Oz #1

---

13 November - I flew from Auckland to Sydney on a charming Qantas flight with great food, a nice seatmate...and the X-Files movie? A weird choice for a flight where you can't pick the film you watch. Gosia met me at the airport and we taxi-ed to her place to get a good night's sleep.

14 November - We were absolute tourists today. Started out with a walk to University of New South Wales to turn in Gosia's last law essay ever. Then took the bus to Hyde Park for a stroll, with stops at the war memorial and a big cathedral. We kept on past an Irish famine memorial, the old Sydney hospital and multiple other historic buildings, with a view of all the giant buildings in the CBD. Then we walked through the botanical gardens, which are home to loads of lovely Aussie plants and a humongous colony of grey-headed flying foxes. Of course we had to stop for a long while to watch them, photograph and giggle over them. Out the far end of the botanical gardens, we ended up on a walkway along the harbor, with increasingly more amazing views of the Harbor Bridge and Sydney Opera House, which we then headed for. After a stop at the Opera House, we walked to a farmer's market at the Rocks, across Circular Quay to pick up some delicious bread and mixed milk Camembert for our picnic. We hopped on a ferry to Watson's Bay and picnicked and sunbathed on a beautiful beach. Unfortunately, the last ferry went back before 4, which shortened our beach time. After a nap back at Gosia's, we went out for supper and then coffee with Ipek before collapsing into bed.

15 November - Shit weather changed our plans of going to Bondi beach to plan B - the Australian Museum. And plan B turned out to be absolutely awesome!! They had a big dino exhibit on, which Gosia and I both loved. You could even smell the Cretaceous! And they had delightfully absurd models of Archaeopteryx and a Velociraptor with brightly colored feathers and vicious facial expressions. Then we went to the Surviving Australia exhibit, which highlighted all the recently extinct Aussie animals and all the threatened and vulnerable species followed by in depth explanations of exactly how fast the heaps of venomous spiders, octopi, snakes, box jellies, ants, etc. can kill a person. Which basically has made me scared of being here. Perfect.
In the afternoon we took the train up to Hornsby where Gosia's parents live for a nice home-cooked meal and my first view of the bush. We popped over to Ingrid's for a coffee before bed.

16 November - We drove to a different charming suburb for a nice brunch of the densest buttermilk pancakes I've ever eaten. We walked into a cute village to buy some chocolate, then drove up into a bit of bush for a view of a big gorge (which I've been told is full of wallabies and possums). Around noon, we hopped on a train to Sydney to put me on the bus to Canberra, where I was met at the bus station by two colleagues from work.

17 November - I started the morning with my first view of kangaroos on the 5 minute drive to work. Then settled in a bit at work. The postdoc I'm working with and I had coffee with a friendly brushtail possum at the canteen before putzing around the collections and the lab...

---