Week ending 21-Dec

Michelle arrived back to Australia on Thursday morning which was very exciting!! In some ways 5 and a half weeks flew by but in some ways it felt like she'd been gone for ages! Work has been slowing down a bit leading into the holidays so I was able to see her for lunch and dinner on Thursday and then we got an early start to the weekend on Friday. We went to this restaurant in the Rocks called Phillip's Foote where you pick your own cut of meat and take it to the grill and BBQ it yourself…its kind of a fun concept (although it might just be their scheme to save on labor costs). Afterwards we saw the movie "Australia" which was kind of fun because of all the pretty outback scenes, but ultimately was a chick-flick love story. Entertaining enough though.

Saturday we made a revolutionary step in the world of the virtual power hour, v-power hour (copyright 2008). Eric Lee, in Chicago having just finished finals along with some of his friends there, and Michelle and I in Sydney, over video g-chat doing power hour (we flirted with the idea of extending to the century) to an hour long video of 80s tv show theme song intros. It was an epic event and one that we hope to repeat and expand on soon.

After a brief recovery Saturday afternoon, Michelle and I went out to "Carols in the Domain" which is a sydney christmas hallmark event. The domain is a big public park that is right next to the CBD and almost right up on the harbor and the event has probably around 20,000 (I'm guessing at the number, but it was a lot) people in attendance. People gather during the day and bring picnics etc and then in the evening various australian singers and choirs and groups sing carols on the stage while the throngs of people in attendance (many intoxicated) hold up candles and sing along. (giving that many open flames to drunk people can't be a good idea…) But it’s quite the feel good event that makes you think peace on earth can't be that far out of reach. On a sidenote, there is absolutely no political correctness here when it comes to talking about christmas/the holidays. You don't say happy holidays here, you say happy christmas and there is no mention of hanukkah whatsoever. Quite a contrast to new york.

Sunday michelle and I made christmas since we're going to be away on the 25th. We decorated the fake palm-like tree we have on our balcony and had a lovely pancake breakfast and opened a few presents. It was a very nice christmas morning.



In the afternoon we did one of our "urban" hikes around watson's bay to vaucluse. It was a really nice 9k walk that started on the pacific and went up to the south head and then along the harbour a bit…it was a gorgeous summer day (totally felt like Christmas…right). To wrap up our pseudo-christmas day we watched "fred claus" which was entertaining and anything with vince vaughn I enjoy.


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A link for more pics from our little hike:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=bqmhkbd.2y3a2kwh&x=0&y=-iwsu87&localeid=en_US

Week ending 14-Dec

We kicked the weekend off to an early start Friday afternoon with our desk’s Christmas lunch (would have been holiday lunch in new york, but things are a little less PC here). Having lunch in Australia is often a fairly drawn out affair and this was no exception. The food portion of the afternoon led into the drinks-focused portion of the afternoon/evening. Most of us didn’t leave our “lunch” until 8 or 9 in the evening. It was a fun one, things got pretty rowdy towards the end.

Saturday I had to sleep it off all morning but by the time I emerged from my second nap of the day in the mid afternoon it had become a perfect sunny warm day. I met up with a buddy and we had a very late brunch (I don’t know if you can still call it that at 4pm?) and then went to a friend’s housewarming party in Darling Point. Darling Point is a quiet little suburb right up on the harbor and this apartment was a classic Sydney place with huge windows all along the side that open up onto the back patio/side patio area that has so many tropical plants you could kind of feel like you’re in the jungle (well, not really, but it was cool). We ended up staying there for quite a while and had a good time, made a few new friends, had a few good Australian beers, all in all a lovely evening.

Sunday I woke up early to blazing sunshine and a brilliantly blue sky. I caught the bus out to Bondi Beach which is the beginning of a 12km “cliff walk” that goes along a few beaches. Michelle and I had done a portion of the walk before, but that was during the winter and I wanted to come back and do the whole thing on a beautiful summer day. The weather was great, had a few clouds start to roll in towards the end, but for the most part it was perfect. And the water along the beaches here is just so stunningly blue/green. I took a bunch of pictures, here are a few along with a link for more. (although at some point I guess all the pictures look kind of the same because its just beach after beach!)

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=bqmhkbd.49ni37v5&x=0&y=-8w1lh7&localeid=en_US

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Starting in Bondi you then hit Tamarama Beach, Bronte Beach, Clovelly is a little teeny beach, Coogee Beach and ends at Maroubra Beach where I caught a bus back to my place. Hung out at home for the rest of the evening, had a little spaghetti and watched a movie. Another lovely summer weekend in Sydney. And my last one as a bachelor because Michelle gets back on Thursday!

Week ending 07-Dec: Surfing

Great weekend this weekend, which was accommodated largely by the great weather we had. Thursday night was a GSJBW holiday party for the securities division (which I’m technically not in but they still invite us to their party thankfully) and its clients. The location of the party was really quite stunning, down right on the harbor in the royal botanic gardens. It was outside but underneath these huge tents. I didn’t have my camera with me but I’ve taken a picture of the exact view before:

Kind of an iconic Sydney view I’d have to say. Party was fun, even though it was 98% people I didn’t know (mostly clients of the firm). And one of the drinks they were serving was this frozen mango and champagne drink which might have been the most delicious beverage I’ve ever had. Danger was it didn’t taste like it had any alcohol…you know how that story goes.

I ended up going to sleep incredibly early Friday night because I was completely exhausted so I woke up a little after 6am Saturday and it was a perfect and gorgeous morning. Warm, blue sky, sunny, the works. I had booked myself into a surfing lesson for that morning so I took the ferry over to Manly Beach and got geared up.

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There were probably about 20 of us in the lesson and 5 instructors. They told us little bits of wisdom while we were on the beach and then we’d go into the water to try it out. Then we’d come back to the beach to get a bit more wisdom and try the next step. So after a few iterations we were in the water, trying to catch waves and stand ourselves up. It is way harder than it seems like it should be! Towards the end I did manage to stand myself up a couple of times, albeit very briefly. At the very end of the class, after going through a number of repetitions I felt like I knew what I had to do but at that point I was pretty physically exhausted from battling the ocean for a few hours that it was hard to actually do it anymore. All in all, it was tough, but I did stand up which was my goal going in and it was so so fun! I’m excited to get back out there and do it again. I had someone take a picture of me on my best wave when I stood up as you can see below.

Alright, just kidding, not yet, but give me a few years maybe? No, probably not then either. Oh well. To complement my very Australian morning I BBQed kangaroo in the late afternoon for lunch/dinner. Surfing and BBQing kangaroo…I don’t know if you can get much more Australian, right?

Sunday I skyped for a good bit with my parents, sister, bro-in-law and nephew who are all currently in Colorado. Super sad that I couldn’t be with them but skype is a great thing when you’re halfway around the world. In the afternoon I went to the Sydney Observatory where they used to study astronomy back in the day but now is a museum. Lots of interesting stuff about the constellations in the southern hemisphere that you don’t necessarily learn much about in the u.s. Also walked around “the rocks” which is a neighborhood kind of near the foot of the harbor bridge…it’s got a quaint, old timey kind of feel with lots of little pubs and shops. I’m putting that on my list of areas of the city I’d like to spend a little more time. Otherwise BBQed a bit for dinner and am crashing extremely early tonight…I think my body is still tired from surfing!

A chair christmas tree in the rocks!

The Sydney Observatory

Week ending 30-Nov

Thanksgiving was of course this week and it was very sad to not be able to celebrate in the usual way! No turkey for me but I did manage to get away from the office for dinner and had a relatively American-ish meal in honor of the day: a burger and a beer. Not your typical Thanksgiving food but it did the job as well as it could. Friday night was our firmwide end of the year/holiday party. It was at the overseas passenger terminal which is down on the harbor right across from the opera house. It was a pretty cool spot actually and after torrential downpours all day the weather actually let up a bit and we had a nice night. Otherwise another pretty chilled out weekend. Sunday was a gorgeous day (the first weekend day that was nice in a couple weeks) and I had been thinking about going and taking a surfing lesson but I ended up having to go to work for a few hours which kind of killed that plan. Maybe I’ll get out there next weekend.

Now its time for the second installment of “A day in the life of Jesse, Australia-style.” I put up a few photos a couple months back of our apartment before we got furniture but now that we’ve been furnished for a good two months I decided its time to take a few more photos of our place when it’s not completely bare. Follow the link for the photos (and descriptions).

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=bqmhkbd.6ert4h49&x=0&y=9wwmes&localeid=en_US

Week ending 23-Nov

We had yet another weekend in Sydney where the weather did not cooperate. Friday was a gorgeous perfect day and Monday is forecast to be a gorgeous perfect day, but Saturday and Sunday were cool, cloudy and rainy. Awesome. Pretty low key weekend overall…I went out with some work colleagues Friday after work and Saturday night a friend had a Thanksgiving party (a Thanksgiving party without any Thanksgiving food though) that was fun.

Since its another slow news week here, I’m going to bring the first installment (probably first out of one) of “A day in the life of jesse, Australia-style.” This week’s installment is my morning walk to work so you can see the sights I see each morning as I head to the office. It’s a lovely 20 to 25 minute walk to start the day (unless its raining in which case I take the bus). Pictures are in the link and in case you don’t want to follow the link, I’ve put a couple of the views from my office below. Not a bad view right? Its funny how quickly you can get used to something like that and start taking it for granted!

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http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=bqmhkbd.4pm0qlll&x=0&y=m0202e&localeid=en_US

Week ending 16-Nov

Pretty uneventful week and weekend here in Sydney. I survived the workweek without all that much interesting to report. Friday I went out after work and found this great outdoor bar right in the CBD that was completely packed…pretty interesting crowd. The sky of course decided to open up and we had a booming thunderstorm which isn’t the best thing to have when you’re at an outdoor bar. Saturday night I met up with a friend and went to a pretty out of the way pub in a suburb outside the main part of the city. Definitely had more of a “local” type feel as opposed to pubs in Sydney where you get all different kinds of people from all over the place. Sunday was a day of errands and chores, but I managed to skype with my adorable nephew Kai who is speaking fairly coherently now and knows who his Uncle Jesse is. He gave me a “fist-bump” over skype. And michelle happens to be in Durango visiting my sister and Tod this weekend, so it was fun to get to skype with a group of some of my favorite people all at once, but I was extremely jealous that they were all together without me! Skype is a pretty great technology…to be able to have such great quality video from literally halfway around the globe for free isn’t bad. If any of you are on skype and want to skype it up, let me know!

Week ending 09-Nov: Golfing in the southern highlands

It was an eventful week last week in Australia (and the world I suppose). Tuesday was Melbourne Cup day which is the "race that stops a nation" I believe they say. It’s another horse race, the culminating event of the spring carnival and it’s a public holiday in the state of Victoria (where Melbourne is) and in other parts of the country businesses close down and people generally take the day off. So everyone dispersed from work mid-morning…lots of people went to the big track in Sydney where they were having a huge event and watching the race on giant screens, but I decided I'd had enough horse racing recently and wasn't particularly in the mood for a boozy Tuesday afternoon. I just find it interesting how into horse racing everyone here is!

Wednesday was of course the day of the U.S. election down here. Results started coming in around 11am and we had the tvs in our office on cnn all day. I don't think anyone really did much work because everyone was so into the election. In our department of 80 or so people, I'd guess there would have been maybe 5 or 6 that weren't backing Obama (telling about what the rest of the world thinks even if the U.S. is pretty evenly split). It was so exciting to see the outcome and I thought Obama's speech was incredibly powerful and moving. I met up with a few of my American friends in the afternoon and we did a little celebrating…it was a great afternoon!

Saturday Michelle abandoned me by flying back to the U.S. for almost 6 weeks. It was very sad having her leave, but I've been doing the best I can to cope. I've decided the best way to not let myself fall into a depression is be as social as I can (which often is not my first instinct, haha). So Saturday night I had a couple drinks with a friend from work who almost convinced me to stay out for a big night which would have been disastrous because I had to get up at the crack of dawn Sunday morning.

Sunday we had a big golf day/BBQ for work…we drove down to this country club in the "southern highlands" about 2 hours south/southwest of Sydney. I had to get up before 6am which was painful, but it was a great day so was worth it. Golfing was extremely fun and we played an "ambrose" style of scoring which means you're playing with a partner and you each hit from the same spot and take the best shot out of the two of you (and then both hit from that spot again). The format meant that when I was able to hit some decent shots it was good but all the times I was wide left or wide right or in the drink or whatever, my partner was able to carry the team (and thankfully my partner was a very good golfer). I played better than I expected and it was a gorgeous course and great day so was really fun. Makes me want to play golf every once in a while. After golfing we went to Mike's farmhouse (Mike is my boss) for the BBQ. He has a ton of land in the southern highlands and they raise horses (he stays in Sydney during the week and is only down there on weekends). A bunch of others from work who didn't golf met up and we had a great time…nice change of scenery from the city just being out in the middle of nowhere pretty much under the blue sky and sun with some food and grog. Overall it was a fantastic Sunday.

Week ending 02-Nov: Derby Day

Michelle and I flew to Melbourne (pronounced by aussies mel-bin) early Friday morning so we could be around for the first couple days of the melbourne cup carnival, which is the country's biggest horse racing event of the year (and they take their horse racing very seriously!). The carnival goes from Saturday through Tuesday, with the Melbourne Cup race held on Tuesday afternoon. While that race is the biggest single race, Derby Day, on Saturday, is evidently the rowdiest, most fun day of the carnival to attend. We left Sydney at a time when the street outside our apartment was literally swarming with people who were just coming out of bars and clubs ending their nights as we headed to the airport to start our day (the fact that I couldn't imagine being out till that time and had absolutely zero desire to be so made me feel old). We got to Melbourne and I found my way up to our office there…a much smaller office than Sydney but pretty nice actually. Michelle and I meandered around the CBD a bit at lunchtime Friday and then in the evening before having dinner…the city definitely gives a different vibe than Sydney, a little more laid-back perhaps. Architecturally Melbourne has a bit more of a European flavor, but it doesn't have the iconic landmarks that Sydney has (the harbor, the opera house, the bridge). Melbourne does have a much more lively CBD, whereas Sydney's CBD largely shuts down in the evening after work, in Melbourne's there are bars and restaurants that attract crowds much later into the evening.

Saturday we got up and after having breakfast (have I mentioned that Australia in general doesn't seem to really be into the breakfast/brunch scene like the U.S. does…you can get eggs and toast in a restaurant but that's generally the only breakfast option) we headed off to the race track. The train station was packed with people getting on these trains, but luckily they had it pretty well planned so there were trains running like every 4 minutes so it didn't take long. The racetrack was much bigger and grander than Sydney's (where we were a couple weeks back) and the scene was similarly amped up…just thousands and thousands of people there to party and watch the races…guys in suits and ties (often crazy and colorful) and girls in dresses and with either some ridiculous hat or hair piece of some sort. I don't quite understand why it is that people do that for these type of events, but I find it extremely entertaining! We stayed at the races for the better part of the day, wandering the grounds, seeing the races, etc. It was cloudy for most of the day but the sun came out in the late afternoon which was nice. After a long nap, we woke up and it kind of felt like a new day which was a little bit trippy…we headed back out to do a bit more exploring of some of the outer neighborhoods north of the city and to have dinner. We ended up in the italian area of town on a street that is just lined with italian restaurants…reminds me of little italy in NYC in that at each restaurant you have someone out on the street trying to talk you into coming into their restaurant to eat. We found a place that was a little less pushy and had a nice dinner.

Sunday we headed south to the "southbank" neighborhood, had brunch and walked along the

river a bit before heading out on what turned out to be a journey of epic proportions to the beachside suburb of St. Kilda. The walk was longer than we had thought and it ended up being a hot and muggy day so we were pretty drained by the time we got there. We walked around a bit, saw the market, went to the amusement park (although none of the rides were enticing enough to go on) and saw the little harbour which was very pretty. But we were pretty much done for and couldn't stay outside much longer (for those of you who know michelle, you know she really doesn't function well in the heat). By that time we pretty much had to head back into the city and get our things together to get out to the airport for our flight back. It was a fun weekend and I liked Melbourne a lot, but I have to say I'm glad to be in Sydney…you just can't beat the sheer beauty of Sydney's harbour (although its probably not fair to judge Melbourne on a little less than 3 days there but oh well, I just did).

Some more pics:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=bqmhkbd.7kk2zuk1&x=0&y=tjfolp&localeid=en_US

Now its time to count down the days to the election!

Week ending 26-Oct: The Beach and Rugby

Had a slightly more stable week at work this past week, although we've still been working hard to get this trade over the line with, as of yet, nothing to show for it. Still working on it. The weekend was pretty relaxed…Saturday we spent most of the day at the beach at Manly just a short ferry ride on the other side of the harbour. It’s a beautiful beach and we were planning on venturing out and trying surfing, but the water is still freezing cold so would have required a wetsuit. We decided we'll wait on the surfing until the water warms up a bit. But it was very relaxing just lounging around and the people watching there was second to none.

On the ferry back from Manly

Sunday we did a bunch of little chores that we'd been putting off for a while so actually got quite a bit of stuff done, most notably we booked our trip to New Zealand at xmas/new years time…very exciting! Haven't completely figured out all the details, but we have plane tix and a rental car and a decent idea of where we want to go and what we want to see. More on that to come of course. We also managed to take advantage of technology and had a nice long skype with my sister and brother-in-law and my little nephew Kai who is adorable. He demonstrated his incredible intelligence by being able to point to his nose, eyes and ears (and when he was asked to point to Uncle Jesse's nose he pointed to my nose on the computer screen…not bad!) We also watched a great classic (?) australian movie: Priscilla Queen of the Desert. It’s a movie about drag queens travelling from Sydney into the middle of the outback to perform a show…pretty random, but kind of hilarious and fun to see some of the places in the "bush" that we're planning to get to eventually.

We capped the weekend off by going to a rugby match at the Sydney Football Stadium (which conveniently is walking distance from our apartment) on Sunday night. The Rugby League World Cup is I believe an annual event that is played between the big rugby playing countries who take turns hosting the event. This year Australia is the host and we caught Australia's opening match played against New Zealand (who is of course Australia's big rival). The rivalry is pretty intense and by the end of the match the rowdiness was pretty elevated. Everyone will be glad to know that fans at Australian sporting events do "the wave" almost exactly as fans in the U.S. do. Except this version involved throwing things in the air in addition to standing up and throwing your arms in the air and it seemed to gain a crazy sort of intensity as it went around a few times. I guess that's the Aussie version. Anyways, Australia won and it was a fun game to go to.

Week ending 19-Oct: Horse Racing at Randwick

This past week was a pretty brutal one at work for me so I was feeling pretty exhausted this weekend. We still managed to make it out to the horse races during the day on Saturday at Randwick. Horse racing here is a big deal so this race is something lots of Sydneysiders attend and it was quite a scene. Everyone gets dressed up to the nines but in a very colorful way. Whereas I get mocked at work for wearing a turquoise shirt, the races were the perfect time for it. And women do wear either big gaudy hats or some big flower thing in the hair. The people watching was really quite spectacular, really makes me wish we had events like that in the U.S. where people get all dressed up and look silly. One of the more amusing things about the whole scene is there are really two distinct groups of people enjoying the event: youngerish people like us who go, have some drinks, maybe place some bets, but its essentially a big social scene and then older, wealthier people who go probably to watch the races and make big bets. These two groups are somewhat separated at the venue but since I got tickets from my boss, we were allowed into the “members” area to witness what its like for the latter group. Pretty interesting contrast…but I think we all had much more fun out with the riffraff. Michelle and I are going to “Derby Days” which is a big horse racing event in Melbourne in a couple weeks and I think the scene there is supposed to be even more over the top than at Randwick…Should be fun.

Other than that, I had a decent bit of work over the weekend but we also squeezed in a quick game of tennis Sunday morning which was nice. I caught up on as much sleep as I could so as to not start next week with a sleep deficit. Not sure I succeeded though.

A link to some more pictures from the race day:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.6h4n4pbp&x=0&y=-w927a5&localeid=en_US

Week ending 12-Oct

This week was a short work week since we had Monday off and we had our IBD offsite starting Thursday night and all day Friday. Part of the offsite on Friday was “team building” which meant we went to the Paddington Bowling Club and did some lawn bowling. Lawn bowling is awesome…its just a bunch of people out on this well manicured grassy area bowling balls down trying to get as close to the target as possible. Very simple, but when you’re out on a beautiful day, with a little competition between co-workers and a beer in hand, it makes for an excellent afternoon. My team got to the finals actually, out of about 30 or so teams where we were defeated by the Kiwi team (which to everyone else on the team made losing that much worse evidently). I’m planning on bringing lawn bowling with me back to the US; quite a good time. The conference ended with the big party Friday night at this club in the CBD which was fun…we stayed out later than I usually do these days. Otherwise the weekend was pretty low key at home, lovely weather as always these days, went down to the pool for a bit and BBQed burgers for dinner. It was sad however, that this weekend was our 5 year Stanford reunion so all of our friends were out at Stanford which was quite a bummer to miss. But that’s the price of living in Australia I guess!

Week ending 05-Oct: Tasmania

Michelle left for Tasmania Monday afternoon with two of her uni friends so I had to survive the week solo before joining up with them. They went into Launceston in the north and did a loop on the east coast of the state before getting to Hobart (the largest city in Tassie) Friday morning to get me from the airport. Tasmania, in general, is about as opposite of a large, crowded city as you can get. There was actually a little traffic getting out of Hobart, but once we got into the countryside, other people and other cars were few and far between. We went up to the top of Mt. Wellington, which overlooks the Hobart area to get a view…its up pretty high and a few flakes of snow were actually coming down…it was freezing cold! (which was even more shocking when compared to how warm Sydney was that morning when I left). From there we went out to Mt. Field National Park and did a little hike up into the forest to a couple of waterfalls. We wanted to go deeper into the park to explore a bit more but it was already pretty late in the day and the animals were out in large quantity all over the place so driving on the road became quite challenging to not hit wallabies and other things popping out in front of the car so we decided to turn back so as to not contribute to the roadkill tally. We did have a close call with a wallaby as we were getting close to our destination…the thing was out in the road and completely froze as we were coming towards it before hopping into our path as I was slamming on the brakes (thankfully everyone survived the incident completely unscathed).

After spending the night in Tarraleah in this somewhat random "resort" that kind of had a Dharma Initiative feel about it (a la Lost), we continued north towards Lake St. Clair in the southern end of Cradle Mountain/Lake St. Clair National Park. We had hopes of climbing up a couple of mountains in the park but it was way too early in the season and snows still made the trails impassable towards the top. So instead we did a long hike up to a small lake and then looped back along Lake St. Clair on the way back. The weather was completely schizophrenic, going from dumping rain, to sunny and back repeatedly. (On a sidenote, the one thing that we had shipped over that is still being held by Australian quartantine are my hiking boots…evidently they were caked with dirt so they're either going to be steam cleaned or "destroyed" to make sure some weird bacteria or germ isn't introduced into Australia. So I was unfortunately reduced to hiking in sneakers which held up very poorly to the rainy, wet, marshy conditions). Anyways, the hike was nice and the highlight was at the end when we made a little detour down to what is called "Platypus Bay" where we ended up seeing a platypus swimming through the water right in front of us! There was also the most amazing rainbow that went down into the lake with the strongest colors. Pretty awesome. From that area we drove north towards the Cradle Mountain part of the park, making a few stops for short walks along the way. Michelle also spotted an echidna on the side of the road which is her new favorite animal.

The next morning we got up early and set out on a hike around Dove Lake which is one of the lakes at the base of Cradle Mountain. The weather was again somewhat questionable so the top of the mountain wasn't quite out, but the views were still pretty great. Towards the end of the circuit we went up on a side trail that climbs up pretty high to a viewpoint looking down on a few lakes with the mountain in the distance. It was a straight uphill kind of thing but the views at the top were worth it. As we were about to head back down it started sleeting on us and the wind picked up so it was pretty cold and my sneakers were failing pretty significantly against the elements so it was a cold hike back to the visitor center. From there we went to this reserve for Tasmanian Devils. Tassie Devils have had a huge reduction in population over the recent few years largely due to a disease that is spreading rapidly through the population. There are a few private and government run institutes that are trying to preserve them but the way things are going they're running the risk of going extinct in the near future. It was fascinating to see the devils right there in front of you…we saw a few of them get a bit of wallaby meat and the ensuing fight went on for probably an hour, just a 4 way tug of war over this carcass. They were actually pretty cute little things though and I think are often misrepresented as ferocious nasty things that will attack humans even though its not true. As we were leaving, we could see off in the distance that Cradle Mountain had come completely out of the clouds so we drove back to Dove Lake so we could get the view of the whole mountain below the clouds. From there we drove north to the coast for a complete change of scenery and spent the night in Stanley on the coast in the northwest of the state.

The morning was clear with blue sky (it didn't last long) and we took advantage by hiking up "the Nut" which is a volcanic rock formation that juts out into the water from the coast. After making it back to the car just before a torrential downpour started, we headed back east along the coast. We stopped in rocky cape national park and did a few small walks along the coastline (which was stunning…the color of the water combined with the rocks jutting out was really beautiful). We stopped for lunch in the town of Penguin (no penguins that we could see on the beach though) and then eventually ended up back in Launceston that evening for our flight back to the mainland. It was a great trip…Tassie is quite a beautiful place and I'm glad we made it down there. I like being places where you can drive along the road and not pass another car for literally hours at a time…its quite a change from living in NYC or Sydney!

Link to a bunch of pictures below:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.7kp9s5bp&x=0&y=kve2l6&localeid=en_US

Week ending 28-Sep: Canberra

We finally got our furniture this week! We had gotten so used to living in a virtually empty apartment it was almost shocking to have a couch, kitchen table, chairs, a real bed, etc. The quarantine/customs service here is evidently incredibly thorough about letting in things that might have little organisms or diseases on them or other things that they don't want finding their way to Australia. We ended up getting all of our stuff with the exception of my hiking boots which I bet were caked with dirt…those are either being "steam cleaned or destroyed." Hoping to avoid the latter, but I guess I'll find out. In any case, it feels so good to have a real apartment that is actually a liveable space, its quite a difference to how its been!

This weekend we set out on a roadtrip to Canberra, the national capital of Australia (Leah and Monica, two uni-friends, joined us for the trip). Canberra is a city that was plopped down when a dispute between Sydney and Melbourne over which city should be the national capital couldn't be decided. And it kind of gives off that vibe of being somewhat artificial and manufactured. I'm glad we went and saw it, but I can pretty safely say that I will not need to return to Canberra anytime soon. On Saturday we walked through the "parliamentary zone" which includes the new parliament building, the old parliament building, a few memorials, etc. We saw the red and green rooms which is where the House and Senate hold session which I thought was kind of cool to see. Overall the area is kind of like a toned down version of DC…it completely gives off the vibe of being a government center but it doesn't quite have the pomp and showiness that DC has. In the afternoon we went to Floriade, which is a month long festival of flowers. There were some really cool fields of brightly colored flowers…I think some people go there to spend the day, we feel like we covered it in about 30 minutes so its all relative but I thought it was cool. In the evening we went to a restaurant and sat outside and ate and had some wine…it was nice.

Sunday we had brunch outside (it was another gorgeous day) and then drove up to the top of this huge hill that overlooks the city and went up in the tower that gives you a view out around the area. And then we visited the Australian Institute of Sports which is where promising Aussie athletes go to train to hopefully compete in the olympics and one day make their country proud. The AIS has a huge sprawling campus and I imagine it was state of the art when it was built 20 years ago but the whole feel was a little weird, like they're so into making sure their athletes can compete on a global scale. Interesting to see. Afterwards we made the drive home, got a little lost on the way but finally made it back. A slightly random weekend, but fun…Bill Bryson's descriptions of the city are pretty right-on in my mind: it feels almost like a deserted city because there is never anyone around, no matter where you're driving the roads kind of circle around on themselves and you're going to get lost, I can't remember what else, but I found it amusing. Canberra is definitely not a place I would say anyone really needs to visit unless they've got a lot of time to spend in Australia. Some pictures are below along with links for some more (not the most spectacular collection of pictures I've ever taken, just to get everyone's expectations in line)

Floriade pics:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.54gml7fp&x=0&y=v0k1zt&localeid=en_US

Other Canberra pics:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.8hmpvycl&x=0&y=1issjn&localeid=en_US

Week ending 21-Sep: Bridge Run

We finally got internet this week hence I’ve been able to put up some posts from the past few weeks. You really don’t appreciate having internet at home until you don’t have it. These Australians are charging us an arm and a leg, but its certainly worth it in my opinion.

Thursday night was a big night out after work because it was someone’s birthday. The celebration actually started with a lovely lunch down on this pier out on the water…it was a gorgeous day and felt like a very “Sydney” thing to do. Friday was pretty low key for us, BBQed at home and caught up on some sleep. Saturday was a spectacular day…it was warm and sunny and perfect. I had to go to work for a quick bit which actually wasn’t bad because it gave me a chance to stroll leisurely outside on the way there and enjoy the weather. When I got back I went down to our pool (finally we’re having weather that makes having a pool and garden area in our building worthwhile!) and had a little swim and read for a bit and kind of dozed in the sun. It was a very lazy Saturday morning/afternoon for me. Michelle, meanwhile, was off handing out “get out the vote” type fliers at this market and then out on the beach…she’s gotten fairly active in the group “Democrats Abroad” which is focusing on getting Americans living overseas registered and signed up for absentee ballots. Later that afternoon we went and saw Cirque Du Soleil which was pretty cool. They do some seriously amazing and crazy stuff. And Saturday night we had a big pasta dinner to carb-up for Sunday morning’s activities.

Sunday we got up early for the Bridge Run. There are four different races that happen, a marathon, half-marathon, 9K and like a 4K (we did the 9k). The race starts just north of the harbour, crosses over the bridge, does a circuit through the botanical gardens along the water and finishes at the opera house. We’d been training for a few weeks so I think we were both feeling pretty good about it, but our goal really was just to be able to run the whole way. We ended up running pretty well and did it in just over 50 minutes, which for us was very exciting. And it was a gorgeous day and just fun to be taking part in the event. We ran for GSJBW and they had a tent in the “recovery village” where you could get breakfast/water/juice so we sat around there and “recovered” for a bit before heading home. We were a little tired but had to enjoy the sun while we could so went to the pool for a dip and a little reading time. For the rest of the day we pretty much lounged around, napped a little, did some errands and went out for dinner. Overall an excellent weekend in the city! The feeling is just so different here when the weather is nice…can’t beat this place!

I was shooting these as i was running so a lot are kinda blurry:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.3e8t34x1&x=0&y=-vbzsps&localeid=en_US

Week ending 14-Sep: The Hunter Valley

Spring finally arrived this week and I think the whole city was in a good mood because of it. Nothing but sunshine all week and it got progressively warmer so that by Friday it was in the mid 20s (70s). Lots of people did long lunches outside and I think everyone left work a little earlier Friday evening. Michelle and I had dinner at home on the BBQ and then went to our friend Erica’s apartment because it was her 30th birthday. But we didn’t stay out that long because Saturday morning we were getting up early, renting a car and going up to the Hunter Valley.

The Hunter Valley is NSW’s wine region. We drove up and rented bikes and biked from vineyard to vineyard, doing some tastings along the way. The weather was perfect, cloudless and warm. The terrain was definitely not flat so biking was quite an effort. Each vineyard we’d get to and we’d both be dripping sweat, our hair all messed up, sucking wind and the other people there are in their khaki pants and polo shirts and all dressed up. But unlike how I think that would have gone over in somewhere like Napa, nobody here cared that we were somewhat disastrous. Regarding the wine, we’re not big wine people so all I can say is I liked some of them, but they don’t taste all that different from other wines I’ve had. The countryside was gorgeous, but I think I’ll be forever tainted by the wine region near Cape Town because I don’t see how anything could really compare with that on a scenic level. But it was really a perfect day and biking around to get from place to place was really enjoyable. And a very momentous occurrence for us in the afternoon was our first wild kangaroo sightings! One of the guys in the winery was telling us that there are kangaroo by the dozen out on the hillside usually in the afternoons and sure enough, when we left there on the hill were dozens and dozens of kangaroo. And eventually most of them hopped down towards a little pond to drink from…it was really exciting. And then pulling into the little road where we had to return the bikes, there in front of us were three kangaroo just watching us. We walked up a bit to them and then moved off over a hill a little, but when we got closer there were still there and ended up bounding up towards us. We both thought they were charging us but they stopped a little ways off, watched us a bit more and then left. In the evening we went to this brewery, the Bluetongue, where we had some of their local brews and then had dinner in the attached restaurant. We stayed the night in the little town nearby, but trying to not spend a fortune on the fancy hotels that they have there, we booked a place that’s part of a pub. It ended up being we were right above this pub that had live music going until past 2 in the morning…lesson learned, don’t stay in a pub hotel unless you want music blasting in your room into the night. Sunday we had breakfast at a place known for their champagnes and then did a little drive to Werakata National Park which is nearby. We drove on some very “unsealed” roads into the park, in the middle of some dense vegetation…walked around a bit, thought we were going to be lost in there forever, but eventually found our way out. Had lunch at another place (basically all we did was eat and drink for the whole weekend) and then got on the road back to the city. Very fun weekend, the Hunter Valley was great. I think we’re going to go back in a few months maybe for a daytrip when it’s more wine season because the grapes are about to start growing now, but really haven’t yet so we want to see it when everything is in its prime.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.a9d5ghk5&x=0&y=alkegx&localeid=en_US

Week ending 07-Sep

The week started off stunningly, as if spring had finally arrived. Monday and Tuesday were cloudless with brilliant blue sky and sun and warmer than it had been, maybe around 70? The hopes that that was the end of “winter” here were dashed though Wednesday through the weekend: it was cloudy, gray, rainy, chilly and windy. Still, we’re hopeful that we’re almost through the 3 months of “bad” weather that Sydney has each year. So one of the key points of discussion at work this week regarded McCain’s choice of running mate…the Aussies I work with couldn’t get enough news about Palin, her love of guns, her love of moose (as a food), her daughter’s fiancé who loves to “shoot $hit,” and her general redneckish ways. All of them continue the streak of every single non-American I’ve ever talked to not liking Bush and the right wing. Its pretty fun (and also depressing) to discuss the situation…I liked the analysis that said Australia would be politically more like the US if Australia’s “middle” had the same level of population that our “middle” has. They’re just lucky enough to live in a place where the middle of their country is so inhospitable that basically no one can live there (but to be honest I can’t quite understand why anyone lives in say Oklahoma, Kansas, etc, right?). We’re all looking forward to the election…polls will start closing at Noon Wednesday here and there’s been talk of going to the pub to watch the results come in. Might be necessary.

Saturday was such a nasty day, it inspired to stay inside and read a good book (I’m reading Three Cups of Tea which I find captivating and inspiring but also makes me feel like I’m a terrible person who has done nothing good for the world, highly recommended though). Michelle has two papers due next week so she was planning to work on them but wasn’t able to motivate much on that front Saturday. After lounging through the day we went to this place for dinner where they actually have a theater above the restaurant so you go and see a movie either before or after eating. The theater is setup with all these pillows and low couches so you get to sprawl out while you watch the movie. And the restaurant is vegetarian and kind of spiritual in a way…I’m not really going to try and describe why that is because I’ll just sound like an idiot but it was delicious. It was a buffet with all these dishes made from things that I know very little about so we mostly didn’t know what we were eating at any given moment but it was all so tasty. Stopped at a pub on the way home and then rented a movie (it was quite the movie day) to watch when we got back. Pretty nice little Saturday, very low key.

Sunday was the first day it didn’t rain in a while so I spent most of the morning sitting out on the balcony reading my book while Michelle worked on her papers. Later in the afternoon we went for a run to Darling Harbour, our old stomping grounds, where they were having a sidewalk chalk festival. There were some cool drawings and things going on, but I think the deluge of rain the three previous days kind of put a damper on the festival which was unfortunate. All-in-all a pretty uneventful week without too much Australia excitement to report making this the kind of entry that you, the reader, might think “why did I just spend 2 minutes reading this worthless nonsense?” Sorry. We’ll try to do better. We did book a trip for next month to Tasmania though which we’re both very excited about. Michelle has spring break and will be going with a couple friends for a whole week and I’m going to make it down there for a 4-day weekend. Stay tuned.

Week ending 31-Aug: Palm Beach and Ku-ring-gai Chase Nat'l Park

Friday night was low-key for us because we were getting up early the next morning so we just had dinner at a Thai place on Crown St (which is the main restaurant/bar street through our neighborhood). I branched out and tried something new and was punished for being adventurous…it wasn’t nearly as good as my usual Thai dishes. Lesson being of course don’t ever deviate from your norm. I won’t ever make that mistake again.

Saturday we went to the local Hertz and rented a little Toyota Yaris (?) which was a teeny little two door car. My experience driving on the left hand side of the road in South Africa earlier in the year turned out to pay dividends because it was way easier this time. While making turns Michelle had to constantly remind me to STAY LEFT but it wasn’t the panicked situation we had driving in Cape Town when I would be in the middle of making a turn and kind of freeze because I was so confused about which side of the road I should be on. (plus in Sydney you don’t feel like you’re going to get carjacked at every turn and you don’t feel like every other driver has a gun in the car that they could pull out and use on you at any moment…but I digress). Renting cars here is really cheap (relatively) which is an exciting discovery because now it feels like we can go anywhere without real limitations. So we drive up north over the Harbour Bridge and drove up along the coast to Palm Beach which is considered, I think, the northernmost beach of the Sydney area (it was probably an hour north or so). The beaches north of Palm Beach are part of the “Central Coast” which I believe is the central coast of NSW. Anyways, we walked out to the Barrenjoey head and up to a lighthouse. The land leading out to the head is very narrow, probably a few hundred feet wide so you look back and see the narrow strip of land with the ocean and the breakers on one side and the sheltered harbour on the other. And the land to the west is part of a national park, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, which is lush forest and a pretty background. And that was our next destination so we drove back down south to where we could cut over and get to the park which is on the “West Head.” The park was great and we took a few little walks on the “tracks” (they don’t call them trails) to some viewpoints. After exploring the park a bit we started heading back to the city to return the car…quite a fun trip out of the city for the day, and so easy to do! The hardest part of driving was trying to get back to the rental car place which involved making a right turn off of Oxford Street which turns out is an impossible thing to do. Eventually we got the car back without problem.

Then later that night we went to see our second Aussie Rules Football game…the Swans (Sydney) were playing the Lions from somewhere, we actually don’t know…probably somewhere in Victoria or something. This game was played at the Sydney Cricket Ground which is in Centennial Park which is about a 15 minute walk from our apartment (as opposed to the first game at Olympic Park which is almost an hour train ride). SCG is a smaller stadium and I think much better really, the crowd seemed more into it and it just had a better vibe in general. The Swans won easily and I think the win puts them into the playoffs or something? We understand the basics of the game pretty well now but whenever the referees call penalties we have no idea what’s going on. Still need to try to read more about it. The basics are simple though: knock the living daylights out of the other team and while doing that try to kick the ball through the goalposts. Easy.

Sunday Michelle made me do yoga which I found extremely challenging and then we did our Sunday training run for the Bridge Run coming up. Then we had pancakes at home which were fantastic. Leah came over and we went to the Australia Museum where they were having a special exhibit on Aboriginal artwork which was pretty cool. The rest of the museum was about all the animals in Australia that can kill you. There are a lot. Pretty much pick a type of animal and the most poisonous of that animal lives in Australia. In the afternoon we had a few other friends come over to our apartment and we BBQed. It was rainy and not the warmest day but I just love BBQing…it was yet another experience that makes me really excited for winter to be over! We had a tamer BBQ menu this time rather than our kangaroo from last week…just teriyaki chicken and some grilled veggies. Maybe next week we’ll throw some shrimp on the Barbie!!

As always, a link to more of the pictures from the weekend’s events:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bqmhkbd.211cit39&x=0&y=lfkbqg&localeid=en_US