Travel with MC to Australia - WebLog

[Joefnh]

Well this will be the first installment on this trip and interestingly enough it's being written and submitted at 35,000 feet. This is a nice new feature that some of the flights have WiFi available and for a fee will give you internet access. Delta airlines uses a service called GoGo for internet access which is actually pretty fast.

To prepare for this trip I reviewed various posts about food tolerances and also looked over Gabes detailed info on the experiences in going to France.

In my earlier post I described and discussed what foods to take and in my case these are

Bananas (GF/DF/SF/YF)
Hard boiled eggs
Salmon & chicken (foil pouch) (GF/DF/SF/YF)
Rice Cakes with almond butter (GF/DF/SF/YF)
Cereal - Rice with oats & honey Whole Foods Inc (GF/DF/SF/YF)
Vanilla cookies (GF/DF/SF/YF)

I portioned each of the dry foods into small zip-lock bags and then assembled these into 5 larger ziplock bags and included in each 1 banana and 1 6oz pouch of either the salmon or chicken sourced at a local health food store. These were also labeled GF/SF. In a separate small bag I carefully packed 5 hard boiled eggs. This should supply me with more than enough meals until Sydney.

One thing to keep in mind in going to various countries, you may not be allowed to bring and fresh fruits or vegetables in with you and this may include other dry or prepared foods as well. Be ready to throw out any unused foods upon arrival.


Flight # 2 of 4 Detroit Michigan to Los Angeles

This is flight 2 of 4 of a total travel time of 26 hours. Its far too early to see how things will fair in the long run, but so far so good. One of the things I noticed immediately was the lack of muscle and joint pain that I have been plagued with for more than 12 years. I used to fly quite a bit in the 90's and was always in pain if I sat still for more than an hour or so. For once I am actually relaxed and enjoying the flight. Like many have reported once the gluten or other offending ingredient is removed form our diets, the associated pain will resolve.

The first meal pack more than filled me up and I think that food wise this should be a good trip.

Thanks again for all of the help and encouragement. Three months ago I was worried if I still could continue working, never mind flying half way around the world.

There is life with MC!



--Joe

[Gabes-Apg]

Good luck

the interesting bit will be getting your food packs through security checks for an international flight....
you will potentially become a bit of a person of interest to security as they find it hard to believe that you have that level of food intolerance and have to carry that much of your own food.

and Australian customs are known as 'the worst' in the world re bag checks. they are very diligent regarding foods in your bags. the sniffer dogs will even pick up on a empty bag that has had food in it, they xray all your luggage and will find any food items so make sure you declare them!

[Joefnh]

Gabes fortunately I used your doctors note idea and it did come in handy. I cleared international travel in Detroit and the doctors note and my medical alert ID card did the trick.

In 1998 I remember having a backpack with no food in it that was used for apple picking a month before the trip that your cute customs beagles alerted on.. That's pretty good picking that up after a month. -- I did remember to bring you one of the official Aussie Customs pins with a logo of the customs beagle on it

Again Gabes thanks for posting that idea in you notes during your travel to France

--Joe

[Gloria]

Keeping my that the rest of your trip will go as smoothly.

Gloria

[Joefnh]

Thanks Gloria, I appreciate the encouragement. So far so good, the planning and notes from the other members on this site have made quite a difference. Thanks...

Gabes, that's a good point to make sure and declare any food items before going through outbound security inspection. I will have to make sure and do that in both LA (if needed) and when departing Australia next week.

--Joe

[Polly]

All Riiiiiight!

Flight 1 over and flight 2 in progress. And all is sounding well so far. Am keeping fingers crossed for you.

You are proving to all that there really IS life after MC!!!

Love,

Polly

[mbeezie]

Joe,

Glad to hear things are going well. You give hope to the rest of us who haven't tackled international travel yet.

Mary Beth

[Joefnh]

Thanks Polly & Mary Beth.

First hiccup on this journey was last night. There was nominally a 49 minute transfer time from the flight arriving in LA and the next flight to Sydney departing. This should have been OK as the gates were only 200 feet apart, but upon arrival in LAX we were held on the ground before being able to to go to out gate for over an hour... So I'm stuck in LA for a day until tonight's flight at 10:35. The outbound flights for Delta and Qantas only leaves LA in the evenings for Sydney, so no earlier flight was available. I will still get into Brisbane on time for the lecture, but I wont have the extra day to acclimate.

I am planning on renting a car to be able to go out to a GF restaurant as there is nothing the airport foods that I can tolerate. I also have a few friends in the area that I can call to see if they would like to join me for lunch.

This is a good example of why to carry some quantity of safe foods during any travel. I probably over-packed the amount of food that I needed, but in this case it worked out well. I cannot imagine the problems of not having tolerable foods during travel like this.


The journey continues...

--Joe

[tex]

Well that sucks. It's a dang good thing that you brought extra food, and started a day early.

At least you'll get to experience the pleasure of going through all the security stuff an extra time, when you get back to the airport.

Tex

[Rosie]

Bummer, Joe! And I wouldn't call it just a "hicup"......... Good thing you planned for problems.

Rosie

[Joefnh]

Yeah Tex it does suck... Although I did have a chance to meet with a friend and go out for lunch at a local GF restaurant. We went to Rutts Hawaiian cafe and I got a chance to use one of Ants can eat / can't eat cards and had a pretty good lunch. I had to talk to the chef to get the message across, as the waiter did not have a clue. The meal was quite good.

Beyond that I have 9 more hours in the Delta lounge to relax and wait for the flight at 10:35PM PST. At least my luggage made it to Brisbane...

Rosie while I haven't traveled in a while, my motto is anything but a crash is a hiccup. For this trip especially I am not allowing myself to even begin to get stressed. MC and stress do not get along well.

It is what it is.


--Joe

[barbaranoela]

sounds good Joe----luved *anything but a crash is a Hiccup*

must keep that saying in mind~~~

oh--and that your luggage arrived safely 2--

Barbara

[harma]

travelling and MC is thinking in advance of anything that would, could, might happen!!! Very wise Joe you took too much food with you. I am very sorry you missed your flight. But it sounds like you are making the best of it and take things as the way they come. I admire that. Wouldn't be my strongest point. I hope you can get some sleep somewhere at the airport.

Something similar (pre MC time) happened to me two years ago on my holiday to Syria, flight Amsterdam - vienna - damascus. With 50 minutes transfer time. The trip started with a 30 minutes delay, that left me with about 10 to 15 minutes to change flights. But I was lucky, the next plane was (almost) standing next to one I got out, so that was an easy one. But later I thought would it be so bad an extra day and night in Vienna. No not at all, I had visited vienna 6 months before and I loved the city.

Well, at least you have internet on the airport and you can communicate with us. With members over the world there is always somebody awake.

[Joefnh]

Barbara yeah I adopted that motto in the early 90's, although I have been used to being the nervous traveler until this trip. In earlier trips I was always "in charge" of the technical part of the trip, so I managed all aspect of anywhere form 5 - 12 other engineers. That always put a lot of pressure on me, to not only manage the trip detils but also all of the work related issues.. This is the first trip that I can actually relax and just deal with the issues as they come. The other part of travel that stressed me was always being in pain during transit. That was before I went GF/SF/DF and certainly I did notice a significant decrease in the pain once the diet was under control. While I did have a bit of hip pain during the last leg of the trip, it was nothing like what I remember.

Harma, we found out the flight was missed around 11:00PM local time and Delta Airlines did put me up in a local hotel so I was able to get a reasonable nights sleep. I did however shift my sleep schedule about 4 hours closer to Brisbane time.

6 hours 15 minutse to go...

--Joe

[Gloria]

How unpredictable international flying can be! Gabes had similar changes ,except she had a little more notice as I recall. I'm impressed that you are taking this in your stride. I'm glad you were able to get a good GF lunch with your friend. That was an unexpected bonus!

Good luck with the next stretch. I hope your presentation goes well.

Gloria