Back in the USA

Things I notice after spending more than a year outside of the US:

1)  Wait staff is really friendly and the service is amazingly good.
2)  This is because they are working for tips, and tipping sucks!
3)  That's ok, because everything is really, really cheap, especially food.  Beer, chips, sandwiches, everything is less than half as much as it is in Australia.
4)  It feels more like Christmas here, 2 weeks after the fact, than it ever did in Australia.  Probably because it's cold, but the lights are still up.
5)  Pennies are really stupid.
6)  TV and commercials are much more polished here, no infomercials in prime time.
7)  Everyone is really excited and amazed when they find out I've been in Australia for so long - it's like I've been living on the moon.
8)  Sports and news programs have no idea that a world outside the US exists.
9)  I think in Celsius now.
10)  I love Australia, but the US is still home.

My research

Ok, here's a video of my research - I was trying to send this to my parents but it was too big to go through

. 

Skiing... In July!

Went skiing this weekend on JULY 28th.  Take that, all you lame North-Hemispherians!

This Saturday, I went skiing with Sarah and a couple of her friends she knows from work. This adventure involved waking up at 3:30 am, catching a bus from Canberra to the ski resort and then "hiring" skis and boots (known in more civilized areas as "renting"), which was all part of a pretty good package deal.  However,  the place where we were renting our skiis had an alarming lack of... snow.  In fact, we still had to catch a TRAIN that went, as near as I can tell, straight up through a mountain before we finally got to see actual white stuff!

http://www.perisher.com.au/

I know what all my Colorado and skiing friends are wondering... no it's not as good.  It wasn't bad though, especially the second half of the day when we moved to the "tough" mountain where there was some actual powder and some nice ungroomed blue runs.  It was really quite fun!  The runs are about 1/8 to 1/4 as long as the runs in Colorado though, that was the main difference that I noticed.  That... and there wasn't much snow.  And it wasn't very steep...  Australia is the flattest continent in the world, did you know that?  I bet it was still better than any skiing any of you did this weekend!  (Hopefully no one from South America or New Zealand is reading this...)

The other thing that was different was the T-bars!  Fully half the lifts we used were T-bars, and I had never used one before.  It's quite a different experience - you actually have to pay attention so you don't take out the person next to you and your legs don't get quite the rest that they would on a lift, but it is much warmer as you are well ensconsed in the Earth's viscous sublayer, if you know what I mean.  Sarah attempted to kill me several times on the T-bars, to which I retaliated by taking her down runs that caused her to fall, quite spectacularly, many times.  Good fun.

Sarah!

Pretty good weekend!

First Day of School!

Today is my first day of teaching!

Lake Burley Griffin

Canberra is a planned city, designed by an American, Burley Griffin.  The entire city is situated around a man made lake.  It's winter here, and Canberra is the coldest major city in Australia, but Aussies are big wimps when it comes to winter - it feels much more like fall to me.  After all... there's no snow and it still gets into the 50s and 60s almost every day.

I went for a 12 kilometer run (I know, I'm starting to think in kilometers now) around the lake on a sunny day, and it was awesome.  I had forgotten how nice it is to run in a place with trees, water, and beautiful scenery, and this is all starting from the front door of my apartment.

Of course, I didn't actually bring my camera with me, but here are some pictures I found that are representative.

The Captain Cook Fountain.  It shoots hundreds of feet into the air.  On the left is the National Library, and behind the spray you can see Parliament.

The National Carillion

There were a whole bunch of awesome nerdy older Australian dudes racing RC sailbots all over the lake.

A Black Swan (with an awesome red beak).  There are lots of these.  Even the swans in Australia are much more exotic than they are back home.  The Carillion is in the background.

The Land of Yes and the Land of No

For those less interested in sport, I went to see the Sydney Dance Company the other night with Sarah to see this performance:

http://www.sydneydancecompany.com/work/the-land-of-yes-and-the-land-of-no/

It was really good!  Probably the best contemporary dance I've ever seen... not that the sample set is all that large.

The State of Origin

Instead of watching fireworks, eating hot dogs, and getting drunk on the 4th of July, Aussies get drunk and watch the "State of Origin", which is, as far as I can tell, akin to the Superbowl, at least for the two states of Queensland and New South Wales. 

http://www.nrl.com/RepGames/StateofOrigin2012/tabid/11131/Default.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Origin

For those who don't know, there are actually FOUR kinds of "footy" in Australia, and I haven't figured out how to tell which one someone is talking about when they say the word "footy" yet.  Oh, and American Football (here called "Gridiron") is NOT one of the four...

There are two kinds of Rugby:  Rugby Union and Rugby League.  Rugby Union is what Americans are thinking when they think of Rugby, and as I understand it is the upper class version, considered more boring by the masses, played mostly by snobby private school kids.  Rugby League is kind of a mix of Gridiron and Rugby Union, as they have downs and a lot more movement, and is the "public school" game.  Both Rugby League and Rugby Union are primarily enjoyed by the two Eastern States previously mentioned, NSW and QLD.  The State of Origin is a Rugby League game, but it is a thrice a year event that pulls the best players from all of the assorted teams to play for thier home state (or... "state of origin"). 

The other two kinds of footy are Australian Rules Football (AFL) which is very different, and is a lot more like soccer than rugby, albeit with a lot more contact.  I find it more boring than either kind of rugby, and it is evidentally mostly popular in the "south", meaning Melbourne and Adelaide (states of Victoria and South Australia).  The fourth type is soccer, which, amazingly, is also called soccer here.

Don't even get me started on cricket...