Being able to walk 10 minutes to a clean, white and almost empty sandy beach is brilliant…

I’m back in Adelaide, Australia, staying with my family in Henley Beach.

Coming from Mersin, Turkey, following are a few of the differences I have noticed in Adelaide:
– distances are far greater around the city
– many more people are overweight
– the standard of dress is less formal
– home is so quiet. The loudest noise during the day comes from wild birds squawking and nights are dead quiet. Each night of my first week when going to bed I had ringing in my ears because I was used to a continual background noise.

I returned from Turkey to Australia via 6 wonderful days in Malaysia. I will write more about Malaysia and upload photos from there soon.

For the first time ever I arrived to Adelaide Airport on an international flight. The immigration guy scanned my passport but he did not obviously indicate to the interrogator that I was a “special” case. After passing through, an interrogator asked me to stand aside. She looked through my passport and questioned me where I had come from; how long I was going to stay in Australia; why had I gone to Pakistan; why had I gone to Iran; why I had visited so many Muslim countries; what I did in Turkey; proof of of my stay in Turkey (I showed the traineeship and work visas in my passport); etcetera; and then let me go to the customs line-up. I doubt the official could read Arabic as she did not ask about my multiple Syrian visas.

Even if I didn’t have the Turkish apple tea and duty free chocolates to declare I would have been hauled through the red customs channel anyway. The same interrogator asked me to place my bags on the table and then proceeded to ask me several disclaimer questions before advising me to open my laptop bag for inspection. After putting on the gloves she went through some of my documents, asking more questions on the way. Once satisfied I was not a terrorist threat I was waved on my way.

All through my questioning the official was jovial and calm with a forced smile on her face. I enjoyed the questioning and, as I could justify everything I’ve done, had no problems answering her questions. I’m sure if I visited the USA with the same passport I would face a much tougher time.

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