If I don't ever fly Qantas domestic, that would be OK with me. Compared to US carriers, their staff are equally friendly (or even friendlier), but other than that their service leaves something to be desired, both in food quality and onboard comfort. My flight from Sydney to Melbourne wedged me into a seat so small that I literally got stuck between the armrests, so I splurged (about US$72) and upgraded to business class. As a bonus, I wrote most of a column on the plane, so I suppose it was a worthwhile trip.

I never did find the Sydney temple, either. None of the temple web pages provide specific street directions; most people here are perfectly OK with the idea of saying 'go to the corner of so-and-so, then walk three blocks on the little path you see.' The problem is that not every street is labeled so that ignorant Yanks can find it. To top things off, I had trouble with the trains, which do not in fact stop at every stop shown on the route map. It took me a couple of overshoots and line changes to get to the right stop, then when I couldn't actually find the temple I had to bug out and return to the airport so I wouldn't miss my flight. There's always next time.

People in Sydney and Melbourne kept telling me that Adelaide was a quiet little town, even though it has about 1 million people. Flying in, it certainly looked that way-- the city is a green square with lots of little red tile-roofed houses dotting through it. The city proper is a big rectangle with streets laid out in a grid; the metro area is surrounded by mountains. When I got to the airport, we deplaned through two sets of boarding stairs, and I was surprised to find the airport to be about the size of the one in Huntsville.

Whatever its other faults, Adelaide at least has one good ward of the church. Perhaps this is unsurprising, given its nickname as the City of Churches (and indeed, there are lots of imposing old churches scattered around). I attended services at the Prospect ward in the Firle stake, and had a very pleasant visit. It's nice to be able to pick up and move 9,000 miles, then attend a church with the same hymnal and basic principles; I saw in the news that Jimmy Carter had cut ties with the Southern Baptists, but that it was OK because each Southern Baptist church was autonomous anyway, and decides on its own doctrine. That would seem to be an awfully loose way to work, since it depends on each pastor basically making up his own interpretation of church doctrine.

Anyway, after church I went back to the hotel, changed clothes, and headed for the Adelaide International Rose Show 2000, held at the Adelaide Botanical Garden. In a typical display of Aussie good sense, the garden is right next to the Royal Hospital, and I saw a number of patients out taking the fresh air. The show was actually in two parts: the botanical garden has a rose display garden, and then the show area was created out on a lawn. It was probably typical for a garden show; I don't exactly frequent them, so I assume the large number of sweet little old ladies was normal for an event like this. The roses, though, were beautiful, and I saw some varieties I hadn't seen before, as well as some old favorites.

I don't remember the name of this rose (I want to say "Peace"), but it was so pretty I had to take a picture of it.

Another pretty variety that I hadn't ever heard of before.

The nametag on the right says that this is called "Country Women of Australia", so I decided it was worth a picture too.

Although it's hard to tell in this picture, this is the world-famous Mr. Lincoln, preferred rose of the Bloch & Robichaux families.

As for the garden itself, it was very pleasant, but it didn't have either the range of species or the presentation of the Melbourne garden-- no bats, and only about 40% native Australian species. It still made for a very pleasant outing, though, especially after I bought an ice cream cone. After the show, it was time to go set up at the restaurant where the class is being held. It's out in the middle of Veale Park, and they apparently do a booming business in wedding receptions and the like.

No update from yesterday, since I did nothing except teach all day and come back to the hotel to write. Even in a relatively exotic place like Adelaide, some days are just plain dull. As a matter of fact, the highlight yesterday was the lunchtime walk I took around Veale Park, which has some very nice rose gardens (I didn't take any pictures, though).

Today was another ordinary day. Arlene asked me to get a history book for the older kids at the boys' school, since they're studying Australia. After consulting with my students, I went to the bookstore at Rundle Mall (a big open-air street mall kind of place) and found a copy of Chronicle Australia, a really neat collection of newspaper articles that (surprise) chronicle Australian history. I was going to include a link to the book's page at Dymock's, but guess what? They have nothing like the book-specific pages you'd see at Amazon.com. That means you'll have to get your own copy if you want to see it (hint: Amazon doesn't seem to stock it, so you may have to go to Australia to get it.)

Afterwards, I had some time to kill and ended up at a movie theater, where I saw The Dish. It's a sweet, likable movie about the staff at the Australian radiotelescope station at Parkes, near Sydney. It's a little-known but true fact that Parkes was used to relay much of the Apollo traffic when the moon was visible in the southern hemisphere-- including during Neil Armstrong's initial moonwalk. The movie was pleasant, funny, and had a solid core of humanity to it; the characters were believable, and there wasn't so much Aussie slang that I couldn't follow it. Two thumbs up. The guys in my class have been raving about it, and I decided I'd kick myself if I got back to the States without seeing it-- we don't get a lot of furrin films in Athens. If you happen to live somewhere that it's playing, go see it. It was AUS$8 (or about US$4) well-spent.

Plus, I got to eat popcorn! Unlike Americans, Aussies only apparently eat popcorn at movie theaters. After tasting the popcorn at this particular theater, I can certainly see why. However, even dry, over-crunchy popcorn is better than none at all.

Well, I'm officially heading home. Right now I'm in the Ansett Gold Wing lounge in Adelaide, courtesy of my United Premier Executive card, which I got by faxing United a copy of my Delta Gold Medallion statement. Airlines are always trying to steal each others' best customers, so United was happy to award me a status I don't deserve in the hope that I'll switch to them. I can't, since United has approximately zero flights in the southeast. On the other hand, comping me to this status level induced me to fly United to get to and from Australia, so there must be something to it after all.

My class finished about 3pm today, a little earlier than usual. I packed everything up and headed back to the hotel; once I was finished packing, I decided to light out for Melbourne tonight. Why? Because my flight tomorrow would have left at 0650, meaning that to meet the international checkin rules I'd have to be at the airport at 0450. I don't think so. This way, I can sleep to a reasonable time, then roll to the airport about 0815 or so, a much more reasonable approach.

On the way to the airport, I stopped at the Adelaide temple and took a few pictures. The temple is about the same size as the one in Birmingham, and of roughly the same construction. However, the marble used here was quarried in Italy, and it's supposedly a very close match to the color of the Salt Lake City temple. The grounds are beautiful, and the weather today couldn't have been nicer. Too bad I'm going to be trapped in airplanes for most of the next two days.

One good thing: I picked up a book I've been looking for for about five years now. It's called Bravo Two Zero; it's the real-life story of a British Special Air Service team that got stuck inside Iraq during the Gulf War. At least I'll have something interesting to read.