Friday, March 30, 2012

Canberra

OK, so I did not make it to Canberra, but Katka and Misa did, so now I feel like I have been there too. They left on Tuesday at noon from the Central Station, so I went with them there and continued on to work. At school we had a going away lunch for the other American professor that has been here at UTS for the past three months. I am amazed at how good the food is that they order for our lunches. It comes from a UTS food service, not a caterer, but it is nothing like the university food I have had in the USA. This week we had three catered lunches; the food I can remember is prawns, pesto chicken, assorted pies (savory not sweet), a selection of cold cuts, many different salads including pasta salad, Greek salad, and fruit salad. They aways have lots of cut up fruit and a tray of desserts. On Friday a lot of the faculty skipped the presentation but showed up for the lunch after, which I think was kind of cheating.

Tuesday I worked until 9:00 and Wednesday until 6:30. I have some interesting projects going on now and it is easy to stay and work late. Thursday I left work about 4:00 to meet Katka and Misa's train from Canberra. They had a good time, learned a lot about the city and the government, and saw a lot of wildlife, in the city. I guess Canberra is like Central Park, except 100s of times larger and with buildings in it periodically. From the air you can see there is a city there, but from all of the pictures Katka took it just seems like a large forest. Katka described the three types of people they saw in Canberra, people in suits, old people, and old people in suits.

Thursday night I worked late getting Misa's homeschool work ready to send in, and Friday I sent it in from school. The grading in particular takes a long time. Friday evening we went to Chatswood for ice cream and shopping. That is two Friday evenings in a row I have been to Chatswood for shopping, things are really getting wild here in Sydney.