Fourth of July!!!

Fourth of july

UniQuest has drinks every Friday. So, when Fourth of July fell on a Friday, I thought why not share the American spirit with my new employers. Trying to find the right balance of Americana that was cute, but not obnoxious was not easy. A few American flags, some sparklers, MGD and the Boston Pops on the stereo, and we had a full on Fourth of July bash.

Bloody motorist

It's been months since I was hit by the car. I am, for the most part, all better. I still should go get some physio on my left side. It still tightens up when I ride, and my left hip is definitely not as flexible as the right one, but I get by. I've got the new bike, and so for the most part, life has moved on.

I got a quote to replace the bike and have been calling the motorist for a while asking for his insurance info. He's been stalling. First he wanted the police report, then once it was done, he wanted them to send him a copy (which they don't do), so then I paid for a copy ($65, thank you very much), and posted a copy to him. Then he avoided my calls. I finally got in touch with him and he says he wants to contest the police report. Motherfucker. My response was, "Fine, you'll hear from my solicitor"

Problem is lawyers or solicitors won't take a case that's less than $7500. And my damages are only $2600. I can take him to small claims court, but I have to do that in Cairns, which means taking a day off, flying to Cairns, and there's still no guarantee that he'd show up, or even pay up with a court order.

So, I've hired a collections agency. They take 40%, which is pretty steep, but to have the problem go away and just get a check for $1000 is worth it. Especially, if they make this guy's life shitty in the process. I don't think of myself as a vindictive person. But, christ, the man could have just as easily killed me if there'd been another car behind me. And now he's being all slimey and trying to get out of. Fuck him.

Race Report: Gold Coast Half Marathon

I did not train as well as I could have for the half marathon. Between travel and shin splints, I just didn't do as many Ks. But last week I ran 16Ks in prep, and I sorta reckoned that it would take me 2 hours, which is an hour short of what a tri took me, so I could probably run for the long.

Last night, I tried to get to sleep early. I watched a movie, had a beer, and went to bed at 9:30. At 10pm my neighbors sounded like they had moved their party onto my balcony. It sounded like a good time, if I hadn't had to get up at 4am. When I finally did get to sleep, it was fretful. The movie was a thriller, and I kept having nightmares that someone had stolen my license. And I kept waking up worrying that I would sleep through my alarm.

I had forgotten to pick up my number last week, so when I got to the course, I needed to find registration. The start was at 6:30. So at 6:05 it was still dark, and registration was not easy to find. By the time I got my number, it was 5 min til the start, not enough time to get into the queue for the loo. OK, fine, there will be toilets on the course.

7000 people ran the half marathon this morning. The start was just packed. When the gun went off, I wasn't even on the course, I was on the other side of a barrier. Slowly, we hopped over the barrier, and walked toward the start. They had music playing. When I crossed, the song "Running" (by Kiwi band Evermore) was playing, there was a little downhill and I could see the field of runners stretching out in front of me for what looked like miles already.

Generally, I find the first 5K of a run the hardest, then things start to settle in, I find my cadence and my breath, and then I feel like I can just keep going. This morning, maybe because there were so many people in the field that it took a lot of time to get up to speed, I felt good right off the start. I caught up to the 2 hour pace setters (they carry balloons!), and felt fast, so I passed them. Besides, I was still gonna have to stop to visit the loo somewhere along the course.

At 4K, I found my pit stop. I lost 2.5 minutes in the queue, but definitely better than it would have been had I waited at the start. The 2h balloons were a minute ahead of me when I rejoined the field, so I tried to keep them in my sights, and re-pass people I had passed in the start. At 6K the rain started. It was just a drizzle, but it was a cold drizzle and it was enough to get the shoes wet through and through.

The course turned and across the sky there was a rainbow. Not just a little wedge of rainbow like you get in the states. It arced across the entire sky touching the horizon twice. And the rain stopped.

The first 12K of the race just felt great. In fact, I forgot to look at my time when crossing the halfway mark. At that point it started to get hard. There was no sign for the 14K mark which messes with your head when you're trying to focus on pealing off the K's. At the 17K mark things started to hurt. But I also realized I was going to finish in less than 1:55. I started focusing on how many Ks to go (which my math brain seems to turn off when I'm running so it was somewhere between 6 and 3K depending on when you ask me). At 18K, I could feel the blisters coming up. At 19K, I began counting my breaths to pull myself through.

And then, it was over. 1 hour, 53 minutes and 46 seconds after I started, I was finished. I crossed the line, got my water and banana, my medal and my tshirt.

In a few days, I'll stop waddling. In a week, the blisters will callus. And in a few months, I'll run another half, sub 1:50.

I should have paid more attention in undergrad

If I had known when I was 20 that when I was (nearly) 29 I'd be looking at various academic papers and trying to determine if they were novel, would I have paid more attention? Or would I have just thought, I could rely on wikipedia (which is what I do).

So many of these concepts are vaguely familiar (principal compenent analysis, eigenvectors, support vector machines), but I feel like I never really understood them. I learned enough to regurgitate it to pass the test, then immediately repurposed those brain cells.

And now I'm left wiki-ing and scrounging the web for references, simple illustrations, something to get me to pass this current test.

Anniversary

One year ago today, I stepped off a plane and into a world entirely unknown to me. With one American in Sydney and an Australian in Melbourne as my closest connections, I started the process of discovering Australia and myself.



Now looking back a year, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. A new culture, a new job, a new climate, and learning to be by myself. It wasn't always easy, but it's always been good.



Shortly after arriving, I read an article on the difference between "friends" and "mates". Friends you take or leave. You meet, might be friends for the night, or a month or even a year, but the bar is low to become a friend, and it's easy to go back to not being friends. Mates on the other hand seem to take on some meaning from the verb form of the word. Being a mate is more intimate. It takes time. I was friends with people in Cairns pretty quickly, but it took time to really develop into mates. Now, with most of them spread across Australia, I keep in regular touch with them in some cases more than with my American friends.



Coincidentally, today I sent my laptop back to BCG and I received a package from BCG with the remainder of the items I left at my desk in Boston. Now, a year from my arrival, I am completely severed from BCG. And isn't it great!



I looked back at my first post. My predictions. They seem sort of silly now, in light of the fact that Australia is no longer just a trip for me, but it's my life now. Of course I have more shoes, I've read more books, and still have not had a venomous attack. When I moved to Brisbane I still had my four bags, but now I had 3 boxes, and none of them a bike box. And I was ridiculously over the weight limit. Now I own silverware and plates, towels, and sheets. All the little pieces of a life here.



I'm still living a bit of a hybrid life. Still in a mostly furnished apartment, with a lot of my time spent thinking about or skyping to the US. Maybe that's the way it will always be, whether I'm in the US or Australia, always with a connection to the other.

Amendment: Slowest of the slow

Today I rode with the slow group, and I still couldn't keep up. I brake when going down hills or around corners or when there's a car anywhere in my sight. And then I'm constantly playing catch up.

Fastest of the slow, slowest of the fast

I've joined a tri team. The Brisbane Tri Squad. It is far more serious than my training in Cairns, and it should be since I have to pay a monthly fee. But it means that I have coaches to oversee my program and improve my technique.

Last week I did my first ride with them. They break into three levels. Level 1 being super fast, Level 3 being entry level. Or as the bike coach defines them "Fast, Very Fast, Incredibly Fast". So I decided I'd try out the "fast" or entry level ride. This ride felt a bit slow. Granted, one of the girls got a flat in the first 10K or so. But still, I thought it wasn't really challenging. I decided to take on Level 2 this week.

Fastforward to last Sunday. I wake up with some pretty tired legs after an hour of twenty minutes of hill running the previous morning. But decide to go ahead and join up with level 2 anyway. There are only 4 other riders and the head coach when I arrive. We take off at a good pace, but we're heading through the city, so there's lots of lights, clipping in and clipping out. I'm still not especially good at that, so I always have to catch up from the lights. Then we start hitting the hills. And my legs just don't have it in them. The coach is great, riding along with me, several meters back from the pack, and giving me pointers (really got my money's worth out of this ride), but still, it's obvious, I can't hack it. He and I turn back early, catch up with group 3, where he drops me off.

Now I'm of two minds about this. One says, I should stick with the group I can hang with, a less humbling and far more enjoyable ride. The other says, if I want to improve I should ride with the fast group and be challenged. I'll get faster faster. I think after this week, I'll go back to level 3 for a few weeks til I build up the courage to try them out again. Maybe next time with stronger legs.

Similarly, I've been swimming with the UQ adult swim squad. There are three lanes. I tried the slow lane the first time, and I was faster than the rest. But this time, I didn't get too encouraged by this. I stuck to the slow lane, and I was the only one. So the coach moved some medium swimmers into my lane. And I was back to being the slowest of the slow. Yay.

I want to use this coaching time to really improve my technique. Take stroke improvement classes, I've been doing an indoor ride (where I bring my bike and put it on a wind trainer - which makes it into a stationary bike) to get technique improvement on my cycling.

Oh, and I signed up for my next olympic distance triathlon. November 2, in Noosa (2 hours north of Brisbane). It's the largest olympic distance race in australia, and it's supposed to be a crazy awesome party. Woo hoo. A few shorter tri's between now and then, and of course the Gold Coast half marathon coming up in a week and a half.

For serious

I continue to settle in. Starting to figure out a routine, which sessions to go to at the pool, going for a ride tomorrow with a tri squad. But I keep feeling like this is for serious now. It didn't hit me when I changed the subtitle of the blog from 6 to 9 months, or even when I made it say "ongoing." But now, working and living in Brisbane, it seems like this is no long an adventure, it's my life. I live in a foreign country. I work here. Sorta freaky.

People ask me how long I'm here for, and I say "indefinitely". It's not that I don't think I'll ever come back, it's just that I no longer have an end date.

My Australian anniversary is in 2 weeks. And after that I'll look to celebrate another fourth of July and a second birthday abroad. It is still the right thing to be here, I just have to remember that the clock doesn't stop just because I'm away.

In related news, the two other Americans at work and I are trying to figure out how to celebrate the fourth. I was thinking tiny American flags on every one's desks. Perhaps pigs in a blanket. Maybe trying to scare up some Sam Adams and some reese's cups (no I still don't eat peanut butter, but I'm thinking of the Aussies). Any suggestions? Volunteers to ship American goods down under.

And finally, I bought this recipe magazine. It seems unlikely that it is entirely created, photographed and edited by gay men. But, I can see no other possible explanation for this photo:

Contact info

Hey,

I moved here are my new details:
2402/6 Manning St
South Brisbane QLD 4101
AUSTRALIA

My mobile remains the same +61 438 632 855

And my new work address is:
UniQuest
Level 7, General Purpose South
Staff House Road
The University of QLD
Brisbane QLD 4072
AUSTRALIA

work is still the best address for packages.

Settling in

Four days of work and a new bike. So far, so good.

It may be a bit early, but work seems pretty awesome. I work with the techology commercialisation team (which is about half the company, ~40 people), but I sit with the school of IT and electrical engineering 3 stories downstairs. I come up to UniQuest several times a day for meetings and lunch. I've been wandering the corridors introducing myself to grad students and researchers. And otherwise looking at a few technologies that some profs have brought my way. My office is huge, though relatively bare (I'm thinking of taking my digital picture frame into work). The people are all welcoming, the hours are officially 8:30 to 5:30, though the office is empty at 8:30 and pretty vacant again by 5:15. But most importantly, I feel pretty comfortable, even though I still don't know what I'm doing. I feel confident I can do this job well. What a change from BCG.

I live a 5 minute walk to the big bus station where I can take the express bus which takes about 12 minutes to get to campus, then it's another 5 or so minutes walk across campus to my building, General Purpose South (and I thought MIT had a bad naming scheme). The only problem with the commute is that there seem to be 4 different schedules for the bus: there's the online one, the one that's published at the stops, the digital one that flickers up at the stations, and then the one they actually run on. None of them is particularly indicative of the others. But in general, they run every 5 minutes in the morning and every 10 minutes in the evenings. So... Not so bad.

I need to do some work clothes shopping. I didn't bring a lot of "work clothes" over to Cairns, and the office is actually an office, unlike CYI. Plus I've shrunk a bit since I bought these work clothes, so things seem to hang off me. Guess this means more shopping this weekend. Thank goodness for Queen's Birthday sales! That's right, I have Monday off for the celebration of the Queen's birthday. It should be noted that the Queen Elizabeth II's birthday is actually on the 21st of April. Of course it's not the Queen's birthday in Western Australia, cause it's celebrated there sometime in September.

The apartment is coming together. Still needs a different TV stand, a BBQ on the porch and a bit more decor, but it's good. The curtains help a lot.

And then there's the bike. I just picked her up today, and she's a beauty. Small and stealthy. I'm thinking her name might be Leticia. Not luh-ti-sha, but la-tee-see-ah. Despite being an American bike, she just seems exotic. Tomorrow morning I'm gonna take her to the indoor bike studio for her first ride. I'm still nervous about riding her. She's so new and shiny. And I will try to do better by her than my LeMond, but I can't promise that she won't take a beating. I'm still learning.

I haven't joined a tri club yet. I'm still trying to figure out with my work schedule what will work best. The ride tomorrow morning is with the Brisbane Tri Squad and the studio is just down the street from me. But they swim in the Valley which is too far for me to go. There is a tri club at UQ, but I'm not sure if it'll work either: they practice at UQ at 5:30am which means I'd have to ride to work everyday in the dark, cause buses don't run that early.

So slowly, I'm starting to build a life here.

Living in Brissie

New bike!

Bike shops make me nervous. I think it's cause even after 100 miles in one day, I still feel pretty clueless about bikes. I mix up my down tube and my down bars. I'm never sure what it means to go up or down a gear (especially depending on whether it's on the front or the back gears). So I've been dragging my feet about buying a new bike. I want a new bike, but all those decisions, trying to find a good price, a trustworthy mechanic, an upgrade from my old bike, but not too much bike that people look at me and think, "What's that girl doing on such a nice bike?" It's all been a bit too much. But with my extended holiday coming to a close(work starts on Monday), I needed to get moving.

I've checked out 3 bike shops that are in walking distance of my house. Is it so wrong that bike shop I eventually bought the bike from was the one that didn't make me nervous? It was also the only shop to discount the bike price. And the most affordable bike overall.

Here she is, my new bike:

http://www.cannondale.com/bikes/08/cusa/model-8RCS3C.htm

I've ordered it in black. But it's a clear coat that shows the carbon fiber. She should be here, built and fitted by next weekend! Hooray, bike! Any name recommendations?

Longtime silence is a prime indicator of romance

Sunday, I received this email from a friend:

"What is happening in Australia? Nothing on ye olde blogue for a while, nor Facebook ... have you got a boy? Longtime silence is a prime indicator of romance, I say."

Very astute. My hiatus has been caused by a man. Way back over christmas I had a date in Boston. Well, I've just had my second date: a two week holiday in Australia covering Sydney, Cairns and Brisbane. Allow me to introduce, Paul:

We spent the first week in Sydney (at the Westin, which we can highly recommend, especially the club lounge with free breakfast, cocktails and canapes everyday) doing touristy things. We took the ferry across the harbour to the Taronga zoo, which is built into the side of the hill and has spectacular views of Sydney and some pretty cool animals as well.

Day two, we went to high tea at the Opera house (pictured above). Tea included tea, champagne cocktails, tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and more sugar on one plate that one could possibly manage. It also included a short program by one of the opera's sopranos who sang one of my favorite arias, O Mio Babbino Caro (yes, the one from a Room with a View).

Day three, we nearly missed our wine country tour when we didn't change hotels (I mean really how can you change hotels when there are canapes every night). But we made it. It's a two hour drive from Sydney to the hunter valley, where we visited several small wineries, then went on a cheese tasting tour on our own. Ok, I'm going to be honest. We spent about 3 times as much on cheese as we did on wine. And we ate all of the cheese the following day. I love cheese.

Day four, we ate cheese.

We did eventually make it out to the Victoria Room in Darlinghurst for several amazing cocktails: tequila manhattan, a drink with bourbon, chambourd, and ginger beer that we couldn't get enough of, and finally a cuban blazer. Our bartender, far more the cocktail enthusiast than most, was fantastic. We were rifling through the cocktail book (not really a list) and she asked us what we liked and devised our cocktails for us. Devine.

Day five, we hit the paddington markets, then headed up to Cairns.

I was more sentimental about Cairns than I thought I might be. I believe I narrated every shop and corner we passed. And Paul was good enough to feign interest in my fun facts (couldn't really call them stories, "This chemist is new!!"). We took the skyrail up to Kuranda, mostly just to take the skyrail (Gondolas that take you from the coast over the rainforest to the tablelands). And had a fantastic Aussie BBQ on the Esplanade with Kimberley and Hamish, complete with a park ranger asking us to at least not be so blatant with our alcohol. We weren't rowdy, but we'd decided to recreate the bourbon drink from the Victoria Room, so we had many alcohol bottles out on the picnic table.

The following day we went up to Port Douglas and took a reef tour with two intro dives. It's scuba diving without any of the training! That sounds unsafe, but really, you have a guide who adjusts your buoyancy, and we never went further down than 8 or so meters. It was fantastic. Giant clams, gorgeous coral, a shark, a barracuda and nemo. The drive to PD also included a bit of narration ("the paddock with wallabies", "the turn around point for a 50K ride", "the turn around point for a 60K ride", "the furthest north I've ever cycled" - exciting stuff).

Next we drove South to Mission Beach and stayed in the rain forest for two nights at Sanctuary. Here we stayed in a tiny hut (think screened in porch) in the heart of the jungle. I took a lovely yoga class, and we watched Queensland get spanked in the state of origin game*.

Upon returning to Cairns we spent the afternoon in my favorite bar, Tides before heading down the Brisbane.

Contrary to Rowan's suggestion, I did not just import Paul to help me do household things. However, he did help me hang my curtains. In Brissie, we mostly just explored my neighborhood. It was fun just to have some one to check things out with. We tried out the jazz happy hour at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, had dinner at Satchmos with a live band, pub crawled our way back to my house from the West End and had the world's largest tapas at Sling.

And now he's back in the states. So what does one do for a third date?

Paul in Sydney

Paul in QLD

*State of Origin is a three game rugby league series where professional players play go back and play for their home state. Only Queensland and New South Wales play rugby league, so it's always the rivalry between the two. This was the first game of the series. Game two is in several weeks.

Slack photos

Without an internet connection at home, I've been slack about posting my photos. Here are my recent adventures:

Cycling the Great Ocean Road

The Hard Sell - DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist

Best viewed as a slideshow:

Assembling IKEA furniture is more fun with friends

ANZAC Day

Cycling the Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road runs from Warrnambool to Torquay, just West of Melbourne. When I signed up for the tour, I didn't realize how much time I would spend not cycling the Great Ocean Road. On the above map, only about a third of it is GOR. The rest is a whole lot of desert.

The week on the road settled into a nice routine. Wake up, breakfast, pack up, ride, stop for morning tea, ride, stop for lunch, ride, check into next motel, shower, lay out smelly, rainy clothes to dry, dinner, sleep. It also has created some bad habits I need to now rid myself of, like eating anything in sight, wiping my nose on my sleeve and spitting. Not appropriate for polite company.

I kept a daily journal on the road, with the hopes that somewhere in that routine I'd bump into the internet. Alas, no such luck. So here are a few back days of travel in the desert and the GOR.

Great Ocean Road, Day 1: Adelaide Gorge Rd

I wouldn’t say I’m having doubts, maybe just second thoughts. I’ve signed up for an 8 day cycle tour from Adelaide to Melbourne, supposed to be one of the most beautiful roads in the country. The tour is organized by a New Zealand company. And on this tour in particular, I’m the only non-kiwi. In fact, I’m the only non-Christchurcher. Actually, I’m the only person who doesn’t race 100Ks with this group every Saturday. And aside from the guide’s sons, I’m the youngest person by at least 10 years.

I know that South Australia is in severe drought. However, I feel that I deserved a long (read: more than 4 minute) hot shower. After all, I did ride through the rain for two hours. To kiwi’s this sort of weather is delightful (or “dilotful” in kiwi). Our guide said it was 18 degrees when we left (low 60s), but I feel pretty sure it was more close to the low 50s most of the day.

We took off on our intro ride from North Adelaide along Gorge Road. Gorge Road lived up to the images that are conjured when you hear “Gorge.” It was hilly, windy, windy and beautiful. We stopped after 30 minutes, and I took off my sweater and opted just for my wind/waterproof shell. This seemed like the right move, I felt cool, but comfortable while I was riding, and got a bit cold when stopped. Then, it started raining. Even though I wasn’t wet, the rain evaporating from the jacket made my arms particularly cold. Then, when I was stopped I felt warm, and when I was riding I was freezing. So a lesson learned for the rest of the trip. Get your gloves out of the van when you have a chance. At the last 15K where, going down a very long hill, my hands got so numb I had trouble keeping them on the brakes, I decided to ride in the van.

In the van I stripped off my socks and shoes to discover my toes were white: there was no blood in them at all, and I had trouble warming them up. Even after my hot shower I seemed to have trouble regulating my body temperature. Lesson number two: keep a warm change of clothes in the van.

Tomorrow we actually leave Adelaide. It’s supposed to be 115K ride (that’s 25K longer than my current longest ever). It’s also supposed to be hilly, and rainy, and cold. I’m still glad I’m doing it, but I’m also a little weary of what the trip has in store, particularly tomorrow and the next day as my body gets used to this new bike.

Great Ocean Road, Day 2: Adelaide to Victor Harbour
The plan this morning was a 9am departure. At 7am I woke up to the rain pounding the roof. At 8:45 I received a call saying, we were putting off riding for a few hours. We packed the bikes on top of the trailer and drove out the Glenelg, a beach town just south of Adelaide. It was gorgeous. Clear skies, sunny, grabbed a coffee and hit the road. Climbing, climbing, climbing.

And then, the clouds roll in, the skies open up and it… hails. It fucking hails. Not big hail, only about the size of Styrofoam pellets. But still. We catch up with the van, I grab my waterproof shell. (Using my lesson from yesterday I’ve been cycling with my gloves all morning) After another 8K or so, it’s pouring, the van pulls over, and we load our bikes back in. We’ve covered 27K or so. And give up on making the other 100 or so. We drive out to Victor Harbour, get quick showers and head for lunch.

Great Ocean Road, Day 3: Victor Harbour to Meningie
I think I’m officially an Aussie. I had vegemite on toast for brekky this morning.

I rode 102K today, a new record. The morning was littered with mechanical troubles. But once we got away from the coast and worked our way inland through stunning South Australian wine country and then shut down farms, things started to flow.

Every time I do a new longer distance it feels like crap the first time, and the next time it feels ok. Today was no exception. We have a support van that carries extra gear, food, water, etc. It drives up ahead then waits for us to catch up. Today, the real trouble was that the fast group was so far ahead, that for the van to set up our picnic lunch in the town of Wellington (one gas station, a caravan park, and a ferry), I didn’t see it for the last 40K or so of the ride. Which was ok, but I ran out of food and water. 40K takes around 1.5 hours. That’s a really long time to go without water even when it’s 60 out. We passed a sign saying 11K to the town, and I was psyched, I knew I could make it. By 9K I was really starting to struggle, started getting dizzy and worrying that I wouldn’t make it. But at 5K I knew I could. I might have counted down every 100m, but I made it.

Not a very happy lunch, but a good one. And after lunch, a van trip to Meningie, a nice long hot shower, I was very proud. And the tour group is very supportive, even toasted my first 100K at dinner tonight.

Meningie is a tiny, no stoplight town, slightly bigger than Wellington (it has a pub and a grocery store). It’s situated on Lake Albert, which is a vastly dwindling lake that’s been hit hard by drought. Our motel is straight out of the 70s, complete with ugly carpet and framed tiger photo. Brilliant.

Three 60K rides tomorrow, I’m hoping to make 120!

Great Ocean Road, Day 4: Meningie to Robe
I missed my chance at free wireless internet today. I didn’t think to check til it was too late, and the password must be obtained from reception. We leave tomorrow at 8am, when reception re-opens. Oh, the joy of staying in some of Australia’s best motels!

Today we rode 60K to Salt Creek where we had morning tea at a roadhouse. A roadhouse is the Australian equivalent of a gas station/diner/motel. This one claimed to have real coffee, but apparently just had drip that they added foam to. It was terrible. The first 20K felt shit, but from there on felt good. A few things contributed to that: we all road together in a pack, I ate at least every 30K, we had breaks every 60K or so.

Picture a long straight road fading off into a vanishing point on the horizon, you know, like the picture you drew in elementary art class when you learned about perspective. Now on either side of that road plant dried grass and scrubby gum trees. That was all we saw today. You can almost see why early Europeans might have thought running cattle on this land to be a good idea. It was later proved that running sheep and cattle would only ruin the vegetation and stomp down the ground til nothing would grow on it. We saw many abandoned farms. We stopped at the 85K mark and I felt good. Decided to ride on to 120. Luckily, the van had stopped around 112 for lunch. So my total distance today was 112, still 10K further than yesterday, but not quite the 120 I had hoped for. Tomorrow is 140 total. Do I dare?

Great Ocean Road, Day 5: Robe to Mt. Gambier
I woke up this morning to the rain with legs that felt like lead. I decided I needed a day of rest. I packed a bag of my cycling gear in case I had a change of heart. In the car on the way to tea I was starving. I had a big egg sandwich at tea, took a nap in the car, and by lunch I was ready to get back on the bike. It was only 37K, but it helped. It got my legs moving and made the day not feel like a waste.

It’s funny, I saw more wildlife today than other days. From the van, it’s easy to watch the landscape pass by. On the bike, riding in a pack, most of your focus has to be on the wheel in front of you, to make sure that you maintain a close distance, but not too close. Today, I saw emus from the car, and a dead kangaroo from the bike. Otherwise, I saw a cassowary on day 1 in a pen, and some white wallabies. And I’ve seen many many cows and sheep.

Great Ocean Road, Day 6: Mt. Gambier to Port Fairy
172K. That’s over 100 miles. I rode the entire distance from Mt. Gambier to Port Fairy. I did not get in the van, not once.

Also, we lost 3 of our riders today. The guy driving the van is a little bit of a space cadet. We’d sorta split into 3 groups: Anna, Craig and John in front, me, Marg and Ross in the middle and Ralph, Simona and Jacob at the back. We got to the lunch stop and the front group wasn’t there. We asked Stu (the van guy) and he said he couldn’t find them. This is worrying. Had they made a wrong turn? Were they just up ahead of where we were having lunch. Stu left us with the lunch and went looking for them. He returned, and still couldn’t find them. We decided to continue on, and he’d go ahead looking for them. When he did find them they were 10K out of Port Fairy, and had stopped for lunch on their own.

Today was the best day of riding yet. It was sunny and warm, we crossed the Victorian border and the landscape changed, we got rolling hills, green fields, and wind farms. At lunch, we’d ridden 108K. I still felt good, and since I hadn’t broken 112, I wanted to keep riding. It was just me and the boys. It was 65 more K to Port Fairy. I wanted to hit 130. When I did and the van wasn’t around, I wanted to make it to 150. When I hit 150, Ralph told me it was only 10 more K to hit the 100 mile mark, he also mentioned it was only 25 more K to get home. 25K is just under an hour. In my head, I thought, “Ok, one more hour, that’s not so bad.” Then I thought, “one more hour of exercise, after 5 hours of riding, who thinks that?”

Great Ocean Road Day 7: Port Fairy to Apollo Bay
Today we finally made it onto the Great Ocean Road.. It was cold, wet and miserable, but I was determined to get my 100K in and to actually cycle on the GOR. We didn't hit the GOR til about the 55K mark, where the sun briefly made an appearance, I removed my rain gear, only to be pounded once again about 20 minutes later. Things were starting to fall apart on my bike as well. I got a flattie that slowed me down a bunch. It was a nail. I've only ever gotten two flatties, and they were both nails. Once I had a new tube, my rear derailer seemed to be unhappy. I couldn't get into the big cogs (i.e., the easier gears). This is not so great for the hilly ride along the coast. And I was having trouble clipping into my pedals. And Ralph assured us it was only 96K to lunch, and it was really 106. I know it's only a 10% difference, but another 10K can piss you off when you thought you were done.

We had lunch at the 12 Apostles, which are immense pillars of rock just off the coast. There were 12 of them, now only 7 remain. They were incredible.

After lunch it was another 100K to Apollo Bay and two very very big hills. I decided I didn't need to do that. And enjoyed the scenery from the van.

Great Ocean Road, Day 8: Apollo Bay to Anglesea (and Melbourne)
Last day of riding. And by and far the best scenery so far. I fixed my rear derailer (turns out the wheel was just not quite in straight). It was fantastic. Winding road along the ocean, small surf towns. We even saw koalas in a eucalyptus grove. Really, quite perfect. Only 70K. I would do it again in a heartbeat

My new home

This is Brisbane, my new home. The green arrow is the University of Queensland, where I'll be working. As you can see the river sorta winds through everything. And there are few bridges. The really cool area to live is New Farm (aka. the Valley, Fortitude Valley, Teneriffe) in the upper right peninsula. It's all renovated warehouses and men in tight, yet saggy, pants. It's also 45 minutes on two buses from UQ or 60 minutes on the ferry.

So I'm looking for a place in the West End. On the knob between the Brisbane CBD and UQ. West End has about 3 blocks of shops. A few cafes, a few pubs, a few restaurants, a library. Basically a nice little neighborhood. Unfortunately, apparently a lot of other people want to live in the West End as well. So most of the apartments I can find are between the West End and South Bank.

South Bank was redeveloped 20 years ago. It was really well done, a beautiful park with an arbour running the distance, pool, cafes and restaurants, and a pool. It has withstood the test of time, I thought it had just recently been redeveloped. The problem is threefold. 1. There's nothing, save the train station, that wasn't built 20 years ago. All of the the cafes, restaurants and shops are part of these giant multipurpose buildings that all look modern. 2. Most of the shops and restaurants are chains. 3. It's just sorta dead except for weekend mornings. So Saturday and Sunday mornings it's a great place to live, otherwise, bleh. Oh, and most of the apartments around there are really recently built. So they're nice and new, but just, sort of, generic.

I have several weeks to find something, so I've looked at a couple of these style units. Even put in an application today on one cause it was really close to the West End and more affordable than most. But am still looking for something that offers a bit more.

PS. I'm now cycling from Adelaide to Melbourne starting on the 26th along the Great Ocean Road. So excited. How many pairs of cycling shorts do you think one should take on an 8 day cycle tour?

Revised plan

OK. Thanks for the input.

Here's the tentative plan:
Monday 14th fly to Brisbane to look for new apartment.
Tuesday 29th fly to Sydney
Wednesday 30th hop on the train to Perth! (http://www.gsr.com.au/our-trains/indian-pacific/the-journey.php)
Saturday 3rd (of May) arrive in Perth
Wednesday 7th begin biking trip to Uluru (http://www.cycletours.com.au/ride.php?code=RT1)
Monday 12th arrive at Uluru
Tuesday 13th fly to Sydney
Sunday 18th fly to Cairns (I just can't get enough of that town)
Thursday 22nd fly to Brissie
Monday 2nd (of June) start work

May still be able to fit some surfing in while I'm apartment hunting in Brissie. Great surf beaches are only an hour away (and accessible by train!)

Wheeeee!

Adventure needed

Just between you and me, I'm going to take this job in Brisbane at the University of Queensland. It's with an organization called UniQuest that manages the intellectual property developed at the university. My position will be working with the electrical engineering department (which includes CS).

I likely won't start the position until June. Which means I have four weeks to putz around between now and then, and I'm trying to decide how to best use that time. If I'm not careful I worry I may just sleep it off. So I need some goals. Here are a few ideas:

Drive from Melbourne to Brisbane. Stopping off in Canberra, Sydney and coastal towns. Trying to get in as many roadside attractions as possible. However, this could be a little lonely doing it by yourself.

Take up a hobby. I could go ahead to brissie, then head down to the gold coast for a week of surf lessons, or north to hamilton island to get my dive certification.

Do a big trip. Take the railroad all the way out to Perth (west coast).

Go international. My visa came through today (still can't believe it only took a few weeks when they were promising months), so I can leave Australia and return again.

What do you think? What would you do if you had a month in Australia?

Mooloolaba tri

Mooloolaba tri

I had a hierarchy of goals going into this tri:

1. Finish the tri.

2. Don't stop (no walking during the run).

3. Finish in under 3 hours.

Done, Done and DONE!

Mooloolaba is a beach town about an hour north of Brisbane on the Sunshine Coast. The tri there is the second largest in Australia with nearly 1500 competitors. The whole city shuts down for the weekend festival which includes 5K fun run, an ocean swim, a criterion race and the main attraction, the Tri.

I borrowed a bike from my friend Keri for the race. It's her old bike, it's a bit smaller than mine was, but it works. And I was incredibly grateful both to her for letting me use it and in general that I wasn't so broken from the accident that I couldn't race.

I stayed with Joan and Don who are an older couple from Cairns. Joan's in the road runner's club with me. Don's a tugboat captain (seriously). Saturday morning Joan, Julie and I went riding with a few others from Cairns, just to test out that the bikes were good and to try out the hills, then we went for a quick run. My legs felt heavy with anxiety. My run was sloppy and my ride was slow. And started me worrying about the race. My biggest fear was the swim. It's an ocean swim, and I haven't had to deal with surf in a long time. And there was talk that the water might be cold enough that they'd allow wetsuits. I don't own a wetsuit, but it would give advantage to those who do cause it helps you float.

Sunday morning I awoke at 4am to a nightmare that a croc had attacked me on a river. When it was finally time to get up, I put my hair into frenchbraids (which I'd been practicing). Ever since my first tri back in Boston, the hardcore women wore braids. My bangs are such that just pulling back into a ponytail guarantees not being able to see. And my new helmet doesn't offer much space for one anyway. So braids it was.

The swim start is about 1K down the beach from transition. A long cold walk in my tri suit. The sun hadn't really risen yet, the sand was cold and wet and there was a light breeze. By the time we reached the start I had only a few minutes before my heat. I was the first from the Cairns people to go since I'm the youngest. I positioned myself toward the back of the pack, cause I don't like getting swum over. When the horn sounded, we all rushed into the water. There's lots of kicking and flailing of arms all over the place, but the surf wasn't bad, it was easy to get beyond the breakers and on the way toward the buoys. The swim felt fantastic. It was the most relaxed swim I think I've ever had in a tri. All those laps really paid off. The saltwater makes you more buoyant, and the halfway buoys seemed to arrive in no time, and the final ones came even faster. I did get caught behind a few slower swimmers, but no matter. Even having to fight a rip to get back to shore didn't bug me. I felt fantastic.

There's a run of about 500 meters from where you emerge from the water to where you pick up your bike. And the timers don't actually give you a read for transition time, so most of that transition time is added to your bike time. The bike course is a Ks of rolling hills then out onto the highway (which was entirely closed to cars!) for the majority of the course which is relatively flat. For the first 10Ks or so I kept passing and being passed by this woman. It was good cause everytime she passed me I had another goal. I passed her as we were coming over the top of a rise, and I said "I'll see you at the bottom", but she never passed me back. Out there with so many people, I realized how much I love riding, and how much I'll miss it until I get a new bike and a new club. I must've had the stupidest grin on my face, but I was just so happy. I held around 30K/hr and a heartrate of around 170 the whole time. I felt fantastic.

The run was a bit tougher, and in the end my least favorite leg. I got passed by a lot of people on this leg and passed many fewer myself. The sun was high in the sky and warm. The course was a two lap course of out and back. This made it easy to spot my Cairns friends and cheer them on. I realized as I reached the halfway mark that I was on target to beat 3 hours. This thought alone carried me through the last ~30 minutes of running.

At the finish there were hugs and high 5s and lots of watermelon. My time of 2.51 that I recorded on my watch matches almost exactly my official time (which can be found here: http://res.championchipaustralia.com/list.asp?id=1207&race=INDIVIDUALS&ath_id=&ath_forename=&ath_surname=miyakawa&ath_teamname=&ath_gender=&ath_category=&pbSearch=Apply+Filter&sort_1=2732&sort_2=&sort_3=&nDBPage=20)

It feels good to know that I'm fit enough to do this distance of race. Now, I want to do it faster. (And I also want a new tri top, my new knicks are so much better than my old ones, they dry super fast, now I need a matching top!)

Book ends

I went back out to the reef this weekend. My first weekend in Cairns I went to the reef and now my last. This time my trip was a present (Thanks, JZ!). Kimberley and Hamish joined me and a zippy boat that went out to the "outer reef" about an hour from Cairns. We stopped at 3 different locations on reef. Several tour companies have giant pontoons permanently stationed at the reef, this one didn't. It just attached to an anchor and we all dove off the back of the boat.

At the first location, I did an intro dive. This meant that I went out with an instructor and three others. They gave us a 30 minute briefing on how to clear our masks of water, how to take your regulator out and put it back in, and the hand signs. I've always been a bit weary of diving, but once we got under the water, I felt at ease. It was like flying. And being able to experience the coral in three dimensions was pretty amazing. The downside of being with a group of 5 people was that you didn't get to really explore, you had to follow the group. And, one of the girls in our group was freaking out a bit, so we all had to wait on her. I'd love to do it again, but I think it's probably worthwhile to get the certification so you can have a bit more freedom.

In that way the second and third stops were nice cause I just snorkeled there and could float around wherever I pleased. And I did spot several Nemo's. But these sites didn't have many really big fish. We saw some pretty substantial parrot fish, but no groupers and no sharks. We did see a ray though. Really though, the coral was the stand out. So many different types and colors, and so huge.

Back in the saddle and ready to ride

Easter is a big holiday here. I'd go so far as to say it's the Aussie equivalent of Thanksgiving. Both Good Friday and Easter Monday are holidays, so many people travel for the four day weekend to visit family. It makes my last weekend in Cairns bittersweet since many people are away.

I've gone through my weekend rituals one last time. Saturdays start with a ride, then a quick shower and stretch and heading off to Perrotta's for coffee and eggs before I get too faint. After I've read the Cairns Post front to back (and perhaps had a second coffee), I head over to Rusty's farmer's market. I always go to this one stall first that sells organic tomatoes grown on the tablelands. They always have a few tomatoes sliced up and salted to try, and they are irresistible. Any other veg that I need, that's looking good, I get from this stall, otherwise I'll check out other vendors on my way through. And I follow the rule, if there's a mangostin, I'll buy it. Then a quick stop at the supermarket for things not available at the markets and home for a nap.

I've ridden 120K this weekend on Keri's old bike. I didn't know this, but apparently, there are different types of clip-in pedals for road bikes. (Why? So you have to stick with your brand, of course.) Keri's bike has the other kind of pedals to mine, and since it's Easter, I can't get the pedals swapped out with my pedals til Tuesday. I rode in running shoes. My race is in a week, and after this weekend's training, I'm feeling ready. I ran about 5K after my 40K ride this morning and felt good. This is gonna be a great race!

I'm still not very good at determining when I have a tail wind (there's always air rushing by my ears, so it must be a head wind, right?) But I know the route I take pretty well along the Northern Highway, and this morning I was flying on my way North, which meant I was gonna have a wicked head wind on the way back. And man, I was in struggletown. But then I remembered, this is what the wind was like when I first got the Cairns, in the dry. Always a solid wind coming from the South. Perhaps the wet is over.

It turned out to be a gorgeous day, so I took a walk out to the Esplanade for some ice cream and reading. The lagoon pool was teaming with people: families at the BBQs, kids in the pool, couples sunning themselves on the lawn, a few brave tourists playing on the mudflats. Sitting there it reminded me of my first day in Cairns, wandering about the city on a Sunday afternoon, wondering where every one was. Then, finally, happening upon the Esplanade and seeing every one enjoying the afternoon. I will miss this place when I'm gone.

Considering a visit to Australia?

I've started on the path to finding an Australian job. I had been planning on getting a tourist visa so I could surreptitiously look for jobs here, while not getting asked to leave the country.

Yesterday, I've even gotten word that I'll be getting an offer from the University of Queensland's technology tranfer business. Which is cool. But I'm not sure it's what I want. They have graciously offered to start the visa application process with me, while we each finalize that this is the right fit. I met with immigration this morning. Should this job fall through, I'll have 28 days to lodge another visa application.

Here's the hitch. Current wait to get a work visa is 4 months. During this time, I can't leave Australia and I can't work (though if immigration thinks that I am likely to get the visa, then they may grant me permission to work). So this means it may be time for my long overdue Australian holiday.

Anyone interested in visiting? Sydney and Melbourne are starting to cool off, and their winters aren't really anything to worry about. Cairns will be perfect pretty soon, dry, cool and safe swimming. Who's in?

Get well soon

It seems like sentiments for Get Well cards are hard to articulate. I received a card from my office that said on the outside "Sorry you're not well, but look on the bright side...", then the inside "...at least you're having that well-earned rest!"

As a card from work, this seems weird. Like it sorta sounds like maybe I'm just faking it to get a day off.

Better than that were the inscriptions in the card. A favorite: "Well done! Anything for a day off work. Have to try that some time." But definitely the best: "So happy you're alive!"

So what should one say in a get well card. Get well?

Road to recovery

Day 3:

Day 6:

It's been a week and some change since the accident. I had my first regular training session this morning: a swim. It felt pretty good. This afternoon, I'll try to run.

The bruising is not as bad as I expected. Purple shin, yellow hip, black pelvis. It's sort of like trying to solve a mystery, using the bruises to piece together how I landed. I'm convinced the small black bruise on my pelvis must have been from the handlebars.

Things are still sore even where the bruising is light. Can't lie on my left side yet, but no longer waking up in the middle of night when I try.

Most unexpected painful thing are sneezes. The contraction of the bruised abs is incredibly painful still. And I'm a much more nervous driver, checking blindspots three or four times before moving.

My friend Keri is letting me borrow her old bike for the race in Mooloolaba in 2 weeks, so I'll still get to compete, but the focus now is different. Now, I'm just really happy to get to race, speed is not important.

Motor Vehicle Accident at Low Speeds

This was my bike, during what I now know is the last race it will ever see. Because this is what my bike looks like now:

It doesn't look that bad. But it can't be fixed and it can't be replaced, and since it's part of the frame, it means the bike will never ride again.


This morning I went out for my first ride in a week (rain was only a sprinkle). Simone and I had only gone 3K, when a car didn't see me on the highway as it was coming off a side street. It ran through a yield sign, hit me from my left side and sent me over into the other lane. Other than some pretty gruesome bruises, I escaped without injury. Nothing broken. But my bike was not as lucky.


I brought my bike from the US. I arrived halfway around the world eight months ago with 3 suitcases and a bike. It is one of the few items from home that I made the effort to bring. And although I may not have always been the best caretaker of my bike, I loved it fiercely. I was heartbroken to learn that it had not survived the crash and that it will not be competing with me in my first olympic distance triathlon.


Even though I was not at fault in the accident. I still feel responsible. I saw the car, I knew it still had some speed, I just thought it had seen me. I thought it would stop. And I feel guilty, on behalf of my bike, for not riding more defensively.


I will miss you.
LeMond Tourmalet
2006-2008

Parliament antics

I don't think a blog post can possible express how entertaining I find the cardboard cut out of Kevin Rudd (Prime Minister of Australia) brought into Parliament last week. Are American politics ever this funny?

OK, GA trying to steal a piece of TN, that's pretty hilarious as well.

On notice

It's official. I told BCG today that I wanted to take my "looking for a new job" leave. I'll continue to work at CYI through the end of March, then perhaps some holidaying, and then the job search in Australia starts in earnest.

Perhaps I should start a reality TV show "So you think you can be Australia's next top employer of me"

Far North on the big screen

I wouldn't recommend any one go out and pay money to see this. But, should you find yourself on a plane and the movie is Fool's Gold, it might be worth a look without the sound as it was filmed here in Far North Queensland.

This was so newsworthy it got a two page spread in the Cairns Post!
http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/02/02/1242_local-news.html

Jungle Surfing!

In the middle of January, when Rowan and her sister Jordan visited, we went up to Cape Tribulation and went jungle surfing. These are the pictures from that adventure.

Jungle Surfing

Australia Day

I can't help it. When I have data, I make graphs. I've been keeping track of my training for the last four months. Swimming produces the most data since I time each of my pieces. Each block on the graph represents a piece, the x position is the distance of that piece, they y position is the pace for 100m during that piece, and the color shows the month. Lighter blue is earlier, darker blue is more recent. I think this looks pretty cool. I can see my progress. The bike data doesn't look that impressive.

In this one, the y axis is speed, so seeing darker blocks further up the graph would show progress. Here, this shows that I've been lengthening my pieces (as well as doing some additional short ones) at about the same speed I've been doing the shorter pieces. Not much progress.

This was painfully clear last saturday on my first 90K ride. We had 7 people on the ride, which is a good number. It's much easier to hang with the pack than it is to try to push yourself for the entire ride. When I first started riding, it took a lot of humility to get up. I knew I was pretty much out of my league, but I still did it. For the last couple of weeks, I've felt really good on my 80K rides. I started fancying myself a bit of a cyclist. This week, we did hills. We did about 50K of hills. Not huge hills, but still. I couldn't keep up. I couldn't even be close. Now I was back to being the 8 year old kid trying to keep up with the 12 year olds. They had 6 speeds. I had streamers. I finished the ride.

But all was not lost. I stopped by the Australia Day breakfast at Yorkey's Knob beach. Got an Australian flag for my bike and enjoyed a song about the "Nothen Teritry".

That afternoon Simone, Matt, Joe (the new intern) and I enjoyed a few beers, a ton of pizza and some Cane Toad Races. Which was a clear highlight of the day. You don't get a real sense of scale from the picture, but number 6 was easily the size of a very large mango. Toads were put in a upside-down bucket. Then the bucket was removed and the first toad to meet the outside perimeter wins. Of course the best part was when the kids discovered that they could just run in and chase the toads around. These are those toads that excrete poison from their skin. They have no natural predators because they kill off anything that eats them. And they are supposedly the toads that will get you high. Ah, the perfect childhood game!

That evening I met up with some friends for some drinks to finish up our Australia Day right. Unfortunately the combination of the bike ride, the drinks and the pizza, I was done by about 7:30. Maybe not the ulitimate in Australia Day's, but still a pretty good one. And definitely a bit more low key than your typical fourth of July.

Time zones versus end zones

Cairns is 15 hours ahead of the East coast. This means that Sunday games become Monday games for me. And generally games that happen during work at that. Sunday's AFC championship game then was aired here live at 6am. Not an ideal time for me, since I don't get ESPN, and I didn't know of any bars available at that hour.

But luckily it was rebroadcast at 9pm on Monday, so after carefully avoiding all American media for the day, I was able to enjoy the game 13 hours after it was played in suspenseful ignorance of its outcome. And I was happy with this arrangement with the exception that they did cut a few "inconsequential" minutes from the game to make it fit in the alotted 3 hour slot, but kept all the commercials.

All was going according to plan. The defense was playing quite well. I was even explaining the game ("gridiron" as it's refered to here) to my Aussie friends. That was until 10:50pm, when we discovered the bar we were enjoying the game at was closing, and there was still an hour to go. We wandered out to another bar with two large projection screens. One of which was playing the NFC game and had some very vocal, very large fans. I wasn't about to ask them to change the station. But the other screen was showing doubles from the Aussie Open, and no one was watching it. However, my pleas to change the station fell on deaf ears. Of course the Australian tennis was going to be showed, couldn't I just be satisfied with the NFC game? No.

So off we wandered, trying another bar which was closed. Really, I thought that backpackers knew no day of the week. Why weren't these bars open? Finally we found the game on at the casino. Seated at a closed blackjack table, we watched the last 10 minutes of the game, and the pats clinch the championship.

Now for the superbowl. I'm tempted to just take the day off. The game will air live at 9am on Monday here. That's reasonable right? Maybe I could just call in sick?

Putting the wheels back on

It's actually sunny today, or it will be for the next couple of hours before the next storm rolls in. And my luggage arrived this morning. Only 5 days late! It appears to be un-tampered with, though I haven't had a chance to unpack yet.

First run in Cairns this arv.

The wet has arrived

Can't wait for Sunday when it's Mild instead of Warm!

Signs that Australia doesn't want me back

1. Despite the nearly $3000 ticket price, I was not allowed to upgrade my ticket to Sydney with points cause it was the wrong fare type.

2. The turbulence when we left San Francisco was so bad, so back and forth, right to left, that I thought something was broken with the plane. I kept expecting them to turn around. The crew kept trying to serve dinner and kept getting told to take a seat. It continued for 3.5 hours, we didn't hit smooth skies til we were over Hawaii.

3. Although I arrived at least 30 minutes before the flight, Qantas wouldn't let me check in for my flight to Cairns. And since I had flown in on United, United had to rebook me on another flight, that would have to be on Qantas, cause United doesn't fly to Cairns.

4. Standing at the Qantas counter, on the phone with United, my connection keeps getting cut off as soon as they go to search for a new flight for me.

5. It's been three days, and there's still no luggage. The website keeps telling me, "Unfortunately, your baggage has not been located. However, we do have it on priority trace. We apologize for any inconvenience we may be causing you."

6. All three of the phone numbers I have go directly to voicemail, and no one will call me back.

7. My running shoes, my biking shoes, my goggles are all in that bag. Along with items that can't be purchased easily in Australia, like gu.

8. BCG doesn't have travelers insurance on "this type of thing"

9. My garage was flooded with about 8" of water this morning. Welcome, the Wet!

10. I woke up with a sore throat.

Holiday by the numbers

8 flights in
15 days for a total of
65 travel hours (including 2 x 28 hour trips), carrying
48 lbs of luggage on the way to the states and
58 lbs on the way back.
2 x-rays screens, max, per flight with only
1 missed flight and
1 lost piece of luggage, garnering
~25,000 frequent flier miles.
78 Fahrenheit degree range in temperatures (from 85 to 7, or 30 to -14 Celsius)

A few highlights:

Christmas Day snowshoeing on Mt Hood.
As our family Christmas present this year, my mom took the family snow shoeing, something neither she nor any member of our immediate family had done before. I enjoyed it immensely, especially walking off the trails, through the forest as fluffly flakes drifted all around us coating boughs of trees. Just pristine. Only disturbed by my gales of laughter as my sister kept sinking to her hips into the snow and her howls of "fuck you" back at me.

New Year's Eve in Boston.
This New Year's was marked by last minute plans. When I arrived in Boston, it seemed that no one had it quite figured out. As a result, Jonathan and I found ourselves at an HLS colleague's house for drinks, Oishii Sudbury (the best sushi in the greater Boston area) for dinner, and Simone's house to ring in the new year. All in all a very good (and effective) practice date.

New Year's Day Brunch.
After a very, very cold run along the Boston and Cambridge Esplanade, I caught up with friends for brunch. In addition to our yummy french toast, I got every one to try a Tim Tam slam. Yum.

A very good first date.

Have a good Chrissie

I was sorta sad to leave Australia for Christmas. The idea of spending Christmas with chops and snags on the bbq was sounding pretty good.

But now that I'm here, and it's cold, it actually feels like Christmas. The carols sound rich and full, not tinny in that Charlie Brown Jingle Bells sorta way that they do when it's 85 degrees out. It just feels right to make scalloped potatoes and turkey and stuffing with NPR playing Handel's Messiah in the background.

Better get to bed so Santa can come in the morning. Have a good Chrissie, all.

Taking stock

Tomorrow, I leave to go back to the states. I, originally, had planned to return permanently, but I've since extended my contract for another three months. Given that I should be going home, I thought it was a good time to take stock on the predictions I made and see how far I've come.

Unexpectedly useful items: Predicted that second set of dressy clothes would have been unexpectedly useful. And though I did wear that dress to the Cairns Cup, I think the most unexpectedly useful item is actually the item I had predicted would be the biggest waste of space: sweaters. Although I only brought four, having sweaters for the few trips I had down south during the winter was key. And I'm expecting to be very glad to have them when I arrive in Portland 27 hours from tomorrow.

Things I wish I had brought: I predicted I would want more T-shirts, yep, I did, so I've supplemented my supply here. I also predicted I would wish I had brought more photos from home. Thanks to Jeff's digital picture frame (aka. the Harry Potter picture frame) I have been able to see many of my favorite people and places on a regular basis.

Total pictures: predicted 600. Wow, what was I thinking. I've already taken 1326 photos. And I ain't done yet. And that doesn't count any of the ones I've deleted along the way that never made it into picasa.

Shoes: predicted 11 pairs, which was an addition of two pairs. I believe I have worn every pair that I brought, though the ones getting the most wear are still the flip flops. I've added four pairs since I arrived, and I've got new running shoes awaiting me at home!

Books: I think I've only read 4, though my prediction was 3. I've added several over my time here, and still haven't read the really long one I brought. Nor have I finished "A Short History of Australia" - What a misnomer!

Venomous attacks: remains zero, thankfully.

A few other stats:
Wild kangaroos spotted: 1
Wild walabies spotted: hundreds
Other wild marsupials: 2, both bandicoots (not pademelons)
Total Kilometers cycled: 705 (since I changed over to kilometers in late september)
Falls from the bike since getting clippy shoes: 5 (last one this morning)
Average time training per week: 11 hours
Average distance swum per week: 6K
States in Australia: 6 (plus 2 territories)
Least favorite insect: sandfly (followed closely by the cockroach)
Favorite Cairns eatery: Hare Krishna restaurant on Spence
Australian phrases I'll use in the US: "heaps" "good on you" "how are you going" "reckon" "yih"
Total travel time: 27 hours
Total flight time: 19 hours
Excitement level for visiting home: 11 out of 10
Hours til I get on the first plane: 8

Good night and see many of you soon!

More Bangkok

A few other fun facts and photos from the trip.

Being tall. For the first time in my life, I was tall. Amongst the Thai, I am tall.

Parking lot shrines. For every building we saw, there was a small dollhouse sized shrine. Many of them in parking lots. Apparently, these are spirit houses. I'm still not quite sure what they are supposed to do, but some of them are very intricate, complete with tiny buddhas and elephants.

Not all the shrines are for buildings. Our first day in Bangkok, Andrea and I found the "fertility" shrine near our house. It was essentially a garden of phalluses ranging from actual size to 8' tall. Some more realistic than others. Andrea, why haven't you sent me those pictures yet?

Giant buddhas. Then compared to the tiny buddhas was the largest buddha. Reclining, this buddha is still about 4 stories tall. And, we were required to take our shoes off and put them in the non-Thai shoe shelves.

Lady boys. Bangkok is famous for their lady-boys. Excrutiatingly skinny pre- and post-op transexuals who lip-sync to only the most popular English, Thai, Chinese and Japanese songs. Oh, and your ticket includes a drink!

Jenga should never be mixed with drinking.

Temples and Spirit Houses

Bangkok nights

Roaches, part two

My message to the roaches in Cairns was not heeded. This means war.


Tonight, a second roach, nearly twice the size of the first one, was waiting for me when I got home. Why do they like hanging out by the front door? I'm trying to convince myself that he just let himself in. Why did he hide in my shoes? I love my shoes. Why, in a tiled apartment, do I always end up killing them on a rug?

I don't want my apartment to be taken over by roaches while I'm gone. Any strategies? How does one declare war on roaches?

The changing of seasons

Cairns is the home to Rusty's market, a large farmer's market with mostly fruit and veg, but a few stalls of other yummy things.

When I first arrived in Cairns, I was amazed by the avocados. They were always ripe. They had both Haas (aka California) and Green (aka Florida) avos. I actually prefered the Florida ones cause they have a more consistent texture. As temperatures have warmed, those large fruits have given way to almost golf ball sized Haas avos that have a smokey flavour.

Next were the "bush-ripened" tomatos. They're fleshy, red, juicy, sweet, and nearly perfect with just a bit of salt. Today however, they tomatos were more firm, not quite as red. Clearly their season is coming to an end.

Today, it's the mangos that are so ripe you can smell them from down the street. Their flesh is perfection. And as the other tropical fruits begin to ripen, I also picked up lychees and mangosteens. Neither of which had I ever tried before. The lychees were a little too fragrant for me. Also a little too eyeball like. But the mangosteens... Delightful.

An open letter to the roach population in Cairns

Roaches,

The man you sent is dead. I caught your emissary today scouting out an infiltration of the holiest of sacred sites (aka, my apartment). And I thought you would like to know how he met his unfortunate end.

I was impressed with his cunning plans to catch me at my most vulnerable. Hiding out in my swimsuit, so that he would only be revealed as I stood completely naked (and shoeless), was a brilliant move. He then surprised me by scurrying up my shoulder, and I'm sure he was pleased with the shriek I let out. After regaining my dignity (and putting on undies) I sought him out with my sneaker, but he was too clever and remained hidden.

However, when I returned from my swim, it was I who had the element of surprise. There was your man in my foyer. I calmly put down my goggles and water bottle, and picked up my sneaker. He knew it was the end. I could see the fear in his step as he scrambled to the living room. He stopped for a moment to look back and that's when I struck. With one fatal blow, even his antenna stopped twitching.

Let this be a warning to you. I bought new shoes in Thailand, and I know how to use them. Any further troops you send will meet the same end. And though I may yelp and recoil when I meet them, and I may jump at any rustle of papers or itch, I will prevail.

Christmas in the tropics

It just doesn't feel like christmas. Even after spending an evening on the esplanade singing carols. It just seems disorienting. Maybe it's the 80 degree weather, or singing carols in flip flops and a bathing suit coverup, or hearing singers beg the heavens to "let it snow". But I think the main crux of the thing was singing "Russell the red nosed kanga" Just doesn't have the same ring.

Bangkok by day

It's beginning to feel like I'm losing momentum in my Thailand blogging. So here are a few experiences to share, before the memories wear away:


Shopping is an experience unto itself. The malls are enormous and there seems to be an endless supply of them. Even with our hearty western breakfasts every morning (I mean, can you really mess with such a good thing? Eggs and bacon are the perfect fuel for a mall, even if the bacon always had a bit of the taste of asia fried into it. Was that oyster sauce I detected), we would still get overshopped by mid-day. With entire floors dedicated to small stalls of tourist kitsch, furniture, electronics (aka. knock off cell phones and pirated DVDs) it's easy to get lost or to just give up on seeing daylight again. In the end, I'm hopeful that each of us picked up lots of good christmas items.


We also spent a day wandering around chinatown. Mostly these narrow alleyway markets which went from selling basic consumer items like purses, shoes and jewelry to selling a variety of chinese food staples to selling incense and paper items for use in the temples.

These markets were packed, and the flow of pedestrians would frequently get interupted by a motorcycle that had decided to "take the short cut" through the markets. And the food stalls seemed to be a lesson in biology. Was that just intestine floating in that jelley? I think that was a pigs foot. Lunch, any one?



And then there was my favorite day time activity: The Thai Cooking class. On the third floor of a thai restaurant, they had a classroom kitchen complete with desks and mirror over the cook top to watch the chef. Then across the hall was the student kitchen where we got to put the recipes to the test. By the end of the afternoon, we'd made 5 different dishes and had way too much food to consume for lunch. Now all I need is to find kaffir lime leaves in Australia...



The complete photo album from our daily activities (sans temples) is here:

Touring and Shopping

The Colorful city of Bangkok

Even getting to Bangkok is colorful. The official airline of Thailand, Thai Airways, is purple. Not just a bit here and there. All the seats, all the carpeting, all the uniforms, even the salt and pepper packets. We thought this was a bit much, but it didn't really prepare us for what we saw when we arrived.

Taxis in orange, pink, yellow, green, blue, red (sometimes sparkly red). This picture, though from Chinatown, was pretty typical of what we saw on every street, though smaller than most of the main Bangkok streets (and with more signs in Chinese).

Then there were the yellow shirts. Our first day exploring Bangkok, Andrea pointed out it seemed that a lot of people were wearing yellow. In fact about 70% of the people we saw were wearing a yellow shirt. Then we realized that actually about 60% were wearing the same shirt: a yellow polo with a triangular logo. Then we recalled that it was some sort of holiday. This must have something to do with the holiday.

We discovered later that they weren't wearing the shirts for a holiday. Turns out Monday is the King's day. And the King's color is yellow. It started last year when the king was sick, Bangkok(ers or ians or ese) started wearing yellow in solidarity with the King. Now, although he's returned to good health (and will be celebrating his 80th birthday tomorrow), people still wear his shirts with his logo on them. That's some serious dedication to the crown.

The wet has arrived

Judging by the strength of the rain pounding the city, the constant flickering of lightning that mimics a strobe light, and the fact that my soap grew mould while I was in Thailand, I think the wet has arrived.

Further updates on the last tri of the season, the trip to Thailand and the Australian election (and ratifying the Kyoto) to come soon. Still unpacking!