So last night my boss, my boss-plus and 3 of my co-workers all went out to dinner at a tiny Italian place called Pelligrini’s. It is quite the institution here. What I wasn’t ready for is that after dinner we had (essentially) a bar crawl back to the train station. Aussie work is certainly different but i love it. It was certainly better than spending my first thanksgiving away from home all by myself.

Sunday I fly to Sydney to ESA 2008 to attend my first ecology conference. I will post picts when I get back next Sunday.

Love you all and hope you are having tasty turkey and treats.

So last week was a bit slow, I didn’t really do anything during the week but I did make progress on my research. I have been struggling lately with my research, not only understanding what I was suppose to be doing but whether this was really what I wanted to do with my life. The last year and a half has been probably the hardest so far and I haven’t been excited about anything. Well this week I managed to perk myself up. I met with my boss Matt and he is interested in what I am doing and seems supportive. The other computery (at least non-ecologist) guy in the lab, Peter, has also been good to talk to. My boss-plus (Matt’s boss) Graeme (pronounced Graham) returned from his vacation and we talked today. He is a very nice, kind of funny, guy. I think that everything will go well, I just need to make sure I keep my chin up about it.

Oh look, an informational kiosk

On the up side. I love Melbourne and Australia more every day that I am here. The people here are amazing. It’s very strange comparing a country founded by puritans to one founded by people with more…..liberal morals. People here seem much more relaxed, even the religious ones who hold church close are less uptight about things that in Oregon would be “issues”. The entire feel of this city is refreshing. The most amazing part is how safe it is. For a city of 3 million-ish the crime rate is very low, actually the lowest in the country. I have gone downtown for dinner after dark many times now and never felt nervous.

So enough serious stuff. This weekend Matt, Steve and Peter took me hiking! First we went to Brisbane Ranges and hiked a little ways into the Anakie gorge to try to see koalas. Sadly the area has experienced a really severe fire, it looks rather like the pass does. Lots of burned snags and lots of undergrowth. Since we weren’t going to see koalas we headed out to Werribee gorge. As we started the hike Steve tells us, “It says it takes 5 hours but don’t believe it, it only takes 2″. Well it may take 2 hours if you are a very fit hiker and you dont stop to look at every plant and discuss it’s full latin name but we were a bit slower.

Hey Matt, do we this habitat in our database?

No, let's survey it right now.

It took almost 5 hours and I held up pretty well really. A little sore today but not bad. After we made it down to the bottom of the gorge (by hiking over the top of the mountain) We finally got to use the equipment that Matt had been packing in: a cordless drill and a bottle of roundup. Apparently willows are a real problem here. They crowd the streams, push out natives and probably take up more water than can be spared. So in comes what I dubbed “Guerrilla Restoration”.

Drill holes in the trunk of the willow and pour in roundup. Kills it so it wont send up suckers which wont happen if you just cut it down. Of course, since the guys are DSE (Department of Sustainability and Environment) I suppose it’s legal.

Guerrilla Restoration

Looking over the summit

Curious what the title of the post is all about? we were talking about the beach and I said something about disliking Banana hammocks. I was then told that in Australia, speedos are called budgie smugglers. I’ve been giggling about it ever since.

I haven’t written in a while because I have been so busy I haven’t really had time. So here is a quick photo recap of the last 10 days or so:

Saturday Lisa and I cleaned house and then we me up with a couple of her friends (nice Germans) and we just walked down the main road of a suburb called North Cote until we saw an adorable little crepe bar. It took forever to get food because there was one man with one crepe griddle cooking for the entire place. While eating a badn called the Jelly Tub Rollers set up and started playing vaudeville 1920s style music that was so much fun even I got up and danced a bit before we left.

Sunday is the following pictures:

Sunday Breakfast Spot

I went to Federation Square and had breakfast at a lovely little outdoor cafe.

South Melbourne Beach

Then I took the tram to the beach where my flatmate Lisa was participating in a beach volleyball tournament. I am going again tomorrow and may even join up. It’s sort of like a city league group.

Remembrance Statue, Shrine & Poppies

I left the beach to go to the botanical gardens and on the way passed through the Shrine of Remembrance liberally landscaped with poppies (official veterans remembrance flower). I found it quite moving that hordes of people being loud and having a great time would walk quietly and respectfully through this area.

Melbourne Royal Botanical Gardens

I made it to the gardens to do some plant and bird watching. Sadly it was extra super busy and kind of loud so I didn’t see many new birds.

Melbourne Skyline

I love Melbourne. It is such a beautiful young city. I may not be able to stay here this time but the future may see me come back for a couple of years.

So that was my first full weekend in Melbourne.

Following are some picts from work:

Garreth Kyle

My Desk

Garreth sits just on my left the picture layout here is actually what it would look ike if you walked into the lab. Steve was not there but he sits opposite Garreth on the other wall.

Matt White - My boss

My boss Matt has been really great but like Tom (my advisor) he is really busy and frequently out at meetings so we haven’t actually met yet to discuss what I am going to be doing.

So this week I got sent to learn how to drive 4×4 vehicles in a safe manner. This was required because I am working for the government, driving their cars and they are sending me into the bush (which is just any place out of town btw) It was amazing!!! Thanks to my dad’s intense approach to teaching me how to drive when I was young and my continuing self pursuit of always improving my driving I did really well and managed to impress the instructor. (Thanks Dad!)

ARI (the place I work) put me up in a lovely farm stay (B&B farm) called Marapana across the road. The woman who ran it was absolutely lovely and made wonderful filling breakfasts.

There were definitely some freaky things but most of it was just really fun and now I am confident of my ability to do some great off roading. I may just have to buy another jeep when I get home instead of another Subaru

While in the class I saw, wild kangaroos, wallabies, a platypus, and tons of birds.

So following are random photos from 3 days of 4×4 class.

Our instructor, Phil

Russ stuck in the mud

Our instructor Phil was in the army for 21 years but you would never know until he barked a command. He was a wonderful teacher and made it all feel very safe and tons of fun. Great sense of humor and amazing knowledge of all things 4×4-y

Tilto Truck

River Mud Crossing

The very first thing we did the first day was drive up on this ramp to tilt the vehicle. This had 2 purposes, it was a good scary way to start us off and it demonstrated how stable our vehicles really were.  The last day we got to play in the bog. There was tons of mud and water. The other person had a Mitsubishi Pajero and it got really stuck so we winched him out. Then he got stuck again and we pulled him out. That was the purpose of the day, learning to recover vehicles. I got stuck in the patrol also and got a tow.

The person driving the patrol in all these shots is Danny Rogers who is an ornithologist at ARI studying shore birds.

Crevasse Filled Bush track

This was the scary part of the entire thing for me. Fortunately Phil was riding with me and convinced me I could do it. You had to stay out of the ruts of you would be completely stuck and slowly winching yourself down the hill. It did then stopped to take pictures of Russ coming down in his Pajero. (The slope was steep enough that it caused the seatbelts to lock)

Marapana Farm Stay

Judy, Elly & Lizzy (left to right)

The farm was lovely and Judy was even more wonderful. Elly and I had a great time walking around the paddocks. Lizzy belongs to Judy’s daughter and showed up the second evening we were there

So that was last week. Last night I went out with my coworkers and looked at the amazing (and sanctioned) graffiti in the tiny lanes and alley of DT melbourne. We would see some wonderful art, discover an awesome little bar, have a drink and move on. It was great and because there is public transport we all could enjoy ourselves knowing we would just take trams home.

Today I kayaked on the Yarra river and saw lots of water bird babies and made my arms pleasantly sore and tired. Tomorrow I am going to go down and play some volley ball at the beach.

Love you all!

Today was my first day “at work”. I got a nifty badge, found out I would be taking a 3 day 4×4 driving class in the bush and got to watch the election results with my coworkers on a giant tv in out lab.

Today I got really homesick for the time. It takes a little over an hour by tram then train to get to work and the same going home. i see doggies that make me miss mine, my ipod places music all about going home, being home, home in general (who knew that was such a common theme) and I am exhausted. I just ate KFC for dinner (I walk by one on the way from my last tram stop to the house) and wanted to talk to Todd but he is in bed. I know it will be ok and really I am doing pretty good but……

Watching election results (HURRAY OBAMA!!!) without any of my friends was hard. People here are glad for Obama and they have been following the election a bit but they just aren’t as excited as I am. The nice man in charge of Occupational Health and Safety almost made me talking about brave it was to come to another country where you dont know anyone and have no family to work in a field that isn’t yours for people you’ve never met for 5 months. I managed to smile through it and earned a “good on ya” from him but I just wanted to cry. Thank you for reminding me, I’d been doing so well until then.

So this is kind of a rambling post cause none of you are awake to talk to. Which is probably better cause this way I’ll have my little cry out and move on.

On the up side, there is a little courtyard in my office building that has a fountain and a pond with turtles and fish and the turtles walk around with their extra long little necks sticking out in the funniest way. I’ll try to get a picture tomorrow.

miss you all and thank god I dont have to apologize for my country.

It is November 4th here meaning ELECTION DAY! and in case none of you can bear the suspense I will tell you that Barack Obama has won the election and will be our next president! Sorry to ruin it for you.

There are some very odd things about Australia.

1. No drip coffee. I’m serious. Can’t get just a plain cup of coffee. They are all fancy and italian here, if it doesn’t get made on a giant machine with lots of steam and pressure it doesn’t get served. Also, it’s 4.00 AUD a cup (Admittedly that’s only 2.70 US) and a cup is about 10 oz. Le sigh.
2. Not only do they drive on the wrong side of the road they walk on the wrong side also! I am constantly stepping INTO hordes of people going the other way or trying to get out of someone’s way by stepping even more in their way. Arg, I feel like the stupid fish going upstream.
3. Who would have thought that q-tips weren’t universal. Up and down the personal care aisles I trudged because I had forgotten to pack them. Maybe not a big deal for some but I clean my ears at least twice a day.

Fortunately Todd is sending me a care  package to remedy 1 and 3. He’s also including a drinking cup (can only get water 8 ounces at a time) and some tasty peanut butter (two choices here and they both taste funny)

Finally got sunny again today and I took a back street to walk to the bank today. It’s only spring but the roses look like they have been blooming for months and the lemons on the trees are ripe.

Not really doing anything today. Napped some and going to work on some code.

Love you all!

Little Chick

So Sunday I got the courage up to venture forth on the city public transit and head to the Melbourne Zoo, which I had heard was good. I looked up the routes on metlink and took notes on my handy graph paper so I could avoid getting lost. After 30 minutes on the tram I arrived at Flinders St Station saw one of my favorite things: a really old building amidst really modern buildings

Old meets new

Venturing into the station I found platform 4 with service running to Upfield including Royal Pavilion Station. After another 35 minutes on the train I finally arrived, starving and thirsty, at the zoo. Hurray I get a student discount!

Map in hand (some of you may know that I love maps when I am visiting attractions) I plan a route to get from the back gate to food seeing animals on the way. Along the way I was reminded it was Spring!

Ducklings!

It was quite warm and muggy but really lovely. I was surprised by how many kinds of kangaroos there are and the fact that koalas sound like grumpy pigs when they make noises. They also look like grumpy old men.  I spent hours at the zoo and then made the long ride home, getting off at the correct stop and everything.

Lonely Table for One

I was lured into a lovely little Italian restaurant La Q byt the 4 risotto options on the menu. I had a wonderful bowl of Risotto del Bosca, risotto with sun dried tomatoes, spinach and mushrooms.

There are so many restaurant on High St I despair for my budget!

I will finish up the post with some random photos. I took one just for Will and Katie. It made me really home sick. I’m sure you will be able to figure it out.

Grumpy Koala

Baby Roo!

Very full of himself

Just for Will and Katie

Ok, so now that I don’t feel like a zombie. Yesterday Matt (my boss) picked me up from the airport saving me a huge amount of trouble. We saw the office and grabbed two more people for lunch. Everyone was super nice. They even helped me get all my luggage upstairs to my flat. I am renting a room from a lady named Lisa.

Flatmate

Well I slept from 4pm Friday to 8am Saturday and woke up actually feeling pretty good. By 10 I was starving but I hadn’t gotten any food before falling asleep so I had nothing to eat. I ventured forth and discovered High St which is pretty close and had lovely breakfast of scrampled eggs on sourdough with bacon (canadian bacon really) and a latte. (Filter coffee has proved to be impossible to find). Hurray, I am fed!

Cafe

Ont he way to find breakfast I found an authorized apple retailer and bought an airport express because my flat does not have wireless. It took be about an hour to get setup though because of the terrible modem Lisa has.

I continued my adventure down High St trying to find a bank but they were all closed! I did however find a nice little place where you can place bets on horse races. Horse races are a really big deal here. Tuesday is the Melbourne Cup and it is a city holiday. Nobody works, they watch the race and BBQ.  Very odd, that would be kid of like the US closing down for the Superbowl.

Anglican Church

I failed in my efforts to find a bank but did find an ATM so I pay Lisa for part of my rent (800/month, includes utils and internet). I decided that had was a bit tired and so I wold head home. On the way down the street I had seen a lovely church so I decided to investigate. First I was going to take a picture of the man admiring the mural on the side of the Mission Thrift store but then I realized that he wasn’t admiring it, he was peeing on it. So I walked quietly away. Turing into the church yard there was a lovely bench under a tree facing the memory garden so I took a picture of that instead. The cool thing was that this church had a Parsonage that was actually lived in and everything.

Home

Anywho, after sitting at the church for a bit I walked back up High St to Derby St, then down Derby st until James Ave, and down that street until reaching 6/7-9 James Ave Kew 3101 Melbourne. that cryptic address means unit 6 of the building occupying addresses 7 through 9 on James ave in the neighborhood of Kew, post area 3101 city of Melbourne. I share this in such detail because I was very confused by the 6/7-9. As you can see there is a lovely little garden path to our door.

After Lisa got home she kindly took me to the Safeway (I know huh!) and shopping was a little like the Twilight zone. It felt like an old style safeway but the products were all rather weird.

Now I am trying to get my webcam all seet up to attending the Halloween Spectacular at Katie and Will’s house.

Love everyone, miss you all but doing pretty well.