canberra

[hnpcc]

Am in Canberra, where the weather is coolish and raining - quite a change from the last time we came up! We flew up last night with Virgin, which since I last flew with them have adopted the world's stupidest practice system for boarding pass allocation and luggage check in. Basically you now have to print out your boarding pass - having queued to use one of the working terminals, of which at least half were out of order - before then queuing in order to check bags. It's great for Virgin - two staff on counters instead of at least five - and absolute shit for passengers. If possible I'll be avoiding them in future.

We slept in this morning, not least because of staying up to watch the Tour last night and because there is no traffic noise in Canberra. We may be literally 5 mins from the CBD, but there appear to be no cars, and certainly no doof happening. Strange.

This afternoon we wandered around the National Museum - I'm really not sure how accessible this would be to a non-Australian audience. It came across more as a 'flavours of Australia' rather than a coherent whole, and assumed some knowledge of the cultural significance of things like Hills Hoists and FJ holdens. I highly recommend the 'centra' exhibition, and not just because the first third ("land") comes across like a David Lynch movie. No murders though. :-) We didn't see the whole thing, obviously.

We also did a drive around the embassies, which was entertaining, particularly when we had a protective services car shadowing us for a block or so. Heh.

Tomorrow we're catching up with friends and wandering around some more, not sure where yet.

Then back to Melbourne and the working week.

Comments

[dsn.livejournal.com]

You coulda skipped the queueing to use the check in machines at the airport by checking in online up to 24 hours before departure and then gone straight to the baggage check in.

Going Qantas as a non status passenger is heading the same way with trying to force people to use the Quick Check machines too

Dave

[hnpcc]

I realised that when I re-read the e-mail, but the first time I thought that was only if you didn't have baggage to check in (because seriously, how much sense does it make otherwise?)

It was better on the way back, probably because there were a lot fewer people leaving Canberra on a Sunday night than there were leaving Melbourne on a Friday night. That and the bitch doing security on the queue wasn't there, which was a large part of the reason we were pissed off. If you have to have a queue bitch, you're not getting the new system through to people. If your queue bitch (oh, sorry, "Customer Service Employee") is a complete bitch ("Why are you lined up without boarding passes? Do you think I'm standing here for my health or something?") then it reflects beautifully on your overall customer service standard.

[dsn.livejournal.com]

What has changed? Do Virmin no longer allow non travelling persons through security? I was a SYD QF terminal and there was no issue going through to the Qantas Pub for a drink

OLCI is a good way of trying to nab a seat in the more spacious area of the Virmin planes whether or not you have luggage

Dave

[numbat.livejournal.com]

I decided back in the late nineties that travelling by plane was too expensive for somebody like myself and so stopped doing it. Which means I have no experience in these matters but from what I read I'm glad I don't fly as the process seems to be nothing but pain any more.

If you really want late night car noise then you need to be sleeping on the very edge of the city where the hoons go to burn rubber.

[essjayeff.livejournal.com]

There are no hoons in Canberra - our nation's capital ships them all out to Queanbeyan (except for one weekend a year known as Summer Nats.) (I know too much about Canberra don't I?)