G’day from down under!

Seven!
I’ve done it…I have now stepped foot onto all 7 continents. This is an exciting day and a few years ago I never thought I’d be able to do it. What did I do upon reaching this new country? I got a drink at Starbucks, bought something at the Apple store, and withdrew money from a Citibank.

Here I am in front of the well known Sydney Opera house.

Medical emergency at 30000 feet
Excitement, peoples! About thee hours into my Sydney flight as I was half asleep, I was woken up by the overhead speakers which were announcing that there was a passenger in need of medical attention and asked if anyone with medical training could come help out. I jumped up with excitement and walked quickly to the rear of the plane since it wasn’t too far from where I was sitting, hoping it was something legitimate (unlike a few bogus ones I’ve been involved with in the past.)

The small crowd of flight attendants told me a lady had just passed out. Nice…finally something right up my alley. I saw the woman and asked her a few questions but she didn’t respond. Not good. I gave her a mild sternal rub and she barely opened here eyes. Even less good. I then sat down and tried to feel her pulse, and was having a hard time feeling it. At this point a bunch of other passengers lined up behind me saying “I’m a doctor I’m a doctor, I can help”. Sorry suckers, Dr. Amir got here first.

I finally felt a pulse but it was very slow, so we laid her down on the row of seats. After about ten minutes of taking her vitals, getting more information from her husband, and then re-evaluating her, it became pretty clear she had had a vasovagal episode (a simple faint). She soon felt better and all appeared well, so I started walking back…but not before the flight attendants wanted my name so they could give me something. I refused multiple times but they wouldn’t accept that, and in the end I got a generous voucher for future travel. Mid-air excitement, a generous airline, and one happy customer/passenger…not bad.

Antarctic reunion
I met some great people one year ago on my trip to Antarctica, and interestingly most of them live in Australia. We met up with them for a great mini reunion, reminiscing both on the better parts of the trip as well as people we all found annoying.

From left to right: Kelvin, me, Mayumi Jr. (aka Shiho), Grant, and Nisha.

We were having a drink at the Altitude Restaurant, a bar on the 36th floor of the Shangri La building. It was sunset and there a great view of the Opera House.

In other news, my iPad does a terrible job of downsizing photos, which is why they’re blurry.