Cockatoos…

…love the rain. They fly around screaming whenever there’s precipitation. Looking out my office window right now, it’s raining gently and there’s a big gang of sulfur-crested cockatoos flying around and playing and yelling at each other. They’re quite large, and bright bright white, so they’re very easy to see against the green foliage of the gum trees. And they are so incredibly loud and raucous and full of life. They’re really quite wonderful.

We are settling into a routine. In the morning we try to leave the apartment at 8:30 AM. (This is an ideal, and like most ideals, is seldom actually realized.) We all walk up to Coogee Public School together (about 15 minutes from our flat), the girls scamper off to find their friends, and Rebekah and I walk the rest of the way up to the Uni, (another 15 minutes from the school). School ends at 3 PM; Rebekah and I take turns meeting the girls when they get out of school. It’s quite funny; one moment the school yard is deserted, and then a loud bell sounds, and it’s suddenly filled with screaming children dressed in bright red and blue, running around and playing and yelling at each other. It’s incredibly loud and raucous and full of life. Kinda like…

Royal National Park

On Sunday, Brett and his son Harrison took us on a lovely drive south of Sydney to the Royal National Park. This is a large and beautiful area that seems to pull off the delicate act of balancing the oft-times competing demands of human recreation and natural preservation. We spent some time at Audley, which is a lovely and picturesque picnic site along the bottom of a river valley. We fed and communed with the native sulfur-crested cockatoos, and also saw our first kookaburras close-up. We then took a walk up one of the sides of the valley. It was strewn with very interestingly eroded rocks, and some truly beautiful and evocative trees and plant life. To the best of my knowledge we saw no poisonous wildlife. Elena, Maya and Harrison of course sprinted up the slope, springing from rock to rock like bighorn sheep–except without the horns. I headed up the task force entrusted with straggling far behind… to make sure no one got lost in the bush, of course. At the top of the valley I caught up to the rest of the party, and we panted, gulped water, and lounged on rocks for a bit, before working our way back down.

At the bottom, we found a snack hut and demolished massive piles of “hot chips” (french fries, for you folks back in the states) and I was introduced to the “sausage roll,” a local delicacy consisting of sausage filling (lamb, I think) baked into the center of a cylindrical flaky puff pastry. Not part of a heart-smart diet, but amazingly delicious. The highlight of the meal, however, was Brett pulling two bottles of wine out of the car, along with stemmed classes, and asking, “Red or white?”

After wiping all the grease from my beard, we piled back into the car and drove to Wattamolla, which is a stunning beach. On one side is the ocean (or rather, the Tasman Sea, to be exact), where a bay sheltered on both sides by sheer sandstone cliffs whose feet are strewn with boulders ends in waves crashing gently on a lovely strip of sand. Opposite the ocean side is a fresh-water lagoon, fed by a 30-foot waterfall where Brett tells me adolescent boys spend the summer jumping off the cliff into the water below. It was truly a beautiful spot, and I look forward to visiting the place in summer.

Check out some more photos here.

First Day of School!

Today was Elena & Maya’s first day at Coogee Public School. I’ll let them tell you about it.

Maya: “The first day of school was fun. I enjoyed it. It went by so fast. Lunch and snack time were so much longer than they are in Arlington. My teacher was really really nice. I had a huge classroom. Everybody was really nice to me. It was exciting. It was funny because this loud bell rang, and everyone ran out for snack or lunch or going home or whatever it was time for. They called snack time ‘morning tea,’ and at lunchtime they said ‘it’s time for big lunch.’ It was hilarious. I think I’m going to like it here.”

Elena: “The first day of school was great.  It seemed more relaxed than school at home. We had longer breaks and specials (like an hour for lunch and recess, and an hour for library). We made friends the first day. Teachers were really kind and kids helped us know where we were going. We all ate lunch outside, and we get to use the computers on a regular basis, i.e. we have our own accounts and everything.”

Overall, we are delighted with the kindness of the teachers, administrators, and staff.

Mobile Phones

Saturday we decided to go out and get cell phones. Or “mobiles” as they’re called here. Rebekah and I both have Ph.D.s. We’re fairly smart people, and I think it’s fair to say that professionally our research areas require us to deal with a great deal of complexity on a regular basis. But nothing–NOTHING–in my previous experience prepared me for the complexity of deciding which mobile phone and which service to get. Oh my god.

I’m not even going to attempt to describe the myriad options, because (1) it would take me all day, (2) it would give me a headache, and (3) I would probably start yelling and throwing things again. From what we could determine there are two basic kinds of services: plans, and pre-paid. We decided on pre-paid. Essentially, this means that you buy a phone that you can’t work and that doesn’t come with any discernible manual, and have a running balance that you recharge as necessary to pay for your usage. Seems simple-ish, eh? Au contraire. There are five or so major mobile providers (we eventually chose Telstra, because we were at the Telstra store when we finally reached our limit). Each has a unique line of pre-paid phones. Each also has a unique set of packages that you can choose from (Recharge $40 and get $260 extra credit for calls and text messages to any 5 numbers you select for 30 days! Or, free calls and text to any five numbers on Telstra, for a period that varies with the recharge amount! Or or or!) Check out their website and see how quickly you get a headache.

Plus there are a dozen or so different ways to recharge your account, and each one comes with different amounts of bonus minutes, different expiration periods, etc. etc. Yes, the prepaid minutes expire. When do they expire? I have no clue.

Needless to say, the entire process made me very tired and crabby. The upshot is that we now have working mobiles. I think.

Playing Tourist

This week has been kinda cold (low teens) and rainy. Monday we toured the USS Kittyhawk, an American aircraft carrier stationed in Japan that’s in Sydney for a few days. We were “special guests of the US Embassy,” whatever that means, but it made us feel important. It was bloody awesome, in the true sense of the word. The ship was absolutely gigantic, and housed almost 6000 military personnel, along with 4 squadrons of FA-118 fighter-attack aircraft, one squadron of radar-jamming aircraft, one squadron of high-altitude spy aircraft and a bunch of helicopters. One of these fighters sets us taxpayers back $60 million. There are about 15 planes per squadron. Do the math. That’s $3.6 billion dollars worth of fighters alone on this thing. That’s YOUR $3.6 billion, people. Being the Roman Empire isn’t cheap, but it’s sure as hell impressive. I left the tour deeply convinced that we could kick anyone’s ass in the world in a conventional war. But that’s not working out so well in Iraq, is it?

On a less controversial note, we went to Taronga Zoo on Tuesday. It’s situated on a hillside overlooking the harbor across from Sydney. The views were absolutely breathtaking. And the exhibits were amazing. You take a cable car up to the top, and then work your way down. Here are some photos of the girls with various indigenous fauna. They had incredible koala, kangaroo, wombat, platypus, Tasmanian devil, dingo, etc etc exhibits. No, Amira, I didn’t let the dingos eat my babies. I tried to take photos of the platypus, but they are very quick little buggers. I got several excellent pictures of a place where a platypus had been very recently, but that’s about it. One exhibit had you walking around on a path with essentially nothing in between you and emus, kangaroos, and wallabies. I don’t know how they did it, but it was incredible. My personal favorite was a leopard seal. It was bloody HUGE, and pretty terrifying. If you’ve seen Happy Feet, I gotta tell ya that they’re even scarier in person. Second favorite was a bird show in which kites, sea eagles, owls, and various parrot-kind flew around and showed off aerial wizardry on command.

Sorry, Toledo, but this was the most impressive zoo I’ve ever seen.

The wrong side of the…

OK, you all know that they drive on the left side of the road down here. That’s not particularly shocking. My solution to that is simply not to drive. Ever. But it turns out that there are a number of other very subtle correlates of that simple fact; things you take completely for granted until you’re picked up and dropped into a place where things are otherwise.

For example, next time you’re walking towards another person on a sidewalk, think about which side you drift towards in order to avoid a collision. Next time you’re on a busy sidewalk, take a moment to notice the traffic flow. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but for the most part in the States people on sidewalks and in hallways tend to (unconsciously, I’m sure) mimic traffic rules. When two people are approaching each other, each naturally drifts a bit to his/her right, which usually allows them to smoothly and effortlessly avoid walking into each other. Here, of course, people do the same thing. Except “doing the same thing” means “doing the opposite” when I’m involved. They naturally drift to their left and almost always avoid walking into each other. However, when some unsuspecting Aussie has the misfortune to approach me on the sidewalk/hallway, they drift to their left, and I drift to my right, and there is inevitably a near-collision. I’ve been here for scarcely a week and I can’t tell you how many near-collisions I’ve had with native pedestrians. My solution to this problems has been to walk around muttering to myself, “Left side, left side, left side.” Maybe it will work.

Another problem is that I automatically look to my left when attempting to cross the street (that’s where my brain thinks traffic comes from, despite having lived in Boston for nine years, where traffic can essentially come from anywhere). Of course, down here, traffic comes from the right. This combination would result in my being quite the sitting duck (and I’ll bet an American is worth LOTS of points down here… or practically anywhere, these days) except for the fact that the Olympics were here in 2000 (I think) and the thoughtful city officials installed signs inscribed in the pavement at busy intersections that say, “LOOK RIGHT.” This stroke of brilliance probably saved countless lives during the Olympic festivities, and has saved my butt on several occasions as well. My solution to this problems has been to walk around muttering to myself, “look right, look right, look right.” It’ll probably sink in just in time for me to come home to Boston and be systematically looking the wrong way there too. And with Boston drivers being Boston drivers, that could be a real problem.

Finally, the most subtle and insidious manifestation of this difference has to do with eye contact. When you’re crossing the street and there are cars around, even if they’re stopped at a red light, you (again, unconsciously, I’m certain) tend to seek to make eye contact with the driver of the car, to ensure that they see you, to flirt, to make sure they’re not a slobbering maniac, or whatever. Pay attention next time you cross a busy street; I bet you do it. So… I do exactly the same thing here. The trouble is, the driver sits on the right side of the car, rather than on the left side, where I expect a proper driver to be. So my finely-honed cognitive routines for establishing eye contact with the driver lead me to either (a) gaze into thin air, or (b) lock eyes with someone sitting the passenger seat, which is lovely and neighborly and all but not very effective at saving my pedestrian skin.

Driver: “Crikey, I think I just ran over some bald bloke!”

Passenger: “Oh yeah, I saw him.”

Not sure how to solve this one yet.

Potatoes

So last night we returned to Coogee from our romp in Centennial Park (we’re becoming quite the bus-savvy urban family, thanks in large part to Rebekah’s obsessive studying of transit maps) and again split up. Rebekah and the girls went home to start dinner, and I was dispatched to buy potatoes, onions, and orange juice. (Somehow “beer” insinuated its way onto the list as well. Go figure…)

So I set off for the local lovely, quaint, organic, and expensive produce market. I had no problem with the onions and OJ, but the tubers threw me for a bit of a loop. They had several kinds of potatoes:  “Pontiac,” “Finkelstein” (OK, not Finkelstein, but something like that), “Brushed,” and “Washed.” “Brushed” and “washed” seemed very odd names for varieties of potatoes, so I stared and stared at these two, trying to decide which would be tastiest with a roast chicken. The “brushed” potatoes were the same shaped as the “washed” potatoes, but had a lovely golden-reddish-brown skin, almost hash-brownian in its appeal, whereas the others where quite pale and featureless. “Brushed” potatoes were also cheaper. So I carefully chose one and hefted it, to check it out more closely. To my surprise, the lovely golden-reddish-brown skin came off on my hand as a fine clay powder. I rubbed the potato with my thumb, and low and behold, it was covered in this thin and uneven layer of very fine reddish-brown dirt. Underneath, it was the same as a “washed” potato. I looked at the signs again, and started to chuckle at myself. “Brushed potatoes” were dug up, brushed off, and sent off to market. “Washed potatoes” were dug up, washed off, and sent off to market. In essence, brushed potatoes are unwashed washed potatoes. Washed potatoes will cost you an extra dollar per kilo, by the way.

I ended up buying 4 lovely Pontiac potatoes. They were delicious.

Climbing Trees

Today, we went to the Centenial Park. It had amazing climbing trees. We climbed the most fantastic tree. Some of the roots came out of the ground taller, (not longer!) than Maya! There were all kinds of nooks in the roots big enough to fit a person! Also, there was a really cool seat that Maya discovered. It was, unbelievably as it is, was extraordinarily comfortable! The park was HUGE, and very beautiful and interesting. There was so much to explore. It was great!

-by Maya and Elena

Australian Pizza

I know, I know, when in Rome and all, but sometimes you’re just hankerin’ for a lil taste of home. Last night was one of those nights. We all went to the opening reception for a conference at UNSW that Rebekah and I are presenting at (the Australasian Human Development Association), and on the way home we were hungry, sleepy, and crabby as hell. So we ordered two pizzas to go from a neighborhood joint (“Viva la Pizza,” if you must know).

Rebekah was excited because they had Hawaiian, her favorite. Her assessment: “OK, not great.” She thought the crust was a bit dry and hard.

I was hungry and so didn’t care all that much.  I thought the sauce was a bit too sweet. There was lots of cheese (this is a good thing), and the cheese actually had taste and character, and was pleasantly chewy.

Maya thought it smelled funny.

Elena thought it was different from American pizza, but OK.

It remains to be seen how this place compares to others. But in conclusion, our results are inconclusive, and more research is clearly necessary.

Happy Fourth of July

Y’all are probably settling in for some fireworks as we speak, wiping the bbq sauce off your chins and guzzling the last of the ice cold bud lite. Here it’s the morning of July 5th. We managed to stay up until 8 PM last night, but awoke for good at 4 AM again. Sigh. But that gave us a chance to get some work done, and go for a nice run on the beach.

Pix are coming, I promise. As soon as we can find a digital camera that can take more than 2 photos without exhausting the batteries…