Monday they had a going away lunch for Katka, Misa, and me at school. I was nice to see how many people I had met and for Katka and Misa to get a feeling for the great folks at UTS. The lunches we had at UTS every week after seminars were the highlights of the week for me. I loved the discussion, jokes, and advice. Australians are great conversationalists and love to make a joke, usually at someone else's expense. They tease the Kiwis and Tazzies the most, although Queenslanders and folks from the Outback and West get their fair share. But it is all in good fun.
Monday night we had tickets at the Sydney Opera House to see Onegin. It is a beautiful Russian ballet about a man that doesn't realize what he has until it is too late and he ends up with nothing. It was exceptional, easily as good, or better than, the ballets we have seen in California or Prague at the National Theater. The cast was quite large, probably 30 dancers at least, and the sets were great. There were two intermissions, which caught us by surprise. Unfortunately that made the ballet run an extra 20 minutes so we missed our ferry home by 5 minutes. We decided to get some food and wait for the next ferry, but after 30 minutes we discovered that because it was so late at night the ferries were on a 60 minute schedule instead of a 30 minute schedule. No problem though, we can just take the train from Circular Quay to Wynyard and transfer there to Milson’s Point. Except when we got to Wynyard there was no train to Milson’s Point; due to track work they were using busses instead. So we followed the signs and exited the station into a dark alley, no busses in sight. But when we looked through the station to the other side we did see busses. We figured that someone just turned around the sign, and the arrows were pointing the wrong way. So as crossed through the station to the other side I turned the sign around. Except that was not the correct side, the busses really were on the dark alley side, we just didn’t go far enough. Unfortunately because I turned the sign around a whole group of other people joined us going the wrong way. We quickly went back to the other side, indiscreetly turning the sign back around as we went through the station. Of course all of the running around meant that as we got to the bus it was just leaving. We waved at the driver and knocked on the door, but he just shrugged his shoulders and drove away. It was now 45 minutes after the ballet was over and we were done running around. We hopped in a cab and were at our door 5 minutes later and $15 poorer, which is what we should have done in the first place. Although it was frustrating, we didn’t let it ruin our special night at the Sydney Opera House.
I was excited for Tuesday at work, not because it was my last day, but because my friend Vern was coming for the week. Vern is the one that told me about UTS six months ago, and the reason we were able to spend the semester here. I met Vern about 12 years ago and a conference in Oklahoma, and he has been a good friend and colleague ever since. We have written several papers together, and he asked me to join him on some projects that turned into the papers that got me tenure. Vern also knows Katka, Katunka, and Misa because he traveled with us in Norway, and was in Prague once when we were all there for a conference. So on Tuesday we went to lunch and spent a good part of the day together catching up. I haven’t been going to many conferences the past few years so we haven’t been able to see each other a great deal, but it was just like old times seeing him again.
