APEC and the Opera House

This week, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation organization is having its annual summit in Sydney. President George W. Bush is in town, although he's not entirely sure whether he's at an APEC meeting or an OPEC meeting. For Sydneysiders, this means massive disruptions to daily life: access to the central business district has been restricted all week, the Opera House precinct has been closed to ordinary mortals, and Friday is a public holiday because of all the road closures.

Apparently Australia is spending over 150 million dollars on security. But that hasn't stopped TV comedians from dressing up as Osama bin Laden and getting through multiple layers of security by flying the Canadian flag. Seriously, click that link - the picture is priceless!

Before all this disruption kicked in, Meghan and I squeezed in a show at the Opera House (a gift from Jennifer and Joe - thanks!). We watched Imagine Toi, a solo show by a former Cirque de Soleil performer. It was nice to have an evening to ourselves before baby makes three (any time now), and we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit.

Happy Father's Day

The first Sunday in September is Father's Day in Australia. As you can see, I'm still working on Shami's gift, but it should be done soon. Stay tuned!

Lunar Eclipse

This week Australia experienced a total lunar eclipse, and we had a great view from our deck. Thanks to a tripod, an itchy finger on the shutter button, and some photoshop expertise from Meghan, here's a quick sequence of how the moon looked. From 6:51 pm to 10:24 pm on the 28th, the Earth's shadow swept over the full moon. For an hour and a half in between, no part of the moon received direct sunlight, but the scattered red light from a thousand sunrises and sunsets around the Earth lit it up with an eerie red glow...

It was astonishing how dramatic and sudden the change was between a black-and-white moon and one lit up in red! We also "discovered" something while watching the eclipse. As you can see, the Earth's shadow enters and leaves the moon at different angles, proving yet again that the Earth is round - or at least, not rectangular!

(Update: These frames were captured on a Canon EOS Digital XT with a Canon 100/f2.8 lens. Exposures ranged from 1/100 sec to 3 sec. With a telescope, you can do much better: for example, see this, and this beautiful sequence.)

A year of passionfruit

The pictures below were taken exactly a year apart. Can you spot the similarities and the differences? We still have a nice deck, there's still a bridge in the background, and the passionfruit tastes just as good as it did last August.

In the meantime, we've acquired furniture, bought a car, traveled a bit, seen some of the local flora and fauna, even held a baby wombat, and much more - all documented for you right here on this blog. As you can see, our life promises to be quite different starting very soon, so here's to a brand new adventure ahead!

Amelie

Stephanie and Mike had a beautiful baby girl on June 12, 2007. Shami and I have seen them twice since then, and so we have been able to practice our baby holding techniques a little bit.

It has been wonderful getting to know Mike and Stephanie. They are Australian, but actually lived in Ithaca for a few years. They are both veterinarians, and Mike worked with Jeanine at Cornell before they moved back to Australia a little while ago. It is very nice to have people around who know and miss Ithaca, including Ludgate Farms, Monkey Run, and even snow!

A few weeks ago we drove up to Mona Vale, where they live - a little under an hour's drive up north, near the ocean. It was wonderful to see them and to meet Amelie for the first time, at the tender age of 5 weeks.

Last weekend we had them over for dinner. Amelie is now 10 weeks old, and it amazed us how much she had grown in just a few weeks! Shami and I took turns holding her, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Good baby holding practice.

Memories of a year ago

One year ago today, we were standing in the Syracuse, NY airport with all our luggage, waiting to fly to Sydney for the very first time.

Ah, memories!

Baby gets a dresser

Having a baby + having a car = trips to IKEA for baby furniture!







Et voila! Two hours later, a dresser for baby clothes.


... don't miss our lamb named Woollahra posing on top of the dresser!

On Civic-mindedness

In our pre-natal classes, it has been drilled into us that Australia has very strict rules about transporting infants: you must have a car seat that meets specs in order to bring baby home. It would be a rather long walk home carrying a car seat, so we figured that we first needed a car! Over the past few months, we'd spent some time looking at our options, pricing cars and figuring out the (very pricey) Sydney car market. Well, this Friday the 13th was our lucky day!

Both of us owned Honda Civics in the US, and we've had a soft spot for them. So we were a bit disappointed to find that they were not that common in Sydney, and tended to be expensive. But we came across an online listing for a 2003 Civic from a private seller in the neighboring suburb of Drumoyne, and went to inspect it last week. It was in absolutely beautiful shape, and we got a good price to boot. Sold! On Friday, we handed over a check, got the keys, and drove over to the Traffic Authority to complete the paperwork. And as we drove our new car back home, a beautiful rainbow appeared...