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

Our journey to Sydney, Australia to catch the Seabourn Odyssey back to Hawaii begins with a Qantas flight.  This will be only my second flight on this airline, but my first one was a doozy.  Papua New Guinea was the 201st country to visit this blog site.    In 2012 I posted on a trip   I had nearly a quarter century before that year.  This adventure was published in   SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity .  Incidentally, if you haven't read this book, here is the back cover. Here is partly what the final chapter reported. I traveled to the Independent State of  Papua New Guinea  ( PNG ) in 1989, no doubt one of the three most stressful experiences of my life. Most of what follows comes from pure memory, although I do keep files of all my trips, and I did obtain a conference proceedings of why I went there, which was because a professor friend from Michigan convinced me that I should give a talk at his energy conference in PNG, where he had temporarily moved. The  U.S. State Department now