mike carey

Quite so, when I got off the plane, I wasn't like, OMG, I'm in South America, how did that happen, so not surprising in that sense. It was surprising in that it was not a trip I had long contemplated but rather, one that was the result of an unexpected suggestion. LAN as it then was (now Latam) flew to Santiago from Sydney via Auckland. Qantas later started flying there non-stop, and Air New Zealand used to fly from Auckland to BsAs. Qantas also added Rio during the winter of 2016, and it's one of their planned Project Sunrise destinations. I think Aerolineas Argentinas also flew to Sydney and/or Auckland at one stage. If I recall correctly, at one time when range was an issue, Qantas also flew to BsAs with a technical stop in Rio Gallegos.

Many of the Bounty survivors' descendants live on Norfolk Island, an Australian territory.

Ah, the borders are closed so I can only dream!

'Surprising' is when you are surprised that you ended up there, not if the world is surprised that you were there. I had no idea that I would end up in South America, so that qualifies, likewise for remote atolls in the Pacific. (And I didn't mention Tahiti in my earlier post.)

I don't doubt that, and in your position I would have done the same, And Spirit doesn't fly there.

A mall there is like a mall anywhere else. I don't think I would have chosen to go there as a tourist, and I wasn't there for that.

https://rent.men/tommygunss He's been on RM for two years but only three reviews.

That well and truly trumps my list of Pacific Island visits, viz Nauru, Kwajalein, Majuro, Kiribati (Tarawa), Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Easter Island. Oh, and Hawai'i.

Wow, just WOW!

My most surprising trip was to South America. My sister and her then partner booked a cruise to Antarctica, and suggested that I might want to go too. The cruise was from Ushuaia in Argentina. We stretched the two week cruise to a six week holiday, going to [yes, like you] Iguaçu Falls and to Perú, Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands, and Easter Island. It was only towards the end of the trip that I realised that I had clocked up visits to all seven continents. My first serious overseas trip was to Europe via the Trans-Siberian Railway, and while perhaps a surprising choice was the result of much deliberate planning.

Oops, I had meant to comment on that. Two of my most recent three hires preferred electronic payment, and the third was open to it. In the end I only paid one electronically.

An interesting observation about the use of cash rather than other payment methods. I endorse Simon's comment about cash being rare in Australia. I could count the times I've used it in the last 18 months on the fingers of one hand, I've even had an apparent 'how do we do this' response one time when I went to pay a <$5 purchase with cash (in part this is pandemic induced). There was a comment in the thread about the decline in the use of cheques. They have also died here, except for sometimes when sending money by mail. You certainly can't use them in shops any more. https://twitter.com/simongerman600/status/1410994185293996034?s=20

Here I am going all [some other posters] and reposting one of my old posts. Thanks @Bearmanfor liking it and reminding me of it.

Thoughts and prayers.

I expect Rod could do the latter!!!

With the caveat that I live in a society where tipping is not the norm, I have the view that an escort sets their rate and that's what I expect to pay. I see a tip as something that I pay if I think they are charging below the going rate for the market, or if they astound me with the experience.

That is true, but these sorts of developments happen organically, new words are not created, they just happen. 'They' has been used to replace a singular usage since Shakespeare's time at least, and nobody rejects the use of 'you' in the singular.

And I haven't even messaged you, lol! I would NEVER meet you. Unless I was in Los Angeles.

I'd suggest it could work for all age groups, the better to see you for some, the quicker to have you out of their sight for others.

Exhibit A, Australia. Now, that's not quite what we did, but close. WA had its border closed for most of the year, but the other states opened and closed them depending on the prevalence of disease. Sometimes they shut out entire states, often they did it by region or local government area in the state. Australia is different to the US in that the states are physically separate to a greater extent, and outbreaks tended to be in capital (ie biggest) cities, not in the areas near borders. NZ is now treating each state as a separate entity, and from Monday will be open to Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, but unlike interstate travel here we'll need a negative test before departure. The difference between us and the situation you face is that restrictions are removed fairly quickly, and that happens when the state with the outbreak removes its local restrictions.

@gallahadesquireand I have chatted here a few times, he is older than me but far more adventurous, but now it's his birthday and I couldn't be more pleased than to wish him many happy returns of the day (and returns to the scenes of his crimes when the world opens up again).

Harsh but fair.

I stand corrected. (Emirates also flew there, but via Sydney.) As a Canberran, having to take a domestic connecting flight is not something that worries me, but it does some people. I was aware of the WLG service as it replaced SQ's previous SIN-CBR-WLG flights.

@josh282282would it be too cynical of me to suggest that some doctors know that the time each appointment takes is unpredictable and liable to last longer than the blocked time, so they not too concerned about missed appointments because they help get them back on schedule? (I'm not disagreeing with your objection to escort deposits, or anything else you said, to be clear.)

@RadioRobnot a big deal, more a curiosity, your post above appeared in my unread list yesterday (I know it's the same one not a delete and repost because I had liked it!), but showed up again when I logged on today. Earlier I had seen unread posts that were older, and I knew I had cleared my unread list for the time at which they were dated, but wasn't sure if I had seen them before or not. I guessed at the time that it was a reflection of the new search engine reindexing the data base, or perhaps picking up items that the old software had somehow missed (I was going out on a limb and assuming that the unread posts function uses the search engine to find that content). Even if you choose not to investigate it or even comment (either of which I would understand and accept) it will be interesting to see if it recurs and if so how often.