Ani says "hi"

Ani says hi to everyone back home! She’s sending extra special kisses to both our grandpas (and we are, too)!!

She’s hoping to become the Brookfield Zoo mascot so she can hang out with all the animals when we get back to the States. She really misses squirrels and rabbits.

Mmmmmm... bacon

So the bacon here is huge!! I know you were expecting our great Australian Adventures to be more about racing kangaroos or trekking across the outback, but who needs those kinds of adventures when you have bacon the size of your arm!! (…or when you have this PhD thing you’re supposed to be working on…)

It's hilly!

It’s definitely not flat here. Unlike Wisconsin-ers, when we look down our nose and call people from Illinois the ‘flat-landers,’ we have room to talk! For the first few days she was here, Kerry’s toes hurt from ramming into the tip of her shoe. And they’re pros at building on hills here. Do you see all 4 layers of houses in this photo? Incorporating the rock into the design of your house is not uncommon – we walked by a house that had the garage door up, and the inside of the garage was just rock. The nice thing about all these hills is that you can justify eating more bacon!

I spy: Evening walks

We’ve decided to start a new ‘segment’ (…makes this sound like a news broadcast or something – maybe we’ve been too corrupted by NPR…). We’re calling it I Spy with My Little Eye, and the point of it is to show photos of things that we see during our everyday routine.

So today, we’re featuring our evening walks with Ani. There’s this great pedestrian bridge near our place that goes over a highway and a river, and there are some neat views from there – it kind of feels like a canopy-walk in a rainforest in one part.



There are also all these great little trails everywhere that pop up randomly, and make walks a lot more interesting than walking down the road. Lots of neat vegetation.

Lorikeets

Rainbow lorikeets are also surprisingly common here. And they are slightly more melodious than cockatoos, too (but only slightly). The birds in this photo didn’t happen to be right by our house, but they could have been. One buzzed Kerry the other day as she was walking – they’re fast fliers!

Getting settled

Everyday, this is starting to feel more and more like home. (…but don’t worry parents – our real home will always be with you.☺) We’re figuring out where to go shopping for what, and we can get around our neighborhood without staring at the map. I think our house is finally getting to the point where it’s pretty comfortable, which is good because our wallets can’t afford much more comfort. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ pics below give some indication of how far we’ve come, but there’s all the hidden stuff, too (e.g. silverware, duct tape, clothespins, real glasses instead of disposable plastic cups stolen from a university function, etc.). We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again - Oh the joys of starting with nothing.

Also, our neighbors came over to welcome us the other day. They brought a plate of Lamingtons (little cake/chocolate/coconut bars – you’d love ‘em, Dad!) and carmel koalas and a Sydney Weekender magazine. And the card was an Australian flag that one of the kids made (you can see it on the wall in the living room photo). They have 4 kids that are pretty darn cute – we’ll try to get a photo on here sometime soon. The whole family is so nice, and I think it’s the first time we’ve ever had someone welcome us to the neighborhood. Their visit made my day, and was a pivotal moment in making this feel like home.

Kids don't bounce

This sign is posted near schools. There's really nothing else to say.

AU News: Ugly women wanted

This news story is definitely "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me" material. The title should link you to the BBC article.

Hiking near Lane Cove NP

After spending the better part of two weekends shopping (which neither of us are that great at) and settling in to our new place, we decided we needed to get out and explore. The good news is that there's a national park just 2km from our house. The bad news is that they don't allow dogs (and in case the 'rule' wasn't enough to stop you, they also have all these poisoned fox-baits throughout the park to help control the invasive fox population...). So instead of going in the national park, we just hiked around it. Which was still great.

All 3 of us enjoy bird watching, and sow some fun stuff. As always, there were lots of cockatoos and lorikeets, and we finally figured out where all these birds are nesting. We hiked along this riverbed that had all these tall old trees with great cavities for nests. The cockatoo in the photo was really hanging around its nest and kanoodling with its partner - such a cute little pair of Love-atoos!

Training

Four weeks to go!!!

As some of you may know, Ben has taken the plunge and signed up for the Sydney Marathon. His training is going well, especially under the supervision of Coach Ani. Even moving around the world and spraining his ankle didn't throw him off track.

Fruit of the day: Custard apples

Custard apples are really good, even if they are a little weird. They are very sweet, and near the rind, they are a little bit like pears, both in taste and consistency. But in the center, the flesh is much firmer, and just good. The other great thing about custard apples is that the foraging costs are really low!

The water commercial

So there's this add on TV right now encouraging kids to drink water. It's a truly noble effort, but we still agree that if we were kids, it probably wouldn't do the trick.

It shows all these colorful beverages (soda and juice, etc.) and then talks about how many spoonfuls of sugar they have - now there's a good way to scare kids off, mention the sugar content! Then it shows kids drinking water with fun straws and has a hoppy little jingle:
"If you have a thirst
Drink water first!
Good for kids,
Good for life!"

Nice try...

It's 2 degrees!!

And it's below zero a few kms away!

OK, so that is in centigrade, but when your house is basically the same temperature as outside, that's still cold! Central heating (much to Kerry's chagrin) is not common in Australia, or at least in Sydney. They don't have much use for insulation, either. They are almost done with this fancy new building that Ben and his lab will be moving into, and Ben's adviser just realized that they decided not to insulate a few extremely temp-sensitive rooms (i.e., the temp can't change more than 1 degree). We're not sure if they wanted to save $$ and decided that insulation wasn't that useful anyway, or if it was just plain ignorance since insulation is so rarely used here.

When we were moving everything into storage in our parents' houses, the last thing we thought we'd need to pull out is our down comforter! But that's the one thing that Ben asked Kerry to send before she left.

Related to this, we had one of those "Oh yeah..." moments the other day. Ben's adviser (who is house-shopping) said that they saw a great place that had nice north-facing windows so it would be warm in the winter. Oh yeah... guess that is how it would work here.

If anyone from Alaska wants to bring us a nice wood stove... (hint, hint Chris and Mara!)

Fruit of the day: Longans

So we headed down to Paddy's Market today, which is this huge market with fresh produce and almost anything else you could possibly imagine. We bought a bunch of fresh fruit and veggies (and some shrimp and pork chops), but so far we've only tried one (we need to remember to look up the other ones so we know how to eat them...).

So longans are these grape-sized fruits with a leathery skin and a good-sized pit (the title should link to a Wikipedia page). The fruit is translucent, and tastes somewhat like a grape, but not as sweet and the flesh is firmer. Quite fun!

Cockatoos

It's pretty cool - sulphur-crested cockatoos are everywhere here! They're almost like pigeons, foraging all over the ground and not very afraid of people. And they're incredibly social, so they form these huge groups. Ben saw this large flock of cockatoos (>100) swirling around the sky, like turkey vultures over a garbage dump (but much, much, much noisier...and prettier).

Fun in the Sun in Sydney

Ben took two whole days off to play with Kerry when she arrived (the first being yesterday). So today they headed downtown to check out Chinatown, the botanical gardens, and Darling Harbour.

Had some great food from a Chinese bakery in Chinatown. The botanical gardens were really pretty (especially when you were in the sun, rather than the shade!). And we knew that somewhere in there was a colony of Flying Foxes - large fruit-bats that can have a wingspan of more than 1 metre! But we weren't sure if we'd be able to find them. Well, we needn't worry - they were everywhere! Kinda cool.

We also got some spectacular views of the opera house and the bridge. We agreed that the opera house looks different up-close than we thought - you'll just have to come over and see it for yourself.

Finally... Kerry's here, too!!

Took long enough, but now we're a happy family of 3 again!

Kerry's plane arrived ~6am, and after waiting an insanely long time for her bags (or so it seemed), she found her boy! And when they got out to the car, Ani was there to greet her with a full-body wiggle and lots of kisses!

To prevent jet-lag, Ben said that Kerry had to stay awake until at least 8pm, so they headed straight to Bondi Beach to walk along the cliffs. It was a beautiful (but brisk!) day, and the ocean looked great. Kate - we even saw a few surfers, so we know where to take you!

After lunch Kerry finally got to see her new home, but only briefly, because we had to turn around and go do some shopping and get Kerry familiar with the lay-of-the-land.

Despite Ben's best efforts, Kerry ended up crashing at 7:15pm. (I swear it felt like 10pm! I tried!)

Ani is a free dog!

She's FREEEEE!!!!

Ben had a 1 hour window to pick up Ani, so he had about 13 different back-up plans in case anything went wrong. But it all went smoothly. He showed up ~15 min early, and there was already a line of people waiting for their dogs. Everyone was very friendly and willing to help each other out.

Ani had no trouble identifying the fact that the car was her ticket outta this place! So once she got in, she wasn't going anywhere. (Early on, she realized that wherever we're going, we'll probably take the car, so she does her best to be in there with us if she detects any signs of leaving.)

She was pretty clingy at first, but seems to be adjusting to her new home and enjoying her expansive back yard!

And Kerry is STILL running assays...