9/14 asking if I'd be interested in being a +1 if he got a biz trip to Australia. I said hellz yeah I would! We left on 10/11. It's been on again, off again due to federal budget, questions about a govt shutdown, and Jaron's official passport drama. I realized on Tuesday before we left on Friday that I needed a visa. Fortunately it was super easy to get one. But I seriously feel the least prepared ever for this trip. 

But we made it! 

Departed our house: 1 pm ET/1700 UTC Friday

Ubered 43 miles from our house to IAD airport

Flew 2,283 miles from IAD to LAX

Flew another 7,495 miles from LAX to Sydney

Crossed the international date line

Drove 148 miles from Sydney to Canberra (the Australian capitol)

Arrived at our hotel at 2pm Aus East/0300 UTC Sunday

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34 hours of travel

9,969 miles (Damn! So close.)

I mean, we circled around in the car a little bit and walked probably a mile around town, but that wouldn't get us to 10k. Oh well. I did walk over 10k steps on Friday. 

I don't remember which airport this happened at, but Julie was wearing her I can Deadlift you shirt (now that it's true again) and a guy came over and asked Jaron if I could really deadlift him. It was cute. A woman in line with us at passport control also showed me her guns (the kind you can have at the airport) so that was also fun. I think this shirt is a must for airport travel because of all of the supplements and protein powder I travel with. Oddly enough, neither of those things were an issue for TSA today. But my yogurt was. It's spreadable so it counts as food. I said I think it might fit in my 311 bag, but they said the quantity was too much. So after getting every one of like 6 or 8 snack bars swabbed in addition to my phone, kindle & ipad, I exited TSA to eat my yogurt and then came back thru the same line to say hi to my guard. He felt really bad, but I wasn't worried because we had plenty of time. All told it took me 1.5 hours to get to the terminal between check in, a little extra time to deal with Jaron's orders in lieu of a visa, waiting in line for TSA twice, and Dulles' infamous people movers. 

I got 7 shitty hours of sleep on the long flight and actually don't feel too bad. During my 2nd sleep I listened to a History of Australia for Dummies audiobook since my noise canceling headphones shut off without input and picked up some tidbits by osmosis. 

Also, we ate so much. Julie worked out Friday morning so had bkst and postworkout stuff, then Jaron made pancakes, and THEN Julie had to cram down yogurt and cottage cheese with smoked salmon that she had packed for the plane. We had dinner at 11pm ET at LAX and then got a full meal on the international flight. And then a sandwich, and then breakfast. And then lunch after we got on the road. (Spinach manoush for Julie, eggy pizza for Jaron)

And then dinner at 4pm. 

Pork skewers

Fried crispy rice with cured pork


Quail egg wontons. Just a quail egg in there, no spices. 


Green curry with chicken


And then gelato. 

...I have pictures of food I don't even remember eating. 

Jaron saw several roadkill kangaroos on our drive from Sydney, but I never could get my camera ready fast enough to get a picture. There were some cows chilling out in some water at one of our rest stops. And some black swans, which I guess are pretty common here. 

Here are some of the signs we are getting used to. 

Hopefully we'll sleep for 12 hours tonight and make it for our National Library tour at 11:00 tomorrow. If I wake up in the middle night, I could join biweekly parental zoom at 3am. Whatever. Time is meaningless.