the iPhone is back!

Sometimes things really do work out. Someone found my phone in the bathroom Friday afternoon. When I picked it up yesterday, it seemed unrepentant for having jumped out of my backpack. I don't know what sort of wild weekend it was expecting, but what it got was a quiet one, locked safely away in the School of Nursing & Midwifery office. I suspect I'll have to be on the lookout for more signs of incipient rebellion and keep a firmer grip on it in future...

Oh where, oh where has my iPhone gone?

Sad to relate that sometime this past Friday, my iPhone went bush. I last saw it in Susannah's office at the School of Nursing & Midwifery in Ipswich. A search of the vicinity by campus security turned up nothing. I'm hoping that some kindly person found it and turned it in to the School office, but I'm not too optimistic about that. I feel almost like I've lost a body part. Stay tuned for updates.

Ducks on the Avon

Whole extended families of ducks live on the Avon. This fellow came looking for a handout but soon left, disappointed.

Punting on the Avon

The rather shallow River Avon winds through Christchurch. You can't operate a boat with any sort of keel on it, hence the punts, apparently hired largely by middle-aged (and older) tourists. Wait, I was a middle-aged tourist! Damn!

Flowers at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens

The rose looks pink, but it is in fact white, Anne. Fabulous gardens -- I must have spent 4 hours there, and as can be seen, it was a beautiful sunny day.

NZ: altar cloth at Christchurch Cathedral

Here you go, Marylou. I had to take a picture of this. I love visiting churches, especially big old cathedrals. And this altar cloth is patchwork.

The Oz series #2: food/morning tea

Ah...morning tea. Now this is a custom we should import to the US. It seems like wherever you are, be it at a conference, in class, weekday or weekend, around 10 AM there will be a break in the action and you'll have the opportunity to go get coffee or tea and a bite to eat. If you're in some sort of gathering of any size, it's likely the food and beverages will be provided by the host. The best thing is when someone invites you to their home for morning tea because you often get homemade goodies.
Even though it's called morning TEA, this is such an insane coffee culture that almost everyone gets coffee, but at least tea is available. The bites to eat tend to be sweet: little chunks of Danish, brownies, carrot cake, this horrible stuff called lamingtons (see photo, courtesy of www.benjaminchristie.com), that sort of thing. Sometimes there is fruit. It's great as long as you avoid the lamingtons. Unless you like them, of course. That white stuff sticking to the outside is coconut.

New Zealand

Marylou just pointed out to me that I've neglected to post any photos of our trip to New Zealand last month. Let me rectify that straightaway. Phil shot this while we were hiking part of the Queen Charlotte track near Picton on the South Island. A good half-day's hiking, 14 km, with stunning views like this around nearly every bend in the trail (or 'track' as it's known locally).

My favorite restaurant

Back in November I posted a photo of me with my peeps having lunch out at the Hundred Acre Bar. It is (so far) my favorite expensive restaurant in Brisbane. It's located on a public golf course in St. Lucia, about 2 miles from our house and a mile or so from campus. The menu is creative, focuses on seasonal foods, the wine list is broad and mostly reasonable, and the surroundings couldn't be better. And except for around the holiday season, you hardly ever need to book ahead.

Classic Queenslander

This photo shows a typical, nicely preserved house built in the style known as Queenslander. Qlder houses tend to share certain characteristics: generally they are built up off the ground (to catch cooling breezes and make it harder for critters to enter); they have verandahs on 3 sides; when restored they often have multi-colored paint jobs to highlight quaint architectural detail, like the swinging doors at the top of the steps on this one.

A sunny Saturday afternoon in the fall

In many respects, just like in the USA. Boys are playing sports. In this case, cricket (top photo) and rugby.

I'm back; late summer flora

Wow, I see it's been over 2 months since my last post. What's my excuse? Well, I was traveling in the US for 3 weeks back in Jan/Feb. Then we spent a week in NZ ("En Zed", that is) so that we could get our permanent residency visas granted -- don't ask -- En Zed was lovely and I'm eager to go back.

As soon as that was done, school started for me, both as teacher and student, so I've been busy.

My other excuse is Facebook -- I've been spending my online energy there instead of here.

But here's a photo of a cool bush I saw the other day: it has both flowers and berries at the same time. The flowers are purple and the berries are yellow, a really nice color combination with the green leaves. No idea what it's called, of course.

Now that the semester is under way, and I'm a little calmer, I'll pay more attention. I promise.

I said Do you speak-a my language?

In my recent post discussing brekky in Oz, I neglected the most important breakfast item of all: Vegemite. It's not just for breakfast, of course, but it's frequently offered with toast. And just to be clear: I have NOT tried it.

Time to shop

Since we're moving into our new and unfurnished house on Thursday, it was time to buy a few necessary items. I did my homework (choice.com.au) and off I went to The Good Guys, our local Best Buy equivalent. Ordered our washer & dryer, and came home with our new microwave, toaster, electric kettle, iron and hand mixer. The coffee machine, vacuum cleaner and possibly food processor are yet to be acquired. Prices are well below retail; these good guys do deals!

I also found Homemaker City, a wonderland of big-box stores selling sleep sets, furniture, BBQs (yes, there are whole stores devoted to the BBQ), lighting, curtains, carpeting, housewares, etc. And this shangri-la is right down the road from DFO -- Direct Factory Outlets -- that looks like it will take another whole day to discover thoroughly...

The Oz series, #1: food/breakfast

I've been giving some thought to what people might actually want to know about life here in Oz, from the warped perspective of a Yank of a certain age. I've decided to do a series of posts on everyday items or experiences, starting with food.

Let's take it meal by meal and then we'll do snacks, perhaps with a trip to the supermarket.

Breakfast: anyone who knew me well enough in Cambridge knew I was a big, big fan of maple oatmeal scones from Darwin's Ltd. I'd have bite-size shredded wheat, Grape-Nuts, or granola some mornings, but I had a serious 4 to 5 scone a week habit. Sometimes, it would be bagels on a Sunday morning, or cinnamon rolls at Carberry's.

Here, you can get a pretty decent croissant and pain au raisin (French boulangerie style) in some of the local bakeries. Scones, however, are limited to the English/Bisquick style with raisins or sometimes dates & raisins. Muffins exist but are not very appealing visually. Donuts -- worse than Dunkin. As for bagels, I'm told you can get decent ones in Melbourne but they haven't made it to Brisbane yet.

I recently discovered unsweetened big (not bite size) shredded wheat -- all the minis have sugar added (go Kellogg's) -- at the supermarket. My vote for favorite breakfast item is cafe-style raisin toast. The cafes all serve this fluffy (not Wonder-fluffy, more like Arnolds or Pepperidge Farm) raisin bread sliced thick (about 1" per slice) and toasted. You can buy this bread in the supermarket under the brand name "Mighty Soft." Toasted at home and topped with some butter & cinnamon sugar, or pb & jam (you can get Bonne Maman jam!) it's about as good as it gets. For company, I make buttermilk pancakes using a very good recipe from epicurious.com, accompanied by real maple syrup imported from Canada, naturally.

For breakfast ("brekky") out, beyond the aforementioned raisin toast, there will usually be muesli with yoghurt & fruit, oatmeal, and plain toast on offer. Those who want the classic Brit greasy fry-up can get it: eggs, bacon (American-style is called "streaky bacon"), hash browns, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms and toast are the building blocks of this artery-clogger.

Slackin'

That could describe what I've been doing vis-a-vis this blog for the past 4 weeks. But I personally have been busy, of course. Phil & I were busy for a week on holiday at Byron Bay!

House! really! this is it!!

Sadly, house #1 fell through when the building inspector found more problems that we wanted to have to fix. So back to the open house circuit we went. Back to, as it turns out, one of the houses we looked at early in the game. Phil loved it right away; I had to warm up to it. It's more house than we need, certainly; but it is spectacular and unique. This is the deck where we will be spending most of our waking at-home hours. That is, if the mortgage company decides to lend us the money to buy it! If all goes well, we should be moving in mid-January.

My midwifery mates

This is us enjoying an end-of-the-school-year celebratory lunch at Hundred Acre Bar, the restaurant at the St Lucia golf club. At this club anyway, the restaurant, and golf, are open to anyone. I know nothing about the course but the food is good and the setting spectacular. From left to right, here are: Penny Buntine (midwifery continuing ed, Queensland Health); Peta Winters-Chang (clinical lecturer, UQ SONM); Jane Menke (clinical lecturer, UQ SONM--she was already dreaming of her 9-week holiday that was about to start!); Fiona Bogossian (assoc prof and my research mentor, UQ SONM); Susannah Brady (midwifery coordinator and clinical lecturer, UQ SONM); me; and Helen Goodwin (clinical lecturer, UQ SONM).

House!

After about 6 weeks of looking, we found a house! And the interesting coincidence about this house is that it's next door to the home of our current landlords. If all goes well, we should be moving in in mid- to late December.

This stops a nation??

Today was The Big Event (yawn)...the immediate world here stopped work or whatever they were doing to don silly hats, drink a lot, and watch a 3 minute horse race. Strange. If you really want to see more, visit http://www.melbournecup.com/Melbourne-Cup-Carnival-2.html.