Well, the internet is fixed.1 Summer has also arrived, rather suddenly in our opinion. We've had a lot of thunderstorms and a lot of sticky hot weather to accompany them. Meanwhile, as an October spring unfolds around us (even in the city the purple jacaranda trees are all in bloom), our habits of a lifetime are still stuck in the northern hemisphere. We hunger for corn on the cob, squash, risotto, and ripe tomatoes... as if it's late summer and not early spring.
It's an odd contradiction for us northern-hemisphere dwellers. Classes wrap up for the year at the uni this week, about the same time that Christmas decorations are appearing in every store. The beaches open up and people start planning their summer vacations as the New Year approaches.
The wrapping-up impulse we understand quite well, though. We bought our plane tickets to Tassie, so we now know that there are only 23 days left for us in Sydney. Three weeks and two days. We're eyeing up our ratty, tattered clothes and counting the days until we can discard them. There are at least a dozen books we are going to have to give up. We still have work to do before we leave.
On Friday, D is wrapping up with her department by giving a talk and "hosting" a potluck.2 She's promised to show them all the 2000 pictures we've taken3, but alas, the scrapbook is rather far behind... although it is ahead of the blog features at this point. Trying to get caught up at least with our travel pictures is part of finding closure, part of wrapping up.
This weekend, we met up with John Howell, a 2005 Fulbrighter who has been in Sydney since August this year. It's kind of odd being on the other end of things-- I remember hanging out with Fulbrighters in the month or two after we arrived and they were getting ready to leave soon. This time, we get to tell the stories of all the things we've already done and seen. It's kind of striking how much we've done and learned in the past nine months-- and we're not even really done yet.
The big news in Oz has been a death and a birth. The death was more recent, and it was of the last surviving Australian to have fought in WWI. The Australian forces in WWI, called "diggers," have extra special meaning to Australians because it was the country's first military engagement as an independent nation. The birth was a week or two ago, and it was of the new prince of Denmark. Since most of you are not in Oz or from Oz, you might be a little confused by that. In 2000, the Crown Prince of Denmark was evidently visiting Sydney and met an Australian woman named Mary Donaldson.4 In 2004, they were married in Denmark, and Mary became the Crown Princess, known around these parts as "the Australian princess."5 So, the birth of Mary and Frederick's first child is pretty big news... it means (from down here it means) that an "Aussie" will someday sit on the throne of Denmark. They actually cut into regularly scheduled television programming to provide live footage of Mary and Frederick leaving the hospital.6
All right, our time is Sydney is ticking away... we should go make something of it.
;)
- D
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NOTES
1See? I told you all that time Chad spent tracking down the problem and harassing faceless companies would pay off.
2Every time we talk about the potluck, we get asked "What's a potluck again?" I think in the last two weeks they're starting to catch on, but it's hard for a small-town Midwestern girl like D to understand a world where they don't know what a potluck is.
3This number is only an estimate. We've probably taken more than that.
4They refer to the story around here as a "fairy tale"-- Mary meets her prince. I still want to know how that happens-- I mean, you're hanging out in a bar, and you meet this girl and she says "so, what do you do?" And you say, "well, actually, I'm the heir apparent to the Danish throne. And you?"
5Don't worry, Mary and Frederick are "thoroughly modern royals." They even have their own webpage.
6It's a different world down here, kids-- and I just mean the journalism...
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