Back from Sydney, and a delightful week it was. A touch on the chilly side, with daytime highs in the low 60s, but having just endured the southern California heatwave -- 2 weeks of 100+ temperatures -- a bit of chill wasn't entirely unwelcome.

On the culinary side of things, I'm still trying to understand the Australian fascination with pumpkin soup and banana bread, both of which appeared on almost every restaurant menu I saw. My one big splurge-y expensive meal was at Nick's Bar and Grill, near the aquarium, where I had grilled kangaroo, which was very tasty and not nearly as gamy as I'd expected, and a superb dessert of sticky date pudding served in a pool of hot butterscotch sauce (the best butterscotch I've ever tasted) with vanilla ice cream.

The happiest accident of the trip was going to the Powerhouse Museum (the museum of science and technology) on my last day, and finding a special exhibit on the first 50 years of Australian television.

Saw a good movie, and went to a pair of concerts, which I'll detail in their own posts.