An 0500 pickup to check in for our trans-Tasman flight.
Check-in and security were easy, and so we had time for
breakfast at the Manaia lounge, where I learned what a
long flat white was but feasted on a nice spicy bhujiya
mix with a bottle of Steinlager, a refreshing but
characterless beer, from the self-serve cooler.

QF 138 CHC SYD 0655 0830 738 5BC

This was another perfectly fine flight, short but with
lots of extra time built into the schedule in the modern
style. We used a bit of that extra time owing to turbulence
en route and during descent. On the plane, as it was an
international flight, free-flow beer and wine, so Lilli
caught up with me and had a Hahndorf Shiraz, and I had
a Coke and some kind of crunchy salty snack.

QF 741 SYD ADL 1035 1215 738 6BC

We were invited to the business lounge, where I tried to
get a glass of wine for Lilli and discovered that the bar
didn't open until noon. Some guy who had seen me sucking
down my beer in Christchurch laughed at me with the
observation that Australia was nowhere near so
civilized as New Zealand..

Glen was going to be off busy someplace, so there was extra
time, so we recouped at the Adelaide Qantas Club, where I
fired up the Internet hoping to see a message saying we'd be
picked up at the airport, but no, so we relaxed with pressed
salami and Swiss sandwiches (handmade by me) and several
glasses of actually not bad mass-market red. The Gentlemen's
Collection #3 Cabernet 17, made by one of the big concerns,
is adulterated with Port, which gives it additional
sweetness, fruitiness, and market appeal. It was plummy and
rich and went well with the sandwiches. 19 Crimes Shiraz 17
was naturally sweet and otherwise not too different.

The buses were frequent, and our connection was easy:
Glen's directions given this round were quite different
from those he'd told me before, and there were maybe six
blocks' less walking. These involved going in the wrong
direction for a block (engineers don't do this voluntarily)
to the previous bus stop than before. All told, just an hour;
a taxi would have taken 25 or so and cost many times as much.

There's a supermarket on the way home - this Iraqi fellow had
a little meat market, which he'd run with some success for many
years, but when the big IGA across the street went under, he
bought it and now operates that as well (under both his name
and IGA's). Both are halal (Glen's neighborhood is now a mixed
but mostly Muslim community). I bought some beef for dinner -
Australian rumpsteak, AUD6 a pound, competently butchered but
thin cut in the local style. The meat had a very strong
beefiness as one might expect from native grass-fed cattle.

I pan-broiled the meat (to Jason's delight, as he keeps nagging
his father to buy more red meat - he's an armed security guard
and bodybuilder) and served it with garlic butter mashed
potatoes and Greek string beans (made with excellent Iranian
tomato paste from the IGA). This menu met with general approval.
We had cask red to go with it all, but I stuck with water.

Jemiah, Glen's granddaughter, had made a chocolate cake for
a home economics type class, and that served well for afters.

To go with the Ray Ward I made meat sauce out of lean beef
mince and more Takdaneh tomato paste, with onions and garlic
and some elderly spices from the Jamieson stash. Let it sit a
couple days for the flavors to marry, a good thing but more
importantly because Kevin couldn't make it for a couple days.
This meant that Lilli wouldn't get to taste the legendary wine.
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