Fresh Eggs

One of the professors in Ben's department studies sexual selection in chickens, which means he has a lot of chickens. And chickens lay eggs. And the prof doesn't want any more chickens, so guess where the eggs go?!? That's right - to us! And they're free!! We just recently got added to the "Egg list," so now this guy comes around every so often with little bags of eggs for us. They're on the smaller side, and I think they get some cement in their diet because their shells are hard! But free, fresh, delicious eggs - what a deal!

Temperature

Yesterday the high was 93F. Today it was 66F.
Not sure why, but the weather likes to jump around a lot. If you click on the title, it should get you to the observed temps for this month. I'd rather it just stay warm.

Port Kembla

We’ve headed north, we’ve headed west, can’t really head east in our car… so today we headed south in search of a new dog beach. We set our sights on Port Kembla, just south of Wollongong, and managed to sneak into town through the ‘scenic’ route – smokestacks, warehouses, a refinery – you know, all that pitcturesque industry stuff. And we forgot to take a photo! But then, 100 metres further, we were in a whole different world – gorgeous shoreline. The beach stretched on forever, and was incredibly empty. So Ani stretched her legs, and chased seagulls and waves, and used up energy… and so did we!


And then, in a split second, the wind changed and we got this strong, icy breeze blowing off the ocean, whipping up the sand to give us a full-body exfoliation. Hike and spa, all in one - the down-side is that we all had a fair amount of sand in our ears. We ducked off the beach and did some bush-whacking through the sand scrub, where it was a little less windy. (The pic below is showing the dry sand blowing across the wet sand... and into Ani's face.)


Then we detoured west to find a different way home, and passed through this beautiful rolling countryside with lots of free-range cattle (Ani tried to blame a few off her farts on the cows…). It kinda reminded us of parts western Colorado or the Nicoya peninsula, Costa Rica. From there, the road climbed to the top of this plateau – nice twisty road, lush vegetation, even a little waterfall. But we couldn’t find a lookout anywhere, so at the top, we turned on to the first (dirt) road we found, and discovered this amazing lookout point. But it would’ve made your knees weak, mom!


On our way home, we came across a cute little town with a row of shops that had homemade gelato and local cheese and all kinds of good stuff. We decided to try apricots and figs stuffed with marscapone cheese - SO rich, and so delicious!

Galahs

Yep - another cool bird! They're a little more skittish than cockatoos, and their call is a little less obnoxious. But they're pretty common hanging out on front lawns, and I think they're just so cool!

I'm famous!

Our place is just at the top of the hill behind me, so I get to revel in my fame daily!

Kangaroos!

No, we haven't seen any kangaroos, yet. But we've eaten 'em! There's a section at the grocery store labeled "Fresh Kangaroo Meat," and we just had to try it. Tastes like chicken! Well, actually, it doesn't taste anything like chicken. It has a stronger taste that we were expecting - kind of gamey. It's incredibly lean, and they advertise that it is good for both you and for the environment. Now we just need to see the live version...

Ku-Ring-Gai National Park

Today we went for a hike with one of Ben's lab-mates (Fernando) and his friend Sasha-the-Priest. [When Fernando invited us to go, his exact words were "My friend's a priest - don't be scared." We're not sure why we'd be scared.] Fernando is from Costa Rica, and Sasha is from everywhere. We went to Ku-Ring-Gai National Park, which is just north of Sydney.



It was a nice, mostly leisurely hike, and an absolutely perfect day. We started up along a dry ridge with great views, then had a fairly steep drop down into a more lush ravine, and popped out on this secluded little beach. We hung out there for a while and ate/swam/slept/tide-pooled (sure, that's a verb)/sunned/explored as we wanted. Then we popped over the ridge to look at another beach (not nearly as nice as 'ours'), and headed back up to the top and out to a lookout.

Poor Sasha quickly realized the draw-backs of going hiking with a bunch of biologists, but he tolerated us quite well. We stopped to check out all kinds of things. We found a cool cockatoo (yes, they're all cool), two different kind of carnivorous plants (which we barely managed to escape!), and a few goannas (we can't say it quite like Steve Irwin, yet - nor can we tackle them like he could... Speaking of the Croc Hunter, though, one of Ben's other lab-mates used to work at Steve Irwin's Nature Park).

Where's Ani??

I think she's in our front yard somewhere...

Crumpets

We've become addicted to crumpets - they are so good! And they're always on sale, too, which is nice. They're kinda spongy and moist, and great with just a little bit of butter. That and a little yogurt was our main breakfast, until we recently branched out and added cereal (...I know, we're so exotic!).

Salt water

Yep – ocean water is salty. And Ani had to learn that the hard way. Saturday was her first trip to the ocean, and, like always, she headed into the water and started drinking. She’s apparently not a fan, and the taste did elicit a pretty good face, although we never quite caught it on camera. But we’re not sure if she ever really learned – she kept trying to drink it. I actually think she did learn, but it was SO hard to fight that instinct, especially because it was a warm day. There were a few times we saw her start to lower her head, and then she’d catch herself and stop; try again, stop – and finally she couldn’t resist, and she had to take a sip. Which was immediately followed by a lot of shaking her head and kind of sticking her tongue out.

Lab Lunch

Oh the hard work of being in (or associated with) a lab. Today one of the post-docs called a mandatory lunch meeting for everyone... to discuss the merits of this little Italian cafe. It was a rough debate, but it the end, we all agreed it was quite excellent - especially after seeing the dessert selection! Although we're still not sure if it's the best lasagna ever. And the day wasn't too shabby, either, although I think there was one little cloud that popped up at one point. And it wasn't quite as warm as yesterday. But it was a nice break, because Kerry was just about ready to chuck the computer, or at least the dataset she was working with, out the window.

Fruit of the day: Passionfruit

So not really a ‘new’ fruit for us, but oohhh so good! Yeah, they’re a little weird, but they’re tangy and sweet and crunchy all rolled into one. We’ve both decided we love the seeds. And with a little yogurt, they are the perfect dessert.

Inappropriate smile of the week

John McCain made Australian news for having the “Inappropriate smile of the week” – a rather gleeful looking smile following the quote “And on the subject of Osama bin Laden, we will track him down and bring him to justice. I will follow him to the gates of hell - *grin*."

(OK, so it wasn’t exactly “news” – it was this show called Rove, which is kind of along the lines of The Daily Show.)

Sarah Palin and Barack Obama get their fair share of Australian press coverage, too. What did you ask? Joe Biden, who's that?!? (...although I hear that's kind of how it is in the States, too.)

To the beach!

Absolutely gorgeous day! And what else is there to do on a beautiful day, other than head to the beach?!? So that’s exactly what we did. We headed up to WoyWoy, a city a little north of Sydney where we briefly considered settling. Ben scoped out a few rental places there, but Ani and Kerry hadn’t seen it, yet. You’re pretty much no further than 10 min from the water anywhere you go. And at several of the beaches, dogs are allowed off-leash, so Ani came everywhere with us – happy dog! (…and now, a very tired dog.)



We walked along the ‘boardwalk,’ strolled down the beach, explored the town a little bit, took a nap on the beach – hard day, but someone’s gotta do it! For lunch, we stopped at a little local place with sidewalk seating and had a burger and a garlic prawn sandwich. Prawns were awesome, and the burger was huge! And here’s the deal with burgers in Australia (which Kerry was warned about by the guy next to her on the plane): they come with bacon, cheese, tomato, lettuce (so far so good), and egg, beets, and pineapple. Definitely a unique combination. The guy on the plane, a Canadian, was not a fan, but we both agreed it was kind of a fun food fusion. Not magical, but fun. And ended the day with some ice cream – macadamia nut and olde English toffee. Absolutely perfect!

Tasty Cheese

No, “tasty” is not the adjective describing the cheese (although it is good), nor is it a name brand. That’s what they call cheddar cheese here. And they have “Extra Tasty Cheese” (i.e. aged cheddar), and “Light and Tasty Cheese” (which just seems like an oxymoron). I still can’t say it with a straight face. “Would you like some tasty cheese, some extra tasty cheese, or some just plain nasty cheese?”

Neighbours

No, this entry isn't about the popular Aussie soap opera - we haven't managed to catch much more than the ads, so can't tell you about that, yet. This is about our real neighbours. I mentioned before that we'd try to get some pics of the cute kids, so here they are. They're working on bonding with Ani. Apparently the people who lived in the house before us had some mean dogs, so the kids are a little scared of dogs. Once Ani gets past her usual over-enthusiastic greeting, she's pretty good, and the kids seem to be getting comfortable with her.

Crimson Rosellas

These birds are so cool, and they have attitude, too! They just sit there like "Yes, I'm a large red bird that you can spot from a mile away, but my beak is strong enough to rip off your little finger, so what are you going to do?!" We occasionally see them in the city, but we saw a bunch of them up in the Blue Mountains last weekend. Ben is pointing at one in the first photo - he was just hanging out above us. I highlighted the bird because the shadows were horrible, but the 2nd photo is the same bird.

I Spy: Walking to main campus

CISAB (Ben’s department) is this little adjunct wing of campus; it’s not even on the campus map. So it’s a bit of a walk to get over to main campus if you need to go to the library, business office, bank, etc. - but it’s a really nice walk! You can generally see some great birds, and there are often students sitting around 'studying.' The walk is pretty much across the field-of-view in both photos. The tan buildings are part of main campus; CISAB isn’t anywhere to be seen.

Fruits of the day: Sultanas and capsicums

OK, so these are really just raisins and bell peppers. And yes, technically, peppers are fruits.

For the most part, the whole language thing is pretty straight-forward, here. However, these are a few of the differences we’ve discovered. Raisins are called sultanas (e.g. ‘Sultana Bran’), and bell peppers are called capsicums (e.g. 'stuffed capsicums'). And frequently, the red capsicums are cheaper than the green, which is just fine with me!

Voyage out of the city

Today we finally got out of the city and into the Blue Mountains – took long enough! (…darn inconvenience of settling in...) The Blue Mountains don’t feel quite like the Rockies – we decided they feel more like a plateau… with some REALLY impressive gorges. And some great birds. Our plan was to drive this nice loop through Katoomba and back around to Sydney. In theory, the drive should have taken us ~3 hours. But we kept getting distracted and only made it to Wentworth Falls. And we even failed to see the Falls! But we saw lots of crimson rosellas, red-browed finches, spotted pardalotes, and a spinebill (that’s actually what Kerry is looking at in the picture, but we’ll pretend she’s looking adoringly at Ben). Ani got stuck ‘guarding the car’ for a little while when we went to check out the National Park, but she was able to come along on another hike.



And we still managed to call this little excursion “work” – we were re-tracing the footsteps of Darwin! Just give us 36 years, and then we’ll reveal our revolutionary theory.

Happy Father's Day!!

... again! And yes, we still love you and think you're the best dad in the world (ssshhh - don't tell the other one!). Since we can't say it enough, figured we'd tell you again on this AU Father's Day.

So special hugs and lots of love to our dads!!!

Cirque du Soleil

Last night we headed downtown to see Cirque du Soleil: Dralion – absolutely unbelievable!! Unfortunately, the weather was a little stinky – cold and rainy. But the performance was just amazing. We’re trying to decide if they had muscle implants & ball-joints inserted in their spines, or if they were just robots. I still don’t understand how it is physically possible to do half the things they did. Kate – sorry, but putting both legs behind your head doesn’t look so impressive, anymore.

Afterwards, we went out to dinner at a Lebanese restaurant in the Surry Hills neighbourhood. Ben took Kerry to this neighbourhood on her second day here, but the whole thing just seemed like a dream in her mind – oh, the weird world of sleep deprivation. Anyway, it’s nice to know it’s real! Being the indecisive eaters that we are, we got one of the sampler platters (hummus, baba ghannouj, vine leaves, falafel, kibbe (lamb), ladyfingers (not the cookie), and lots of other stuff) - all of it was soooo good. Good show, good food, good company – what a date!

Candy Adventures

So the exciting thing about being some place new is having new foods to try, and of course that includes candy. However, when you’re trying something new, you can be in for surprises, and they’re not always happy surprises.

When Ben first got here, he saw these ads everywhere for “Cherry Ripe” and it looked like this fruity, maybe red licorice thing. However, it’s really more of a chocolate thing, with bits of cherry and coconut, and since Ben is chocolate-challenged, it wasn’t his cup of tea.

Kerry’s trial-and-error was with Turkish Delight, which she had developed a curiosity about when she read The Narnia Chronicles, and had this great preconceived notion of what it would taste like. The rosewater-flavored jelly wasn’t quite the ‘delight’ she had envisioned.

And then we jointly made the mistake of letting the image, rather than the name, shape our opinion of what Euco-Menthols would taste like. Yes, now we realize the name pretty much says it all, but they looked like really yummy sour cherry candies.

Live and learn…

Pigeons

Yes, the pigeons that generally come to mind first (also known as rock doves) have also invaded Australia and are fairly common. But (like most places) there are lots of other members of the dove/pigeon family here. Our favourite right now is the Crested Pigeon – they’re just so cool. We’ll keep trying to get a better photo, but at least this gives you an idea.

I Spy: At the office

So this is where we hang out during the week (and some of the weekend) and work really hard. Again, this is just the temporary office; the new one is still scheduled to be done in October. It’s a little cubicle-land, nicknamed Alcatraz. Phil’s office is at the back, so he jokes that he has the maze of cubicles out front for his protection - slow down invaders. (You can barely see Phil’s door above Ben’s head).

Fruit of the day: Mangosteens

These are just awesome, but they really make you work! You almost need a band saw to get through the outer layer. And then when you get to the center, there’s not nearly as much fruit as you would like for all that work. But they are very sweet and delicious!

Garbage

So today is garbage day. The great thing about garbage here is that everyone gets 3 bins: 1 for regular garbage (red), one for recycling – and they recycle everything (yellow), and 1 for yard waste (green). Notice that the actual “garbage” bin is the smallest one! We’re working on teaching Ani to take the trash out. As you can see in the photo, she doesn’t really seem to get it.

What a way to start the week!

Sunshine, smiles, sweets, and spirits (yes, the alcoholic kind) all before noon on Monday - isn't this the life!

It was a gorgeous day, today - warmer temps, clear blue sky, hints of spring. And tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same. Kerry biked to school for the first time, today, and only surrendered to a few of the hills. We biked in the shorter way, which is mostly roads, and biked home the longer way, through Lane Cove National Park (which is pretty cool!).

And one of the girls in the lab just got engaged, and the post-docs decided that we needed to celebrate. So at 10:00am, we had champagne and cannolli and fruit, while sitting outside in the sun. And it was the best cannolli!! Jeff, I think you need to take some lessons – put that “Quality of Life” fund to use!

Since the sun was so nice, Kerry decided to take advantage of it and did some reading outside in the afternoon. (Honestly, I did stay awake and focused…really!)