I'm one of those sickos who loves to fly, and the flight back was a very interesting one. We passed directly over the famous Uluru (formerly Ayer's Rock), but it wasn't until we were already well past that I noticed our flight path took us right over it. Bummer. North and west from there is some serious desert. There was nothing -- not a house, not a road, nothing -- for about 400 miles. Drawing on their most imaginative thinkers, the Aussies have named this the Great Sandy Desert. (The name is even more embarassing when you learn that the region is almost devoid of sand.) We flew off of Australia near Derby, then south under Bali and Lombok (we could see the volcanos again), over Java, and up the Javan Sea, over very many small uninhabited islands and atolls.

Entertainment on international flights just gets better and better. Every chair had its own little video screen, as is now the norm, but now there were over 30 movies to choose from, and you could pause and rewind all you want. In addition there were tv shows, video games, news, and a do-it-yourself playlist for music where you could pick songs from about fifty different albums. I can't wait to read back on this in ten years and laugh at how paltry it is. And I'm still waiting for the free in-flight internet access.