Saying Goodbye
16 December 2003
Last Saturday I booked my flight back to Australia: I'll arrive back in Melbourne on the morning of January 29th and I start work at St Vincent's on the following Monday. I have already sent some of my clothes and other stuff back sea-mail, as I don't think everything will fit back into the two suitcases I arrived here with in July 2001. Robert will likely return in March or April; his plans are not yet final.
Meanwhile we have settled into the apartment in the South of Market area of San Francisco and are used to the sirens and car alarms at night and also the great proximity of the shops and cinemas. We are also used to the very visible homelessness and drug use on our doorstep since we are close to a group of rooming-houses on 6th Street.
To celebrate moving into the new place we had housewarming drinks on November 15. Unfortunately I didn't get any good photos as I was busy keeping glasses full.
Ten days later we went to Los Angeles for Thanksgiving. Bruce and Billy had invited us to have Thanksgiving dinner with them and we stayed from Tuesday to Saturday as the Wednesday before and Sunday after Thanksgiving are the worst days of the year to try to travel in the US.
The weather was warm and we went swimming before dinner. Here I am by the pool. I had helped Billy a little with cooking the apple and pecan pies for dessert. He had done the whole meal including the roast turkey.
Here are Robert and Jay playing fetch with the dogs on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Robert has been staying in the guest house at Bruce and Billy's during the week when he is working in Pasadena. Their garden which had been disrupted for the building of the guest house has become reestablished and now makes a very picturesque setting.
It has been a busy few weeks with farewells at work. The anesthesia trainees organized a farewell dinner for me at a local restaurant. About 20 of the trainees came and five or six of the other faculty. Here I am sitting between two other faculty: Dan Swangard and Patricia Roth. The others in the picture are trainees. Jay came to this farewell as Robert was in Los Angeles for work. Robert came to the Department Christmas party the following weekend, but I didn't take any pictures.
I also had a farewell lunch from Pam Palmer's Lab. I still have some writing work to do for them, but the practical research work I was doing has now wound-up and is awaiting publication. From left to right in the picture: Guo-Xi's daughter, Paley, Sharma, Kumi, Pam, myself and Guo-Xi. Yan, also from our lab, had left two weeks previously.
It's a little difficult choosing a restaurant to cater to Chinese, Indian, Japanese and American taste. Most of us had the Thai noodles.
We decorated our Christmas tree last weekend. There was no tree-trimming party this year since last year it was a great party but not so good in terms of decorating the tree, which had to be completely redone afterwards. We bought an eight foot tree from Home Depot which looks a lot more convincing that our first Christmas tree in the US two years ago (which you can see on the letters home webpage in the letter from December 23, 2001).
Merry Christmas to everyone and apologies to those I haven't sent a card to (which is most of you in Australia). I look forward to catching up with everyone in Melbourne after I get back there at the end of January.
< Previous
Meanwhile we have settled into the apartment in the South of Market area of San Francisco and are used to the sirens and car alarms at night and also the great proximity of the shops and cinemas. We are also used to the very visible homelessness and drug use on our doorstep since we are close to a group of rooming-houses on 6th Street.
To celebrate moving into the new place we had housewarming drinks on November 15. Unfortunately I didn't get any good photos as I was busy keeping glasses full.
Ten days later we went to Los Angeles for Thanksgiving. Bruce and Billy had invited us to have Thanksgiving dinner with them and we stayed from Tuesday to Saturday as the Wednesday before and Sunday after Thanksgiving are the worst days of the year to try to travel in the US.
The weather was warm and we went swimming before dinner. Here I am by the pool. I had helped Billy a little with cooking the apple and pecan pies for dessert. He had done the whole meal including the roast turkey.
Here are Robert and Jay playing fetch with the dogs on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Robert has been staying in the guest house at Bruce and Billy's during the week when he is working in Pasadena. Their garden which had been disrupted for the building of the guest house has become reestablished and now makes a very picturesque setting.
It has been a busy few weeks with farewells at work. The anesthesia trainees organized a farewell dinner for me at a local restaurant. About 20 of the trainees came and five or six of the other faculty. Here I am sitting between two other faculty: Dan Swangard and Patricia Roth. The others in the picture are trainees. Jay came to this farewell as Robert was in Los Angeles for work. Robert came to the Department Christmas party the following weekend, but I didn't take any pictures.
I also had a farewell lunch from Pam Palmer's Lab. I still have some writing work to do for them, but the practical research work I was doing has now wound-up and is awaiting publication. From left to right in the picture: Guo-Xi's daughter, Paley, Sharma, Kumi, Pam, myself and Guo-Xi. Yan, also from our lab, had left two weeks previously.
It's a little difficult choosing a restaurant to cater to Chinese, Indian, Japanese and American taste. Most of us had the Thai noodles.
We decorated our Christmas tree last weekend. There was no tree-trimming party this year since last year it was a great party but not so good in terms of decorating the tree, which had to be completely redone afterwards. We bought an eight foot tree from Home Depot which looks a lot more convincing that our first Christmas tree in the US two years ago (which you can see on the letters home webpage in the letter from December 23, 2001).
Merry Christmas to everyone and apologies to those I haven't sent a card to (which is most of you in Australia). I look forward to catching up with everyone in Melbourne after I get back there at the end of January.
< Previous
Next >