There is no point holding out til the end about whether or not we saw President Obama.  Because honestly I have blabbed about this to anyone and everyone I have traumatised over the past week in my obsessive compulsion to see President Obama.  So it is a little late to get all secret squirrel now.

Of course, it wasn’t easy or straightforward.  And there were tears of disappointment, anger and resentment.  Then finally, tears of joy.  All mine.  I am totally exhausted by the whole thing. As I am sure everyone who has even had glancing contact with me in the past week would be.  So there’s no point trying to make you read the whole post just to find out.  So stop reading if all you wanted to know is whether this plan, or as some of my colleagues have termed it “another one of Que Sera’s crazy schemes” has been a success.  I don’t want to say “mission accomplished”, but it kind of was, despite the association with GW Bush’s aircraft-carrier erroneous boasting.

Anyway.  Canberra is 262kms (approximately 160 miles) southwest of Sydney and on a good trip takes no more than 3.5 hours.  So when we set off from Sydney at 4:15pm, it would be reasonable to assume that we would arrive in Canberra by no later than 8pm.  But for some completely unfathomable reason I decided to heed Chip’s advice to take the M5, rather than the M2 and M7.

Which somehow meant we arrived in Canberra shortly before 10pm.

It pains me to say it, but it was not a pleasant trip, with much resentful blaming.

“HONESTLY, I do not know WHY I listen to you Chip when it comes to any navigation in Australia AT ALL”.

Chip:  ”Sweetheart, they are just numbers to me. I don’t know which road is which and really I only picked a route so that you would have the ability to blame me when it all went south” – except we weren’t going SOUTH.  We were going fucking NOWHERE.

There was also a minor panic attack on my part, because the M5 involves many tunnels which is difficult if you are claustrophobic (which I only discovered several years ago I am) but I can tolerate these tunnels when I am going at about 60kms per hour.  But we were crawling along – it took us 2 hours to travel 15 kms.  And I was really trying to hold it in, so Fred Ex does not later in life develop claustrophobia in addition to the neuroses that he is already down for.  All of which made me even angrier at and resentful of Chip, who just sat beside me blithely being, well, reasonable, and who did not seem to be demonstrating any navigator’s remorse.  AT ALL.

All of my frustration was constrained by the presence of Fred Ex and his cousin, Charlotte, which meant I could not fully express the extent of my fury in the curse-ridden manner it frankly deserved.

So I had to content myself with barking at them that “if we were in The Amazing Race, we would be ELIMINATED BY NOW PEOPLE.  Do you understand?  And no, this is NOT a non-elimination leg”.  To which Charlotte innocently responded “but we don’t watch The Amazing Race at our home Quesera, so I don’t know really what that even means”. Arrrrrrrrrgh

I was so in need of a drink by the time we got to Canberra that I literally left Chip and the children in the hotel apartment we were staying in and stalked off to a bar across the road.  But I was so overwrought by the whole thing I could not even go inside.  Which is a first – and which speaks volumes, Chip.  VOLUMES.  Even being greeted US flags everywhere and being hugely excited by that did not placate me.

Anyway, I had called ahead on Wednesday afternoon just to make sure that our apartment hadn’t been, I don’t know, commandeered by the Secret Service and had had a very interesting conversation during which I cross-examined the manager Marianne as to road closures etc, so when we went to check out in the morning I introduced myself as the busy-body Barack stalker and again sought further tips from her.

Marianne was very sweet and gave us all sorts of suggestions which seemed eminently sensible – head to Lake Burley Griffin and look for the crowds.  And which of course we discarded the moment we left when Chip (unilaterally as I recall it) decided that in fact we were going to adopt a completely different approach and instead head directly to Australian Parliament House (APH), which was within walking distance of our apartment.  Which I KNEW was in lock-down.   Because Erin Brockovitch had told me this repeatedly in her twice daily SITREPS*.

But I was still dazed because of the car ordeal.  But also as I had woken bolt upright pre-dawn because I realised despite the maps and the schedules and the tips and the suggestions I really had no fucking clue where we were going to go.

Sure we had a vague plan – War Memorial, APH, chosen school.  But what with the road closures, we figured we should just ditch the car and walk the 800m to APH.  Yes I knew President Obama was going to be at APH but I really hadn’t figured out which entrance President Obama would be coming in from.  And as APH has multiple entrances which are not close together, I was panicking.   So I started my mantra affirmation to calm myself and possibly my companions:  ”it’s not the end of the world if we don’t see him.  It’s the journey not the destination, people”.  Fred Ex looked perplexed.  He knows this is what I say to comfort him when all hope is lost and he is upset about something.  This sounded precious little like what he thought I felt.  And he was right.

So I basically just went with Chip’s instinct (and it struck me, not for the first time, that if we ever do go on The Amazing Race, I am going to be the racer paralysed at every key decision-making point and end up just going along with Chip.  And then spend the rest of the leg bitching and whining about his poor choices until we are finally eliminated by Phil).  So we set off for APH.

For those of you have not had the pleasure of visiting Australia’s national capital – some features you need to know for the purpose of understanding this post.  One is that APH sits atop what I think is an artificial hill.  Surrounded by bush.

From this point, large avenues fan out from it, like spokes on a bicycle wheel.  All the names are Australian capital cities, but, perplexingly, this only serves to make things more confusing.  (As in:  ”is it Melbourne Avenue or Adelaide Avenue?”  ”I don’t fucking know Chip, I only remember which one is Canberra Avenue because that is where we are staying and which one is Sydney Avenue, because we live in Sydney, so I have made a mental note of that one, NOT ALL THE OTHERS OKAY?”)

And then to the north of APH is the artificial lake, Lake Burley Griffin over which there are only 2 bridges.

President Obama was due to be at the War Memorial, which is over the lake from APH, immediately before coming to APH.  Consequently, he had to come over the bridge one way or another as we hadn’t heard anything of him being ferried about in his helicopter.

While we were on our way to APH, we kept seeing APH staffers sort of leave the main road and disappear up the hill.  So after watching a few of them, I hissed to Chip:  ”you ask them.  You’ve got an American accent.  It will sound legitimate from you.  They are going somewhere and we need to find out where“.

So we approached a middle aged woman hurrying off the road and Chip called out, and I think he was really playing up the accent:  ”Ma’am [this word is not in common use in Australia] how would we get to Parliament House?”  And she turned around, quite flustered and said:  ”oh, you can’t come up here.  It is in lock-down, I couldn’t even get my husband in”.

Chip, peering: “is that a path up there?”  Staffer:  ”yes, it’s a bush path, but you’re not really allowed up there” (and then spying Fred Ex in his Obama 08 t-shirt and Charlotte waving bobble-headed Barack about) “look just follow me, then strike off onto the gravelled path and follow all the way up, but you didn’t hear it from ME“.

She took off at some speed, clearly trying to put distance between us and her, so she would have plausible deniability.  But then inexplicably paused to turn around and sort of wave her hands frantically, to signal the correct directions to us.

There was nothing left to do but follow after her, noticing the CCTV cameras which dotted the bush and the path.  Me, spotting them:  ”I don’t think we should be doing this” (rule-obeyer).  Chip:  ”C’mon sweetheart I am sure they will stop us.  Eventually”.  So we clambered up this very narrow footpath and found ourselves slap bang in front of APH.  No barbed wire.  No barricades.  Nothing.   And really couldn’t believe our luck and started to congratulate ourselves on our canniness in locating this path that plainly no-one else had seen.  I was giddy with anticipation.

Then we saw an AFP** officer (Dave) shoo a lone woman (most likely a crazed stalker) right back down the hill, to where the media were set up.  Dave smiled broadly like an extra from Blue Heelers when he clapped eyes on this slow moving convoy – with Fred Ex and Charlotte with their Barack memorabilia and me in possibly a George W Bush Commander-in-Chief t-shirt – and said really very politely:  ”G’day.  This is a restricted zone.  This place is in lock-down and you lot have penetrated The Zone.”

Chip, innocently but with that all important American accent: “Oh but we thought this was a public building?”  ”Nah, mate.  Not today.  You’ve penetrated the restricted zone“.

And then I thought I really have to intervene here because Chip is too polite to badger to find out where to go, so I kind of beseeched:  ”but we have come all the way from Sydneyyyyyyyyy.  Where is he going to come in?  Where should we go? Pleeeeeease”

And Dave kind of laughed at us and said, as though we plainly weren’t stalkers (what did he know?  He clearly hasn’t seen my office.  Or my house.) “yeah alright, you need to go to Melbourne Avenue, back down the back of Parliament House that’s where he is coming in”. And kind of waved completely in the opposite direction to where he had shoo-ed the crazed stalker.

So I insisted:  ”but how do we know you are telling us the truth, Dave?  Why did you send her in completely the opposite direction?  Are you having us on?”

Which was probably not quite the tone to strike when we had “penetrated the restricted zone” but he just laughed again and waved us away and said “well you don’t, but just tell them I said you could walk around that way.  He is definitely going that way.  And you can always come back and take it up with me if he doesn’t but (looking at his watch) I may have finished up by then”.  And then started chuckling again as though we were just ridiculous, rather than people who had probably committed a serious offence.  And not just technically either.

So we set off in the direction he had sent us.  But immediately noticed a large man on a push bike talking on a walkie-talkie and waving to someone behind us.  We thought he was waving at us and naturally waved back.  These AFP men, I thought, they are simply charming.  But this man was not quite so friendly.  And asked rather briskly where we were going and what we thought we were doing “penetrating a restricted zone”.  (Truly, this was the phrase that was repeated over and over, without any sense of the possible double meaning.)

So we explained that another AFP man had kindly waved us toward Melbourne Avenue and he just sort of shook his head and said:  ”No, you cannot get there from here.  You are in a restricted zone and you have to go down (gesturing towards where the lone stalker had been shepherded) back into the non-restricted zone”.  Me:  ”but isn’t it significantly quicker to go down that way (pointing), we could just slip down there quietly and then get out of the restricted zone”.  Less friendly AFP officer:  ”no.  You have to get out of here NOW and you must be escorted to make sure you make it out“.  And he got on his walkie-talkie to summons an escort for us.

Escort guy was a little more laid back than walkie-talkie guy though and said:  ”did you come up the bush path? Ha ha.  That’s where everyone is coming up.  They think we can’t see them.  But we’ve got the CCTV cameras.   We just catch them and escort them down.”  And chuckled at us.  But pressed for more details on the actual Presidential entry point and the best vantage point and he was not nearly as forthcoming as Dave.  He just sort of smiled indulgently like we were very naughty children.  Not people committing criminal trespass.

At this point, we thought it all quite amusing.  We had “penetrated the zone” and been escorted from Parliament House.  I was still exuberant.  We had already had an exciting incident.  And it wasn’t even 9am.

So we wandered past the national media, who had all set up so they could have APH in the background of their live broadcasts.  Charlotte waved at them and to our complete surprise they waved back.  This was invitation enough and I started to cross-examine them as well.  They too were lovely and helpful.  But did seem surprised we knew the entry point at Melbourne Avenue.

David Spiers (SKY News Political Editor) and (SKY News Political Correspondent):  ”Really??    Where did you hear that?  Wow, we haven’t heard that” (whispered discussions with their producer).  At that point, Dave’s intel seemed confirmed.  We knew we were onto something.

But still the issue as to which bridge President Obama would be taking remained a mystery.  Or, as the producer came over and said “love, six of one, half dozen of the other”.

Which frankly did not help. But after some dithering and resting, we decided to make our way all the way around Parliament House to Melbourne Ave.

We were about 4 capital city Avenues away from it at this point (about 600ms).

And it was starting to get hot.

And we had no sunscreen or water with us.

I was no longer giddy with our escort off Parliament House, as the 4 of us trudged around to Melbourne Avenue, with me snarling “we will be ELIMINATED PEOPLE, go to that water shop and fetch water BUT you only have 5 minutes to get it, every second counts”.

And then I heard it.  Overhead.  Barack’s helicopter that Charlotte insisted (correctly) she had seen in the paper.  And it was dipping over what I concluded (following map consultation) was Melbourne Avenue.  Plainly, it hovered directly overhead when POTUS was exiting a secure vehicle.

Dispirited, we continued to Melbourne Avenue.  Where there was precisely no-one.  ”Where are the crowds, Chip?  WHERE??  Not here.  We should have listened to Marianne.  PLAINLY WE ARE IN THE WRONG SPOT“.  Chip, calm and reasonable as ever:  ”let’s just go up the Melbourne Avenue entrance and see what happens”.

But Fred Ex was now moody and sullenly complained that he had blisters on his feet because he hadn’t put his socks on.  ”And whose fault is that?”, I waggled my finger at him, “come on, move it”.  And we got a fair way up the Melbourne Ave entrance hill, past all the AFP officers and a lone APH security man, us sort of disbelieving we were not being apprehended, but nonetheless continuing as though, “of course we are allowed to be here”.

When finally someone shouted from behind:  ”hey, hey YOU – do you lot have security passes?”  Chip:  ”ah no, sir [again not a term in regular use in Australia], we thought this was a public building?”.

And predictably:  ”You have penetrated the restricted zone.  You have to get out.  NOW“.  But then he chuckled with a sort of fond indulgence.  He must have spotted bobble-headed Barack.   APH Security guard:  ”what are you doing here?”.  Me:  ”one of the AFP guys told us to come around here, that the President would be coming in here”. APH Security guard: “WHAT??  WHO TOLD YOU THAT?”

I thought it best to leave the source of that intel well alone, Dave had been so nice, we didn’t want to get him in serious shit.  Chip, low whistle and as an aside:  ”wow, we almost got right up there.” Me:  ”I know.  I’m pretty sure the Secret Service has a different view on how best to protect President Obama.”

The APH security guard watched us for about 10 mins, as we carefully stood just on the right side of the lockdown zone.  And then said:  ”are you waiting for him to come out?”  Me:  ”[sigh] no we are waiting for him to go IN, what did you think we are doing?”

“You’ve missed him, he came in about 15 minutes ago.”

At which point I started to cry.  All this fuckery was all well and good when we were going to see him.  And years down the track may one day afford us a wry smile at our own foolishness in believing we would see President Obama.  Or at least a motorcycle outrider.

Can I just pause to say:  only in Australia could people twice approach APH, the centre of government, first by a side path and then by the most public and armed route, and be greeted not by aggressive, rude men with weapons who would frog-march everyone off the premises and into lock-up (children included).  But by people who were genuinely very helpful and friendly.  And amused by us.  And as Mariska said – approach a parliament building via a BUSH TRACK?  Where?  I truly think it is a testament to the larrikin spirit of this country, where this sort of conduct is rewarded not by a criminal record.  But by well-meaning and solicitous advice.

But now, we had come all this way, waked approximately 2.5kms and all we had were (1) two encounters with AFP and APH Security men (albeit perfectly friendly and non-confrontational) and (2) a pleasant interaction with SKY News reporters.  We had discounted Marianne’s advice and look where we were?  Melbourne Avenue, no crowds, missed by minutes.  It was all too much.  And I started to wail:  ”we’ve come all this way and we won’t have anything to report, but criminal trespass at best.  NOTHING”.  I was traumatised.

And the children’s whining had built to a near crescendo and they were starting to demand Questacon.  ”I don’t know WHY I brought any of you.  You’re ruining it for me.  This trip is NOT about Questacon, it’s about achieving a long-cherished fantasy of coming face-to-face with President Obama. I forked out $400 for a hotel for us,  I drove here and now you are making these peremptory demands and you……”  But Fred Ex cut me off and said:  ”mum, we are not ruining it for you.  You not seeing President Obama is what is ruining it for you”.  I winced at his prescience.

“Alright then people, we are going to return to the apartment, [where our car was parked] so we can collect it, go to Yarralumla Cake Shop, then try and work out which school President Obama was going to visit”.  At least the car would be cool and we could sit the fuck down.

Now, Yarralumla Cake Shop must be accessed by going via Melbourne Avenue and when we returned, it was instantly apparent that the atmosphere had changed.  A small crowd had collected and there were TV cameras. As you can see from Chip’s wonderful representation above, Melbourne Avenue intersects with a circle (possibly State Circle) and has a large median strip.  And importantly, there were car parking spots in that median strip.  We had been walking because everyone had insisted there would be no parking.  We pulled over and started listening to Parliament on the radio. As we did, I noticed a man with a massive “Media” pass around his neck wander past.  So I simply yelled out:  ”hey, what school is he going to?”  And he said:  ”Campbell High School”.  Me:  ”you sure?”.  Media guy:  ”yeah why do you think I am schlepping about with a TV camera in my arms?”  This lot sure did not sign the Secret Service confidentiality agreements I don’t reckon.

Erin had only said the day before that I should be looking carefully at Campbell High, but naturally, I thought I knew better and discounted it (I subsequently emailed her “who was your source?  You had the inside rail”.  Erin “I would have to shred you if I told you”.)

“People, we are off to Campbell High”.  ”A Detour”, began Chip, “is a choice between two tasks, each with its pros and cons”.  ”Shut UP Chip” because by this point Fred Ex and Charlotte had begun to tire of the whole “scheme” somewhat and their badgering for Questacon was next to intolerable and they didn’t need any ammunition from Chip.

I stubbornly ignored all of them.  And started heading in the direction of Campbell High.  But just as I rounded the corner, I saw yet more people gathering and made the split second decision that wins legs in The Amazing Race, Chip.  ”Change in plan.  We are going back”.  I mean, really, we KNEW he was coming out the Melbourne Avenue exit.  Virtually all intel, from very reliable sources, supported that.

We even secured our original parking spot.  Got out of the car and walked the possibly 20ms (i.e. NOTHING compared to the kms we had already trudged) to the Melbourne Avenue intersection and joined the milling crowds.

There were 40-something women screaming “hug me MR PRESIDENT”, a sentiment seconded by a 67 grandmother (we got to chatting) who suggested that had she known, she would have made a sign to that effect.

We stood there, without anything happening for about 30 minutes. But one of the media guys had his van door open and President Obama’s address on the radio was audible.  And really, we were part of a community, listening and making friends.  And it did remind me of being in London when Princess Diana died.  Except no-one was really sobbing hysterically (I don’t count my earlier incident – it was mostly out of frustration and disappointment, not grief).

Plus I had Chip, who I could parade about as a sort of show-and-tell:  ”oh, my husband is American”.  That kind of thing.  Which really got the crowd on-side and he was quizzed with great interest which was beginning to annoy me, because Chip is not a real Obama nut.  None of them were, they were just there for the ride. So pretty much out of spite, I slipped into the conversation that Chip had voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, which turned the crowd a bit.  But really he should be grateful I didn’t bring up the Ross Perot voting incident in 1992.

Meanwhile, Fred Ex and Charlotte had started to chat with all the media and we had to screech out periodically “be QUIET, they could miss their SHOTS”.

So after all of us standing in the heat for sometime, with increasing fidgety enthusiasm, I noticed that the traffic lights at the intersection, instead of going periodically green and red (which they had been doing up until that time) had simply started flashing orange and all the traffic was stopped.  ”That’s IT“, I shouted, “they have stopped the traffic!  He must definitely be coming this way SOON“.  And the crowd immediately hushed.  American husband or not, I was proving a valuable member of this community.

I started emailing one of my long-suffering colleagues “is he still speaking?  Has he left?  ANYTHING?” Because plainly he could have slipped out one of the other hundred exits.  She emailed back almost immediately “he is still shaking hands, still in the building”. Which of course I announced to my new “friends” (I am not kidding the 67 year old woman suggested a reunion at one point).  I was beginning to wonder just how much more of this heat I could tolerate.

But then I spied a car coming down and duly shouted this out (though given I am 5ft 4in, I don’t know why the 6ft 2in man with the wife with rheumatoid arthritis (not present – he told me about her – I tell you we were A COMMUNITY) didn’t spot it first).  And the excitement was palpable.  Even more when we saw the number plates were “Advance”.

Then a very portly gentlemen with a sort of Bendeguz moustache cried dramatically “there’s another car” which was soon joined by my “and there are MOTORCYCLE OUTRIDERS following”.  I was so nervous I began to shake and my heart was pounding.  Like I was going on a date.

And then there they were.  The whole entourage headed down the Melbourne Avenue exit.  Both Beasts with flags.  The security detail (complete with the open boot/trunk – which I initially thought must be a SNAFU***, but then I saw it on the news so it must be SOP****).  And because we were at an intersection, they had to really slow down to make a right turn so it wasn’t just a rush-by.  Then I really started crying.

Fred Ex and Charlotte were beside themselves.  ”I saw him, he was in the second car on the right-hand side, the media guys TOLD US“, Fred Ex shrieked.

What the FUCK??? Why had Fred Ex not shared this information with US?  Chip and I were both looking into each car not knowing which one carried the President.  But nonetheless I was waving frantically and smiling and even wolf-whistling at one point hoping he could see my (not GW Bush) Commander-In-Chief t-shirt.

But we were there. We saw the convoy and we KNEW he was in one of those cars.   We were as close as the Secret Service mandated 20ft perimeter would permit.  And once we got to the Yarralumla Cake Shop.  We saw it.  Chip had the money shot. More sort of shocked sobbing.  As I said to someone at work yesterday:  it was not very enjoyable most of the time and was a trial some of the time, and we were hot and thirsty and there was too much waking for my liking:  but it really really was worthwhile.  Until a colleague sent me an email today in response to my excited email complete with boastful pictures: “humph – not much POTUS.”  As Jonah from Summer Heights would say:  ”Puck you, miss”.

*  Situation Reports.  I am trying to use as many acronyms as possible which I suspect will become very tiresome for readers

** Australian Federal Police

*** Situation Normal All Fucked Up

**** Standard Operating Procedure