Australian Border Security + Trader Joe's Cereal

As my parents will attest, I'm a bit obsessed with this reality TV show called "Australian Border Security" which follows the work of Australian immigration/customs officers as they deal with passengers coming through Sydney and Melbourne Airports, inspecting packages coming into the country, chasing down boats fishing illegally in the Northern waters, and tracking down immigrants working in the country without the proper visa.

You can watch a clip here:

My interest in this show started with my getting charged $80 for having an illegal pine cone in my overseas shipment of my belongings from the U.S.  I had this huge crate of things shipped over with everything from my coffee table, bed frame, clothes and amongst all those things - they find one pine cone amongst my Christmas tree decorations. And just to toss out this "prohibited" item, they charged me $80!  See earlier blog on this here.

And it's continued as my family sends me my favorite foods and snacks from Trader Joes.  I've already learned that anything with banana's is "prohibited" as are cranberries.  But raisins, dried apricots, dried pineapples, dried mangoes - they are all OK.  

Most recently my wonderful parents shipped me my favorite cereal from Trader Joe's and upon opening the package I realized that Australian Quarantine and Inspections had checked out the cereal. They actually opened the box (but not the bag the cereal was in inside) and probably shook the contents around to make sure it was indeed Maple Pecan Cluster cereal from TJ's.  And as you'll see - it passed!

I had a bowl this morning with fresh blueberries (thank you Mom and Dad!). Note: 128 grams of blueberries = 4.4 oz and cost $4.48 at my local grocery store. I'll cover the expense of groceries here in Sydney in a later blog.