Trip commences ie Newcastle to Sydney

The scariest part of my journey I was imagining to be the car trip from Newcastle  to Sydney, finding the airport, finding the parking station, finding a park and checking in all by myself.  Did I mention carrying  the luggage. (What are men for? You get a few ideas when carrying luggage around a $&@?$& airport.)

These days when you do international travel you go though customs or something where they check out your passport. Some matchine thingy.  Anyway I watched the people in front but it was really hard to see how it worked. My turn........ I was told to take off my glasses. They were 20 of these machines in a row and they were all calling out instructions. I assumed it was mine telling me to take off my glasses. Then it showed me something on a screen which I could not see (without my $&@&$ glasses.) it looked like I needed to insert my passport into the machine so I did about 5 times but it kept coming out.  Finally the Asian lady behind me who did not speak English turned my passport the other way around and shoved it into the machine. Success.   I would like to think she helped me as a fellow traveller in need and because she was a nice human being.  I suspect however that she wanted to get through the checkin and to stop holding up the line. 

And once I was through, still no glasses on and could not hear what was going on, some airport worker motioned to me that I needed to go down a particular aisle and there I was confronted by border patrol.  He told me I could put my glasses back on...

Apparently I had not looked directly at the camera so my passport photo did not match me. I explained that I was doubly disabled by poor vision and hearing and that the whole experience was TORTURE.   He quickly let me though.

Are you one of those people who always get picked on to have the extra checks when going through the check in thing.  I am.  Always. Something to do with my look of ordinariness and nil threat.

So this time, after border patrol,  I got to do the booth thing where I stood with my hands over my head and had what I assume was a nude photo done. I almost asked for a copy.  Of course not..

And so it begins.. Just 2.5 hours before boarding.no photos at this stage as no one wants the only photo taken today.  Though I did take a photo of my park just in case I forget. Ha ha ha