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Tuesday 3 March 2009

Product Training In Sydney

Sunday night's flight over to Sydney was ok - the departure gate was "4c"- you went down 2 levels from the waiting area, to ground level. Then we got put on a bus - yes, no kidding - and were driven to the far end of the taxi area, where our tiny little airbus A320 was sitting beside a bigger plane, had to climb a gangway to get up into the plane. They'd run out of air-bridges and terminal space! Evidently it's quite common.

When we got to the end of the taxiway prior to take off, it turned into "Seconds From Disaster" time. Debris had been seen on the end of the runway by a previous heavy jet, and the pilot wouldn't take off till it had been checked. Sure enough, when they sent a vehicle to check, there were debris on the runway, right where it could have got sucked into the engines! Scary. Took off 30 minutes late.

I had a guy (mid-late 20's maybe) sitting in the window seat- I think he was coming down off something - he kept twitching and jumping and sneezing and snuffling - very weird. On the other side was a lady from Victoria, British Columbia, who'd been to NZ with her husband for the 3rd or4th time - they love the place. Had an interesting chat with her.

Wee bit of turbulance once we got within a couple of hundred k's of the Australian coast, so the pilot descended early to avoid it.

The food served on the plane was dreadful - either a meat pie, or what they said was a Thai chicken fritter with sweet chilli sauce. Problem was, the chicken smelled (and tasted) fishy! Not nice at all.

Staying at the Quest, North Ryde as usual, backing on to the Lane Cove River National Park. Monday night I had a fantastic dinner in the restaurant, "Atlantis" - garlic bread, rare eye fillet with a monster prawn on top, and potato chip rectangles built up into a sort of castle, with whole baby carrots, then chocolate cake with rhubarb, strawberries & orange, with a dessert wine. NOM. The wine was a bit average - Noble One - won't have that again. Certainly made up for breakfast - fruit salad, and lunch - chook & chips. Sunday night's dinner was nice too - garlic bread, calamari, and a baked pear thing (a bit too sweet).

Product Training was fun on Monday - but it wasn't nearly as complicated as they'd made out - not sure what all the fuss was about. I think it's more to do with a lack of confidence with a certain person, than actual, real complication. I'd sat the Activac test in December before I'd had training, and got "Bronze" level then - this time got "Gold" level -43 out of 45 - clever me. I've typed up some of my notes, but not had a chance to look thru the manuals they gave me.

Went for a walk before dinner thru the Park -then bush-bashed my way back up to the main road - very good fun climbing up the rock shelves, wonderful old sandstone outcrops - all the soil's long gone! Lots of birds - saw a pair of crows, stood within a couple of metres of kookaburra, saw an incredibly noisy Sulpher Crested Cockatoo, rosellas, ozzy mynahs. No animals tho.

I thought Delhi Road was a 60k zone, but the traffic seemed to be going a lot faster - and no pavement!

Had a long, on-line chat with one of my colleagues - scary! Can't get away from work, LOL.

My brain doesn't know what time it is - the laptop clock says 2400, while the bedside clock is on Ozzy time, and says it's 2200! I'm ready for bed now tho.

Becca's head cold hit be about 2300 Aussie time, with a burning sore throat headache and congestion. Only managed to sleep for a couple of hours, hot, cold, sweaty and horrid. About 4.30 I got up and gargled with straight vodka - that numbed the throat! Then sat and wrote a piece for the Reaver's RPG between Summer and Patrick.

Writing hot romance alone in a hotel room, 2000k from home, after reading Diana Gabaldon's Dragonfly in Amber! The head-cold fixed me good and proper tho!

Had another long day today - not nearly as bright as I was yesterday, and the cold symptoms got steadily worse. Took an Infovac apart, then sat looking at it for 10 minutes wondering why I couldn't get it back together - completely missed seeing another PCB sitting on the desk! Got 47 out of 50 for the Product Knowledge Test - 2 Gold level certificates in two days!

I'm going to meet a Clinical Services Educator (Product Specialist) for dinner downstairs later - not sure how much scintillating conversation I can provide.

more later.....

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