First, a couple of newsworthy items.  Donald Trump could be indicted on Thursday . Second,  Japan beat the USA  to win the championship of the World Baseball Classic.      Ohtani struck out Trout to end the game. We're now cruising Australia, and I was somewhat surprised about how large it is, and how similar our countries look with the South Pole at the top. Did not realize how large Russia was.  In square miles of land. World  57,510,000 Russia  6,323,740 Antarctica  5,500,000 China  3,600,950 Canada  3,511,023 USA  3,531,905 Brazil  3,266.584 Australia  2,947,336 India  1,147,960 Argentina  1,056,640 Kazakhstan  1,042,400 Algeria  919,595 Not only does Australia have about the same shape as the U.S., but we are almost the same size. Australia is more than 2.5 times larger than India. However, Australia ranks #55 in number of people with 26.4 million. Madagascar and Nepal with 30 million each have more people. Yemen has 34 million and Canada has 39 million. The U.S. has around 3

This was our best day on our trip so far.  However, first, Australia has some strange time zones.  We just changed our watches by 30 minutes, traveling south and west of Sydney along the coastline below the yellow zone. So what time is the Academy Awards program on TV?  Yes, it is being shown live on this ship.  Let's see now, New York start time is 8PM on Sunday.  Sydney is 16 hours ahead, so that would be 12 noon on Monday.  But wait, the USA just went on daylight savings time last night, so that would be 11AM.  Except we just moved half an hour towards, or is it away, from New York.  So 10:30AM?  Then on April 2,  Australia goes into Daylight Savings Time . Anyway, I am watching the Oscars as I write this blog, and for lunch plan to order a cheeseburger with beer and a red wine, plus Caesar salad, to continue viewing the program. Yesterday on the second sea-day we had a decent lunch with side skirt steak, chicken, Caesar salad, tomato soup and rosé. Then on to a Global Wine Ques

We were told by Qantas to arrive at the airport three hours early.  So we got there 3 hours and 15 minutes early, and expected to at least be able to check-in.  Nope, we waited half an hour.  Anyway, their lounge was fine, except the plane left an hour late.  Those negatives aside, the experience on board was wonderful.  Service good and food excellent. This was a 10.5 hour flight, so we got two full meals.  The first one started with an excellent appetizer, as you can see. The main entré was salmon, then a beef tagliatelle.  The wines were Australian, and throughout the flight I had their Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Shiraz.  All excellent.  I also tried their late harvest white and red.  These are served from the traditional skinny bottles.  Food to pair with cheeses and other pre- and end-of-meal dishes.  Beginning with the the lounge, I think I kept my imbibition to fewer than 13. Watched three films, two of them linked to my life.  The first one, which wasn't, the 2022  Tic