Short entry today, I'm currently sitting in the Gold Kris Lounge at the Singapore airport, after a very pleasant and uneventful first flight today from Adelaide to Singapore. Last night Tom, James, Kitty and I played a very good game of Monopoly. Last time we did this, in January, Tom creamed us with vast utility, transportation and real estate holdings, forcing Reinold, me and his cherished girl friend Kitty into shaming bankruptcy and ruin - and he gloated about it. I'm please to report that the rematch of last night saw James killing all of us with his significant hotel holdings on the dark green and blue streets (don't remember the names, they were unique to Australia). I told Tom karma was hell. We agreed another match would be played in January 2014...
This morning went out for a nice predawn walk with Fiona and Duke, then finished packing and Fiona took me to the airport - she was meeting coworkers flying in from Sydney and Melbourne, so we had a quick coffee before she was off, and I headed onto the 7 hour flight up here.
It is 88 degrees, or 31 degrees depending which system you are on, and very humid and rainy. Reinold encouraged me to go into to town for dinner (I have a six hour layover), and I did actually fill out the immigration form for Singapore, but it looked really miserable outside, and I am looking at almost another 20 hours in these clothes, so I'm parked for now in the airline club.
Today's flight took us pretty much north across the center of Australia - the pilot actually made an announcement that ATC gave him a routing deviation, and he was going to fly past Ayers Rock/Uluru for everyone to see, it was beautifully clear:
From 38,000 feet it looks pretty small, but I had the fortune of seeing it on my first trip to Australia in the early 1990's, it was astounding. It is also the spiritual center of the Aboriginal society, and is nowadays known more by the name of Uluru, versus Ayers Rock. Of course I was sitting on the wrong side of the plane, but a very nice Australian couple on their way to Italy for vacation let me stand in front of them to snap this - thank you Audrey and Howard (who both simply replied "pleasure").
I arrive Zurich at 6:10 tomorrow morning, then finally get to Birmingham around 8:15 BST, apparently the UK is having spectacular summer weather, I'm looking forward to getting back into shorts and sandals! Next entry from the Midlands, stay tuned.
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