DC to Brisbane

 We left our house at about 4pm on Friday DC time. Tal decided early on that she wouldn't walk or carry her bags, so that slowed us down. She demanded to ride on Candace's scooter. We transferred from the red line to the new silver line and by the end, Tal and I felt close to throwing up.

After an hour and a half on the metro, we made it to Dulles. The scooter always seems to be a concern for airline staff, but otherwise things went smoothly. Security also spent extra time with the scooter, but things were still going smoothly. Then it came time to board our Qatar Airways flight and Candace was nowhere to be found. Finally, she emerged from the bathroom and we got on. I sat in a row of three with Abie and Tal and Candace sat in front.

The flight to Doha was about 12 and a half hours. The food was hardly edible and I nearly threw up at the end. I spent some of the flight with bad stomach pain and a case of the poops. I slept for a couple of hours and watched King Richard, Blackkklansman, and Black Panther.

Candace didn't have her scooter in the Doha airport, which displayed a building-sized teddy bear. The airport is more like a mall and the kids were hungry. I walked with them to find food, but we kept seeing upscale stores, so we turned back. Tal was tired and hungry and began to whine. She wanted me to walk at an asymptotic rate. No matter my speed it never reached her demands, so she became angry and started to punch me in the kidneys and push me to the delight of people walking by.

I dropped the kids off with Candace at the gate and went in search for food. I finally found it, waited forever and brought it back to the gate exhausted. The kids barely ate. I didn't have time to check my fantasy basketball team which would lose in the first round of the playoffs by one rebound!

In Doha, security really doesn't want you to bring water on the plane, but they don't search bags to find it. We went threw two different security checks from one plane to another and finally got on the plane to Brisbane. This time we all sat together. The fight was 14 hours from terminal to terminal. I watched Creed and Creed II and some episodes of Hard Knocks with the Detroit Lions. Abie and Tal mostly played games. I kept wanting them to use the controller but they preferred to use the touch screen to the dismay of the people sitting in front of them. Abie slept a few minutes before we landed. The kids had issues with peeing and pooping in their pants. The food was once again terrible and I nearly threw up at the end again.

When we got off the plane, Tal had to poop and she took forever. For some reason people using a wheelchair all had to stick together and an elderly man became frustrated with the wait. The attendant told him, "You ordered a wheelchair so you have to wait. If you don't want to wait, go ahead," which of course he couldn't do.

Now it was time to clear customs. Australia wants you to declare food that you bring in. Not in the half hearted way every other place I've ever been wants. They demand it or you're in big trouble. After a video campaign, you pass by several officials asking if you have food and then you stand in line like a criminal as a dog sniffs you and your belongings to see if you have food. I said I didn't have food, but I had some stuff for when we got to the hotel, so I became increasingly nervous that I would soon find myself in an Australian gulag, but the dog couldn't sniff past the packaging and the pee and poop filled pants to detect the food.

Then we got the scooter back. In DC, the airline handled the battery very bizarrely. First they wanted us to have it with us on the plane. Then they took it off and told Candace it would be checked. I didn't hear it so I was worried they'd lose the scooter battery. Fortunately things worked out and we took the air train to South Brisbane. We got into the hotel exhausted. We ate some of the snacks I had smuggled into the country and enjoyed our contraband. I fell asleep pretty quickly but woke up a few hours later with a terrible cramp in my right calf.