USA for Christmas
18 January 2007
Happy New Year and best wishes for 2007! It's been an unpleasant Summer so far in Melbourne with water restrictions and constant bushfires. "Hot and smoky" seems to have been the weather forecast for most days.
My father has been hard at work renovating a house in North Melbourne. He asked if Jay and I would do a more useful workout than one at the gym and come to dig out a few cubic metres of concrete and fill from inside the house so a new hardwood floor could be constructed. It was more cardio than we are used to, but the renovation has been going to schedule and my sister will be moving into the house in February.
We sought relief from the Australian Summer by leaving for three weeks over Christmas and New Year and visiting California.
We spent a week in San Francisco seeing friends. I took the opportunity to visit UCSF and see everyone in the lab as well as quite a few of the anesthesiologists and technicians in the operating rooms. I could tell it was a long time since I had lived in San Francisco because I found the number of homeless people on the street disturbing again after being inured to it previously.
Many friends had moved or their lives had changed. Dwain and his partner Gary had just adopted a little girl and we were lucky to get to meet her at brunch. We went to the gym we had trained at in San Francisco and were surprised by how few faces were familiar.
From San Francisco we flew to Los Angeles for Christmas. Jay's sister Richelle and her family had recently moved to Burbank and we stayed with them over Christmas together with his other sister Denise and his parents. It was quite a full house. We did our last-minute Christmas shopping both in San Francisco and in LA, here with Denise at Macy's.
It was a change to have Christmas with young kids present. Jay's nephews are 8 and 3 and so there was a lot of anticipation of Santa's visit and he certainly left a huge lot of toys. The day before Christmas we went to see the ballet "Edward Scissorhands" by Matthew Bourne which was a fascinating adaptation.
On Boxing Day (which the Americans don't recognize, but Canadians and Australians do) we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain and tried all of their modern roller-coasters as well as one of the old wooden ones, which was quite enough. It was not crowded as it was the middle of Winter, though the weather was very mild.
We spent a few days in San Diego between Christmas and New Year. There we were unlucky enough to happen to book into the hotel being used by the Texas A&M team and band visiting for the big football game: the Holiday Bowl. Thinking that it would be quiet on the day of the game itself, we went to SeaWorld only to find it was incredibly busy.
We saw all of the animal displays that were open and the crowding was not really a problem. The killer whales and beluga whales were very interesting. The presentation of fish was generally not as good as at Sea World on the Gold Coast or even Sydney Aquarium. For no particular reason we seem to have visited a lot of aquariums in the last year and a half.
We returned to Los Angeles for New Years Eve and saw friends at a party at the Mayan. On New Years Day we were taken to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena by Scott, Jay's brother-in-law, who as a Michigan alumnus was there to support the Wolverines against the USC Trojans.
American college football was a spectacle which I hadn't seen before and having read a bit about how it was played I found the game interesting, though Michigan's performance could only be described as disappointing. The Trojans deserved their win.
After the game we had another round of Nerf-gun warfare with Christmas presents William had received. The guns shoot orange, velcro-tipped missiles which stick to clothing. You can see in the picture that Jay's father has been shot. There is a photo album with a slide-show of more photos from our trip online.
We arrived back in Australia on January 6th and went straight back to work. Jay's studio has been sold to Krome, so now they have new projects and greater security of work which is a great relief. I am coming to the end of my full-time appointment at St Vincent's and will be continuing half-time in the public hospital so as to continue teaching trainees. I will be spending half my working time in private practice.
< Previous
My father has been hard at work renovating a house in North Melbourne. He asked if Jay and I would do a more useful workout than one at the gym and come to dig out a few cubic metres of concrete and fill from inside the house so a new hardwood floor could be constructed. It was more cardio than we are used to, but the renovation has been going to schedule and my sister will be moving into the house in February.
We sought relief from the Australian Summer by leaving for three weeks over Christmas and New Year and visiting California.
We spent a week in San Francisco seeing friends. I took the opportunity to visit UCSF and see everyone in the lab as well as quite a few of the anesthesiologists and technicians in the operating rooms. I could tell it was a long time since I had lived in San Francisco because I found the number of homeless people on the street disturbing again after being inured to it previously.
Many friends had moved or their lives had changed. Dwain and his partner Gary had just adopted a little girl and we were lucky to get to meet her at brunch. We went to the gym we had trained at in San Francisco and were surprised by how few faces were familiar.
From San Francisco we flew to Los Angeles for Christmas. Jay's sister Richelle and her family had recently moved to Burbank and we stayed with them over Christmas together with his other sister Denise and his parents. It was quite a full house. We did our last-minute Christmas shopping both in San Francisco and in LA, here with Denise at Macy's.
It was a change to have Christmas with young kids present. Jay's nephews are 8 and 3 and so there was a lot of anticipation of Santa's visit and he certainly left a huge lot of toys. The day before Christmas we went to see the ballet "Edward Scissorhands" by Matthew Bourne which was a fascinating adaptation.
On Boxing Day (which the Americans don't recognize, but Canadians and Australians do) we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain and tried all of their modern roller-coasters as well as one of the old wooden ones, which was quite enough. It was not crowded as it was the middle of Winter, though the weather was very mild.
We spent a few days in San Diego between Christmas and New Year. There we were unlucky enough to happen to book into the hotel being used by the Texas A&M team and band visiting for the big football game: the Holiday Bowl. Thinking that it would be quiet on the day of the game itself, we went to SeaWorld only to find it was incredibly busy.
We saw all of the animal displays that were open and the crowding was not really a problem. The killer whales and beluga whales were very interesting. The presentation of fish was generally not as good as at Sea World on the Gold Coast or even Sydney Aquarium. For no particular reason we seem to have visited a lot of aquariums in the last year and a half.
We returned to Los Angeles for New Years Eve and saw friends at a party at the Mayan. On New Years Day we were taken to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena by Scott, Jay's brother-in-law, who as a Michigan alumnus was there to support the Wolverines against the USC Trojans.
American college football was a spectacle which I hadn't seen before and having read a bit about how it was played I found the game interesting, though Michigan's performance could only be described as disappointing. The Trojans deserved their win.
After the game we had another round of Nerf-gun warfare with Christmas presents William had received. The guns shoot orange, velcro-tipped missiles which stick to clothing. You can see in the picture that Jay's father has been shot. There is a photo album with a slide-show of more photos from our trip online.
We arrived back in Australia on January 6th and went straight back to work. Jay's studio has been sold to Krome, so now they have new projects and greater security of work which is a great relief. I am coming to the end of my full-time appointment at St Vincent's and will be continuing half-time in the public hospital so as to continue teaching trainees. I will be spending half my working time in private practice.
< Previous
Next >