marc.vic.max.elliot

I got back from Sydney yesterday and on the way through customs had my first “excuse me sir can you step over here” moment!

It started of when the guy in immigration wrote an “M” on my card when they sent me towards customs.  Sad though it is I noticed that the “M” was not the norm as they usually write an “F” on it.  I have no idea what either of them mean by the way…

Anyway I get taken over to a table and get asked all sorts of questions on what I do, who I work for and where I’ve been.  After handing over a business card and an itinerary of the sales event that I had been to the customs offices disappears into a large mirrored room with my passport.  I wasn’t worried at all, I just found it interesting that in all the travelling I’d done that this was the first time I’d been picked out.

When the officer came back he explained that they had had a chat to me because of all the travel I had done over the last 18 months and that they did it to ensure that I was in the business that I said I was and travelling for the reasons I had documented.

It should be interesting to see what happens when I get back from Sydney (off again next week) and back from Prague (off the week after)

I’ll let you know 🙂

Here’s another shot I took while I was away.

I’m in the hunter valley just outside of Sydney , Australia at a work function at the moment and whenever I come to australia I wake up far too early.  This is the fruits of my 05:30 rise this morning……

Yet another Labour Day public holiday missed because of travel to Australia.  I worked out that I have had one Labour Day public holiday in the last six years because I’ve worked for companies based in Australia and they don’t have the same holidays and seem to organise things for this week 🙁

Here’s what I’m up to over the next month:

• Sunday 26th October – Fly to Sydney for a sales conference in the Hunter Valley
• Thursday 30th October – Fly back home
• Wednesday 5th November – Fly to Sydney with Vic to watch the Phoenix play
• Saturday 8th November – Fly Back home
• Thursday 13th November – Fly to London
• Sunday 16th November – Fly from London to Prague for a technical conference
• Thursday 20th November – Back to London for a few days
• Monday 24th November – Fly from London to home
• Wednesday 26th November – Get home! yay!

Phew………

In the last 3-4 months I have been flying relatively little and most of that has been international.  I’m sitting in the airport lounge at the moment waiting for a short, 35 minute flight to Nelson and the barista remembered what coffee I drank and even that I take one sugar.

Seeing that I haven’t used her services for at least three months and that she must make a couple of hundred coffees a day that’s pretty damn impressive

So I’m in Melbourne this week and it’s been raining on and off with some high winds (just like home really :))  I was walking from the building that my course was in back to the hotel and had to walk along the banks of the Yarra river.  Rain plus high tide ensured that my walk was somewhat disrupted……

While Vic and I were in Sydney a few weeks ago and on a harbour cruise one of my colleagues was wandering around taking photos. He then put them up on a server and I spotted this one of Vic.

I reckon it’s one of the most natural and beautiful shots I’ve ever seen of her…..

How cool is this? Melbourne airport’s website has a live “radar” view of all flights coming into and going out of the airport so you can see exactly how your flight that you are interested in is getting on.

Hello from Melbourne. As is usual I awoke at silly o’clock on my first day in Oz and this time decided to get out and about early to get the blood pumping. I was out of the hotel at about 6am and thought I’d take a few photo’s.

These are all handheld at very slow shutter speeds and edited (well, resized) on my work laptop so I have no idea what they really look like.