Back and recovering...

A good time was had by all, it appears. It would have been nice if the flight back hadn't been stuffed full but there's not a lot that can be done about that. My seatmates were an expat American retired to NZ and a charming young lady on her first flight, escorting her Chinese-speaking grandmother to California. It was nice to have an intelligent conversation with a teenager for a change (and we well-padded Americans were happy there was a tiny person in the middle seat.) Mr. NZ said recently he has been burning miles flying RTW awards and was "only" Premier Exec this year, and had tales of creative routings for others. He had a couple of paper systemwides in his pocket he was somewhat annoyed he couldn't use. This guy is a Milage Runner and just doesn't know it, I gave him the FT url to come check us out.

On the way out I almost had an E+ row to myself because there was nobody in the middle and the other person got upgraded at last minute. But someone asked to sit there and I had a great conversation with an older Australian guy returning home from several months wandering.

The sleepy drugs work well and the flight is much shorter when you spend a good chunk of it passed out. Also saves me from things like "Garfield: The Movie".

As for the visit, I had a great time running around with an online buddy shopping for spinning fiber and weird candy for JetDillo. It was amazingly fun and I want to go back.

Sgt C ended up staying at my hostel, which was ok as hostels go. We each had long-term residents as roommates, and his was apparently kinda cranky about being in Australia because he couldn't come up with enough money to get back home to the UK. Mine was Irish.

The area I stayed in, Coogee, was really nice and I went out hiking the oceanside trail at sunrise on Sunday. To say that it was beautiful doesn't begin to cover it. Monday I bummed around downtown and rode ferries all afternoon to give the developing blisters a break.