Laid-Back Sunday in Melbourne

This morning reminded me of what it is sometimes like to be back in college. I left my room this morning to find that my neighbor had a large traffic cone sitting in front of his door - haha. From walking around outside, my guess is that it must have come from about 4 blocks away on Lygon St where they had been setting up for some sort of day-long festival. In any case, it made me laugh and reminded me of what used to be more frequent occurrences back at Penn State.

After church, I returned to the Graduate House to have the typical pizza Sunday brunch and then hopped on the computer and learned of the tragic earthquake in Chile. At the time I first saw the news, they still weren't sure whether Hawaii would be affected and the Australian Government had posted warnings for people to stay off the beaches on the eastern coast of Australia. I figured that Melbourne would probably be just fine since our coastline faces Antarctica. As it turned out, storm surges weren't an issue for either Hawaii or Australia. While this is good, the earthquake in Chile is still certainly very tragic.

Afterward, I talked with Mom for a while on Skype before getting down to business for the day. I was focused mainly on getting organized and taking care of a few additional school-related items. Altogether, it was a relatively productive day. The cloudy skies cleared around mid-afternoon and I decided to head down into the city to walk around for the afternoon/early evening. Sure enough, just as I left the graduate house, the skies turned overcast again. Oh well, at least it didn't rain!

I walked around the Southgate Arts and Leisure Precinct (just south of the Yarra River). I had been here before, but I hadn't walked around quite as much. I covered the area pretty well in search of somewhere to eat dinner. There were plenty of restaurants to choose from, but I wanted to stay away from Italian since I can have that up on Lygon Street any time. Eventually (after a long decision process) I decided on a French restaurant located along the river. I was impressed that this was one of the few restaurants in Melbourne that offer you complimentary bread with your meal. I had roast duck with an orange sauce served on garlic mashed potatoes with a salad. The meal was excellent and the salad dressing was unlike anything I had tasted before. It was light as though it were simply an olive oil dressing, but the flavor was much more distinct. Whatever it was, it was good! The duck was excellent as well and the orange really complimented the flavor. To finish things off, I decided to try their cheese plate for dessert. It was also really good! So, with that, I made my way back up to the Graduate House. Now, I have a few more things to do before I call it a night. I will go to the University of Melbourne tomorrow to start my experiments with Sandra and her group.

Getting Settled

Today ended up being an overcast/ rainy day here in Melbourne, so it worked out well that I needed to spend a fair amount of the day working on things for school and work. Every so often it seems like an 'administrative' day is in order. I spent most of the day working on abstracts and other research responsibilities. However, I still have a fair amount left to either do or organize (as you can see from the current state of my desk :).

It was nice to have dinner on Lygon St again for the first time in almost a month. I went to a new Italian restaurant and it just felt good to be in a familiar location close to home. I think it is supposed to rain again tomorrow, so I'll probably spend a fair amount of time tomorrow taking care of all of the stuff on my desk. At some point, I need to start thinking about what is going to travel back to the U.S. with me...

Turning onto the Home Stretch...

Today, I returned to Melbourne after a whirlwind tour of Queensland and New South Wales. In the 2 weeks that I was away from Melbourne, I slept in 8 different hotels, flew 5 times, and spent a few hours on trains and in the car while seeing Hamilton Island, Coogee Beach, UNSW, Brisbane, U of Queensland, Wollongong, and Sydney. So needless to say, it has been great, but it is nice to be back 'home' in Melbourne.

I am still a little more than 2 weeks away from my return to the U.S., but I feel as though this is definitely the start of the final stretch. The first 8 weeks have flown by in so many ways and they have been outstanding! I'm really looking forward to the last few weeks here!

Today started in Sydney at Darling Harbour. I attended a few lectures this morning before I had to return to the hotel to check-out. Afterward, I tried to find the Sydney fish market, thinking I would have lunch there. I found the fish market (I could smell it before I saw it). However, I decided against having lunch there because I just couldn't get over the mix of seafood and saltwater smell that overpowered the place. I did walk around a bit and saw a lot of restaurants and seafood cafes as well as the big warehouses where the 'real' fish trading takes place. I was a bit disappointed in the experience, but I was glad that I made the trip.

I made it to the airport in plenty of time and arranged to sit next to Anita on the flight from Sydney to Melbourne so that we could take a look at the PALS data that I had summarized yesterday morning. I sat with Cara and Aurelia at the airport until their earlier flight to Melbourne left. I have been very impressed by the Qantas 'City-Flyer' system. Qantas runs several flights every day between the major cities in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth). During peak times, there are literally 3 or 4 flights to Melbourne (on Boeing 767s) every hour. It makes scheduling flights very easy because there are so many times to pick from. I guess you can do that when you have a country that predominately resides in or very near major metropolitan areas. The same model would never work in the U.S. because the population is so spread out.

After a productive flight with a lot of PALS talk, it was nice to land in Melbourne and get back to the Graduate House. The first order of business here was to do laundry and I promptly took care of that. Unfortunately, one of the dryers was not working so I have had clothes strewn all around my room all evening to let them air-dry since I only had enough $1 coins to do one wash and one dry cycle for 2 loads of laundry. Oh well, it worked out okay and the second load dried just fine in a different machine.

I haven't decided what I am going to do tomorrow, but I think the day will start with a continuation of the unpacking process and then I need to work on some 'administrative business' to make sure that everything is in order going into these last few weeks.

Well, I feel better knowing that the blog has been updated for the past week and I think it is just about time for me to call it a night!

Last Full Day in Sydney

After sleeping in a bit this morning, I decided that I needed to do some work on school related projects. This week has seen its fair share of UT research-related wildfires and many of them have involved me. I've done the best job I could do to help out - but it is always tough to do this from so far away. In any case, I spent the morning preparing a summary of the PALS work that I have done in Melbourne so that I could talk about it with Anita before she heads off to the U.S. for the remaining weeks that I am in Australia.

After lunch, I decided to go and explore more of the Sydney CBD. I had been all around the Rocks and the Circular Quay, but I hadn't really seen the city of Sydney yet. So, I went for a walk and made it through a lot of the downtown area. I came across Hyde Park and enjoyed the walk through there. I was surprised by how many people were out relaxing on a Thursday afternoon. But, I can see why they chose that spot. The park was shaded by several large trees and several pathways connected the parks water features and statues. I saw a few tropical birds fighting as I made my way through the park. I'm not really sure how that ended, but it was entertaining to watch.

At the other end of the park was St. Mary's Cathedral. The doors to the old Roman Catholic cathedral were open, so I went in and walked around. With the exception of the main altar, the balcony, most of the church was accessible. They were very strict on no photography (and not just no flash photography). It was unfortunate because the church was very beautiful. I stood on a spot where Pope John Paul II stood after visiting the cathedral and, overall, it was nice that the church was open for the public to just walk through.

After walking through the Sydney CBD, I made my way back to the conference center for Anita, Aurelia, and Aaron's talks (talk about the 'A-Team'). Afterward, I attended the poster session and had a lengthy discussion with Mikel Duke about the differences and similarities between polymer and inorganic membranes. Following the poster session, I decided to walk back through the city. It is hard to describe exactly, but the general feel and the sunlight and seemingly just the mood of the Darling Harbour area reminded me of several late spring evenings in State College. Of course, State College is a bit different from downtown Sydney, but there was something about the weather and the sunlight on this evening that really reminded me of some of those brilliant spring days at Penn State. I wish I could describe this in more concrete terms (particularly for my Penn State friends who I am sure would know what I mean if I could convey it correctly).

After a pleasant evening, I returned to Darling Harbour and spent the evening trying to get some good skyline shots around the harbor. I managed to find some good inanimate objects to help me stabilize the camera for the necessarily longer exposures (much like the other night at the Rocks). I think I was moderately successful in getting some good night photos. If nothing else, I had fun trying! Afterward, I returned to the room and watched the U.S. vs. Switzerland Olympic hockey game before deciding to call it a night. Tomorrow I will have the morning in Sydney and then fly back to Melbourne in the early afternoon. It will be nice to get back to Melbourne and do some laundry as I am running desperately low on clean clothes after this 2-week long trip!

Olympic Dreams

Today I came as close as I ever will to competing in the Olympics by swimming laps at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Center (the pool used for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games). I decided to skip the morning sessions of the conference and I made my way to Olympic park via the train system. Since Sydney was a well developed city when preparations began for the 2000 Olympic Games, the Olympic Park is actually pretty far away from Sydney. It took an hour to get there by train.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I got there. I had a weird feeling that it would be kind empty and awkward - like I had shown up 10 years too late to the party. Surprisingly, there were actually a lot of people walking around. From what I can tell, some of the buildings have been sold to businesses, so there are still a decent number of people walking around and taking the train, etc. I could also see that there were other tourists (cameras are usually the dead give-away).

Even though the Olympics there were 10 years ago, it felt cool to just walk around the Olympic Park. This was the first time that I had been able to do something like this (having never been to that part of Atlanta before - or any other site). It was fun to walk around with the John Williams composition 'Summon the Heroes' echoing through my head. The park has a quite feel to it now, but you can still tell that it was designed to welcome the world to Australia. Next, I made my way to the aquatic center.

My former teammates and friends who used to swim competitively often comment about how it is so hard to just go to a pool and enjoy yourself after you swim competitively. There is always this feeling that pools were put there so that you could swim up and down them for hours on end - haha. In any case, this was the perfect opportunity for just such a person. Walking through the doors, I was greeted by the familiar smell of chlorine and I paid the small fee to enter the facility which now hosts competitive events and is open to the public for recreation and lap swimming. My first impression of the competition pool was that it looked a lot darker than it did on TV. Then I noticed that they only had about a quarter of the lights turned on - I guess that makes sense. The grandstands were huge, though the whole facility reminded me of the aquatic center at La Salle University. The host of the YMCA Eastern PA District swim meet, I had competed at La Salle a few times over the years and the setup of bleachers on either side of the pool with a diving well at the end was very familiar. However, everything here was a bit more up to date and the pool was necessarily a little more than 2 times longer than the 25 yard pool at La Salle.

The pool in Sydney, when it was built, was to be the fastest pool ever constructed thanks to the specific depth of the pool and spillover gutters in the walls. You can easily see how the spillover system works - the walls have slots that allow the waves to enter the spillover zone (which is below the deck of the pool). So, in effect, the pool is a bit larger than what you see from the outside. Just walking around the pool gave me chills as I thought about the great swimmers such as Ian Thorpe who competed at those games (this was, of course, before the 'Michael Phelps era').

I jumped in the refreshingly chilly water and swam laps until I my arms just couldn't do it any more. It's amazing how much swimming highlights the fact that people very rarely use those motions in everyday situations. I also had forgotten how long a long-course (50m) pool was. I think the last time I swam in a long-course pool was the summer of 2002 when I competed for the Hampden Aquatic Club in Camp Hill (or Maybe it's technically Mechanicsburg - I don't really know). Anyhow, we would practice in the 50m outdoor pool every morning.

I had a lot of fun and it was a great experience for the imaginative mind. It's fun to jump back now and then to the more child-like mentality where you can do anything you want to do in your own mind. Just pretending to be swimming in the Olympics in a pool that actually was used for the games was great (even though the only people I was beating were the old folks and the floater-folks in the slow lanes). At the end of the day, I really don't miss all of the practicing and long, hard, solitary hours associated with competitive swimming, but the experience today brought back a lot of good memories from that part of my life. Over the 10 or 11 years that I actively competed as a swimmer, I gathered a lot of great memories of fun and exciting times and I also was privileged to be coached by, and to compete with and against several outstanding people - too numerous to list here. The morning of lap swimming left me physically exhausted, but very content. With that, I decided that it was time to move on and see a bit more of the Olympic Park.

I had lunch outside the Olympic Stadium. It is unfortunate that the public cannot access more of the facilities at the Olympic Park. It was great that I got to actually see and use the pool, but the same option doesn't exist for using the track or some of the other facilities and I think it is too bad (though I understand that this could be not the most practical of things). I made my way down to the current resting place of the Olympic Cauldron. After the games, they removed it from the stadium and re-configured it as a water feature in a park located adjacent to the stadium. Personally, I'm not sure I really like the looks of the end result. Something was written in Greek around the base of the cauldron, but there didn't seem to be an English or French translation.

With that, I walked around a bit more and then made my way back to the train station. I almost fell asleep on the train home but finally, I made it back to Darling Harbour. I participated in some of the afternoon conference activities and then got ready for the conference dinner.

Prior to this conference dinner, my standard for comparison had always been the ICOM 2008 conference that we organized in Honolulu. While I still think we had much better food at ICOM, this conference definitely had a bit more style than the conference in Hawaii. As we entered the room, intelligent lighting fixtures were illuminating the tables with all sorts of colors and fog filled the air. The tables were very nicely prepared with all the flatware and glassware that you could imagine. The room had a great new-age technological feel to it though the lighting and colors made it difficult to see what your food actually was...

I sat next to Cara at the dinner and we had a good time talking throughout the meal. Matt and Aurelia (from CSIRO) were also at our table, but they were on the other side. I didn't really know the others at the table and though we talked briefly, I mostly talked with Cara. The keynote speaker for the dinner (I forget the name and apparently they didn't print it in the conference booklet because I can't find it anywhere) had a slightly pessimistic tone that, I think, was trying to be overshadowed by an optimistic tone, but I found that I wasn't sure how I was 'supposed' to feel afterward. The speak (I believe) worked for Eastman Kodak and started by talking about the nanotechnology that makes film photography possible (of course this wasn't known when it was developed). He then talked about how an SLR film camera has the equivalent resolution of something like 500 mega-pixels. Of course, that has now been made 'obsolete' in the minds of some by digital photography. The rest of his talk seemed to center on how much data mankind produces and I think his point was that we need to design new ways to store that data or we simply won't have the resources to do so. However he tried to make these points while using several 'edgy' global warming and political comments that left me feeling all over the place. He was definitely a good speaker, but I think the speech needed more of a focus and I think there were parts that were absolutely perfect for this audience, but others that could have been omitted with no loss in effectiveness. Oh well, that's just my opinion.

After dinner, they had a cover band and people got up to dance. The band wasn't very good at all (still, the best cover band I have ever heard was the band that played at Justin and Sloane's wedding reception). However, it was a neat idea. People in our CSIRO group were being a bit shy about dancing, so I said that I would get up and dance as soon as I saw Tim Bastow out on the dance floor. I didn't actually think Tim (who isn't exactly young - or the dancing type) would actually do it. But he did and that ended up getting the whole group on the dance floor for some musically painful covers of ABBA and Michael Jackson songs. It ended up being a really fun night.

After the dinner/dance, I went to have a beer with Dario and Aaron and we had a good time talking along the harbor. It was nice to talk about things that weren't related to work. After that, I came back to the hotel and I am ready to get some much-needed sleep!

Lots of Work Stuff

Today was a far less interesting day (as far as my sightseeing interests were concerned). I spent pretty much the whole day in seminars for the conference. On the positive side, I learned a lot of interesting things relating to nanoscience (ICONN is a large nanoscience-based conference). I think there are a lot of good ideas that could be applied to membranes. However, I also spent time in sessions relating to the toxicity and regulation of nanoscience since I think this is an interesting area of the field.

The conference registration fee includes coffee breaks (with snacks), a catered lunch, and drinks/snacks at the evening poster sessions. From a grad student standpoint (and compared to other conferences) this is a pretty awesome spread of included food and drink. I made my way up to the poster session for snacks and drinks (while checking out some posters). I stopped by the CSIRO/U of Melbourne chick's poster and learned that she's working to functionalize some nano-bio structure. She was actually kind of rude while I was standing there (I had a genuine interest in why she was coating her particles with dopamine - since we use dopamine as an anti-fouling coating for membranes in our group). But she couldn't really answer that question and I could tell that she was trying to be rude probably to get me to leave. It's unfortunate that the most rude and person I have met in Australia ended up being an American... (okay, maybe 2nd most rude person... the guy who told me he hated American's probably wins the 1st place prize there) If there is any consolation, she did her B.S. work in chemical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland (the Freeman/Paul group members will understand why that is ironic/funny).

So, after a full day of conference stuff, I'm ready to watch some Olympic coverage and get to bed. I think I'll try to head out and do a few more 'tourist' things tomorrow!

On the Move Again

This morning, I packed up all of my stuff and got ready to move to yet another hotel. I was disappointed to leave 'The Establishment' since it has been such an awesome hotel, but I needed to head west to Darling Harbour because today was the first day of the ICONN 2010 conference.

So, I checked out of the hotel, leaving the awesome phone that controls the lights behind. I decided to take a ferry from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour. The ferries here (and also in Brisbane) are considered an essential part of public transportation (due, largely, to a lack of bridges). It was a little weird to be hopping on the ferry with all of my luggage, but I certainly couldn't beat the price and it was definitely a lot easier than walking. It also turned out to be an awesome decision as far as sightseeing was concerned. The ferry left the Circular Quay wharf and made a left turn to pass under the Harbour Bridge. The views of the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, and city skyline were pretty awesome - especially since the weather was great! I sat on the back deck of the ferry to get the best angles on photos of the surrounding scenery.

The ferry made a few stops along the short trip to Darling Harbour and, before I knew it, I was getting off the ferry to make my way to the hotel. I had a reservation at the Novotel Darling Harbour and I found it very difficult to get to the hotel. I eventually found out how to cross the light-rail and monorail tracks to get to the hotel and managed to get inside. Novotel is a French-owned hotel chain and I have stayed in a couple of them during my trips around Australia and New Zealand. I haven't been super impressed yet and today was no exception. I would rank Novotel up there with your typical bigger American hotel chain (not the budget hotels, but not the luxury ones either). So, they do things pretty well, but they aren't great. Anyhow, after waiting in line behind some stupid American who didn't seem to understand that the hotel couldn't give him change in U.S. dollars (and we wonder why people don't like us around the world), it was my turn in line and I managed to get checked-in and taken care of.

Next, I found my way over to the conference center to register for the conference. After picking up my registration packet and nifty shoulder bag, I attended an afternoon workshop on neutron scattering. This is an area that I know nothing about but I found the workshop to be very helpful and now I know a lot more about the ways that neutron scattering can be used. I also learned that the technique has been used to monitor the interaction of water with DNA, watch polymer chain interpenetration between nano-scale polymer layers below the glass transition temperature, and confirm (from a solid state physics perspective) the magnetic mechanism that allows data to be stored on hard-drives without having the magnetically stored data simply 'drift away'. So, the workshop was very interesting (to me at least).

During the coffee break, I caught up with Mikel Duke (president of the Membrane Society of Australasia). We had met at the MSA conference in Wollongong, but it was good to talk with him a bit more. Mikel introduced me to Chris Fell who apparently used to work in membranes and knows Dr. Paul rather well. Apparently, Chris will be in Italy with us at the conference in May. After the coffee break and the rest of the workshop, I went to the welcoming reception and enjoyed some really great finger-foods and a few glasses of champagne. I met up with many of the CSIRO students (Anita brought almost everyone in the group to the conference) and I also met other CSIRO students and talked with people I recognized from the MSA conference. After talking with some folks for a while, I was approached by a girl who immediately picked me out as an American. It turns out that she is doing her PhD between CSIRO and the University of Melbourne. She grew up about an hour north of New York City and apparently never wants to go back to America.

After the opening reception, I caught some awesome photos of the Darling Harbour area. The harbor has a rather tourist-oriented feel to it as there are a lot of restaurants and shops surrounding the water. But, at the same time, it just feels like a fun place to be and I'm looking forward to being here for a few days! Well, I think I'm going to call it a night for now since today was a big day and tomorrow will also be a big day!

A Night on 'The Rocks'

I spent a good portion of the evening down at the waterfront to see what the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge look like at night. As it just so happened, a cruise ship was getting underway and it was pretty impressive to see such a large ship make its way through the harbor. I guess they leave at night to avoid the water traffic issues that would likely occur during the day. The Rocks area was the perfect backdrop for such an event. The area is full of restaurants that are full of character and the sights of the harbor plus the backdrop of the city make for a great evening atmosphere. Indeed, a lot of people were out enjoying the evening and I can see why!

The Opera House was lit up for the evening and I managed to get a few photos from different vantage points. It is always a bit tricky to do low light photography, but I think most of the photos came out without too much blurring. As I made my way around the waterfront, I found the experience to be quite relaxing. The past week has been exhilarating, but I think it has drained me a bit. In particular, the combination of the conference and some of the things that were going on back at home with Kraton and my project added to the draining nature of the past week.

As much as I find the uncertainty of the future to be exciting, there are also times where I wish I had more control over what will happen in the future. The MSA student symposium highlighted some of this uncertainty in that a decent amount of the 'small-talk' between graduate students centered around asking each other where they saw themselves going after getting their Ph.D.s. For the past few years, it has usually been pretty easy to give a vague answer because of the amount of time that existed between then and completing the degree. However, the time gap between now and finishing is certainly not increasing and, while I still have some time to think and plan, there will be many important decisions to be made in the not so far off future.

I don't know what many of those decisions will involve because there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle to fill in before I get to that point, so it isn't really worth worrying about that sort of thing now. However, there are things relating to positioning and preparation that are very real and immediate at this stage of graduate school. Dr. Freeman and Dr. Paul (as well as other colleagues) have done a good job of trying to make sure that I understand what those things are and I am very grateful for this. I really don't know when I will actually be ready to write-up my thesis and defend. I keep telling people maybe a year to a year and a half, but this is really just a guess based on a lose average and, for all I know, two or two and a half years might be more realistic. Time will tell.

I had a few other things that I found interesting about Sydney. The big one is a remnant from the 2000 Summer Olympics. On literally every street corner or intersection in Sydney, they have painted a sign with an arrow telling you which way to look to see immediately oncoming traffic. Matt told me that this was a big concern when they were planning for the Olympics and they decided to do this since so many other countries drive on the right-hand side of the road. I found it somewhat amusing, though I remember being confused quite a bit in Melbourne during the time shortly following my arrival. I think what impresses me most is how they have done it at literally every place where a sidewalk crosses a road.

Sydney has a different feel compared to Melbourne and even Brisbane (to an extent). You can tell that the city is much bigger than Melbourne. However, I think the biggest thing that I have noticed is that the streets are all very narrow and the buildings are very tall. Melbourne feels more spread out and I think the buildings are generally a bit shorter than most of the buildings in Sydney. In any case, I feel like I am in a big city in Sydney whereas I don't have that same feeling in Melbourne. For me, Melbourne still feels like a city, but it feels like a much more relaxed city where I feel less caged in. Perhaps this is why almost everyone who I have talked to who has toured Australia has said that Melbourne was their favorite city.

It's weird to think I am coming on to the home-stretch of this trip. Time has certainly gone by quickly. I am glad that the stress and complication of planning all of this inter-Australia (and NZ) travel is coming to a close. Things have worked out relatively well as planned (fingers crossed) and it is always nice when things unfold that way. Though I still have more to do in Melbourne (from a scientific and sightseeing perspective), I think those things will play out just fine. For now, there is still plenty of time in Sydney and then more to be done in Melbourne. I'm looking forward to a good start of another week where I'm sure there will be plenty of exciting and interesting things to learn and do!

Exploring The Rocks and The Circular Quay

Today I slept in a bit since I needed to catch up on sleep. I spent most of the morning taking care of some 'administrative business' relating to things in Austin. I have been trying to manage expectations both here and in Austin (particularly relating to Kraton and their involvement in my project). There were a few wildfires that needed to be addressed and I finally had the opportunity to sit down and think some of those things through. In any case, it was nice to pick up the pieces from the last week of travel where I stayed in 6 different hotels and seemingly was on a plane every other day. The trip was great and I got to see a lot of awesome things and meet a lot of awesome people, but I needed to recollect everything and make sure that important things were not falling through the cracks in the process. Though I absolutely love this hotel, I am looking forward to switching hotels tomorrow to the hotel where I will stay for the duration of the week-long conference. It will be nice to sleep in the same place for more than 2 nights in a row!

After I took care of those business and administrative responsibilities. I took off to go explore more of Sydney. I focused on the Circular Quay, The Rocks, and the Harbour Bridge since those will be a bit farther away from Darling Harbour when I am at the conference later this week.

I walked through the gardens around Circular Quay and really enjoyed the views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. It seemed like great photo opportunities were always just around the corner and I definitely took a lot of photos! It was pretty windy and, being a Sunday, a lot of people were out sailing - this just added to the photogenic nature of the place. A lot of people were out and about and I saw many weddings along my walk. In particular, there was one wedding that had the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge in the background. The bride was walking down the aisle to the sound of harp music being played live by a harpist. I'm not sure I've ever seen a wedding with a harp. It was really nice, but I'm not sure I would want to have a wedding right next to a public footpath - even if the view was great.

The gardens were extensive and I didn't make it the whole way through every last bit of it. But I think I saw most of it and I found it to be very similar to what I have observed in Melbourne. People were out enjoying the day - usually in pairs, but sometimes in groups or alone. The atmosphere was very laid back and you got the feeling that folks were just enjoying nature at its best. I saw a ton of bats sleeping in trees and that was a bit strange, but other than that, the scenery and pools were great and the views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge were great!

After walking through the gardens, I went back down to the ferry terminal area and bought an ice cream cone to enjoy on a bench in a park that had a nice view. It was so easy to just drift off and relax while sitting there and it took me a while to convince myself to get up and move. I made my way over to the Harbour Bridge and found a way to get up onto the pedestrian walkway that parallels the car and train portion of the bridge. The views from the bridge were amazing!! I took a ton of photos from the bridge and hopefully got some really great pictures. The trick is to pay attention to where the boats are in the harbor so that you can use them to your advantage in getting a great photo.

After walking around for the afternoon, I came back to the room to find another package of 2 large cookies that come as a part of the complimentary turn-down service at the hotel. These are 2 big cookies (i.e. the way that the Blue Band gameday cookies used to be)! I'm not too hungry, so I may just snack on those and some of the pizza that was leftover from last night for dinner. I've really enjoyed Sydney so far and I am looking forward to the rest of the visit here!

Arrival in Sydney

This morning, the MSA student symposium ended with a discussion session around lunch time and shortly after the conference, I took off with Matt and Anita for Sydney (via car). The conference was very useful and it was great to have a smaller conference that was focused on students and helping students develop their presentation skills. I think it was a great idea and Aaron did a good job of organizing the symposium.

The drive from Wollongong to the CBD of Sydney was about an hour and 15 minutes or so. The drive up the coast was very scenic, but it was a little hard to keep my eyes open because I was tired and the car ride was pretty smooth. Matt dropped me off at the hotel where I will be staying for 2 nights before the ICONN conference in Darling Harbour.

I am staying at 'The Establishment' which is probably the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. After checking in, I came upstairs to find that the room is pretty crazy cool. The phone has a touch screen that had a personalized welcome message on it, the bathroom had a candle burning in it, the lights can all be controlled by the phone, and they had a surround sound radio that was playing classical music when I came into the room. It is definitely pretty nice!

I immediately went down to the area known as 'The Rocks' to checkout the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, etc. After a short walk, I came to the waterfront and there were definitely a lot of people outside. I walked around for a while and must have come across 5 or 6 different weddings or wedding parties getting photos taken with the bridge and/or Opera House in the background. It was quite windy outside, so it was funny to watch the photographer staff try to manage hair and dresses. I can only imagine how expensive some of those weddings were...

Afterward, I met up with Anita and we went to a few notable bars in the area. We went to the Argyle first. This used to be a warehouse for wool prior to shipment. The atmosphere of the bar was pretty cool and they definitely had a unique bathroom setup that was interesting to see. After this, we walked around 'The Rocks' for a bit longer - there were many restaurants and pubs all over the place and most of the architectures were definitely older and very European.

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant and each ordered really good pizzas. After a good dinner filled with great discussion, I made my way back to the hotel (located along Pitt Street) to call it an early night.

MSA Student Symposium

Today was the first (and main) day of the MSA Student Symposium in Wollongong. I arrived in Wollongong last night and Aaron picked me up from the train station. I got lucky and had the opportunity to stay in a nicer hotel for the first night because one of the plenary speakers decided to drive down to Wollongong on the day of the conference. So, I was relatively well rested and ready to go for the first day of the conference!

Before we went to the University of Wollongong Innovation Campus, I took a stroll along the beach in Wollongong. Apparently, the beaches and the surf in Wollongong are pretty well known in Australia. It is definitely rare though to find well known cities outside of the major cities in Australia. However, the east coast of Australian (and particularly the northeastern coast of mainly Queensland), is somewhat of an exception. I guess in general, Australia is a bit like Canada in that the country's land mass is enormous, but the people only live in a small area of that land. In Canada, most live near the U.S. border and in Australia, most live in the big cities or at least along the coast.

The beach was pretty nice and the morning weather was pretty warm. I didn't have a lot of time, so I only was able to look around for a bit before I had to head back to the hotel to go to the conference. Lifeguards and businesses were getting setup for the day and the sunrise over the water was really cool! I wish that I would have had more time to walk around the beachfront area, but this trip didn't really allow that.

The conference started with two plenary talks by Tony Fane and Rose Amal. Prof. Fane is a huge figure in the membrane field and had actually visited Austin about a year ago. However, this was the first opportunity that I had to really meet him and speak one on one. The student talks started off pretty well and the content was really pretty good. The talks were short (12 minutes + 3 minutes for questions). So, you learned a little about what everyone was working on. I asked a few questions and accidentally ended up putting one of Dr. Kentish's students on the spot about some of the accelerated aging work that Brandon has done in our group. I talked to both Dr. Kentish and the student during the break and there weren't any hard feelings.

I sat next to Vicki Chen (who I had met with at UNSW) and all-in-all the conference experience was nice. I gave my talk after lunch and I wasn't thrilled with how I did for the first portion of the talk. I know I was rushing a bit and skipping over things I would normally say if I had more time (this was planned). So, it felt a little uncomfortable. I think it came off fine to the audience, but I would have preferred to have felt more relaxed and comfortable. I also had to use a hand-held microphone and the slide changer that they provided. This threw me off a bit since I couldn't use the slide changer that I have or my lucky laser pointer. Oh well, the talk did go well and I received a nice compliment from Tony Fane on my talk, so I'll take that as a good indicator that things went quite well.

The conference dinner was held in the evening along the beach. I sat with several of the University of Queensland students and we had a good time talking over dinner. The topics of conversation varied quite a bit, but it was nice to have conversations about non-science or engineering things. After dinner, I stuck around along with a handful of students and several professors. We stayed for quite a bit longer and it was nice to just sit around and talk with them. After we left the restaurant, Aaron, Justin (student from UQ), went to have another drink with Anita and then we all decided it would be best to get to bed so that we would be coherent for the last morning of talks.

Brisbane to Wollongong

I am currently sitting on the train from Sydney to Wollongong after a flight from Brisbane to Sydney. I am heading to Wollongong to present some of my research at the Membrane Society of Australasia Student Symposium. The Sydney trains are double-deck trains and I am sitting up on the upper level. The train ride is something like an hour and 45 minutes, so I have some time to sit down and write.

I traveled with Anita and Matt to the University of Queensland (UQ) this morning for a meeting with Joe de Costa. His group works on inorganic membranes for gas and liquid separations. They have a very nice setup including full sized fume hoods which allow them to do work on carbon monoxide transport. They have a very nice mixed gas system and they have quite a bit of membrane preparation capabilities. After a short tour and discussion about possible collaboration between CSIRO and UQ, we went to a Thai restaurant for lunch before heading back to the hotel. At this point, I broke off and made my way back to the airport for my flight to Sydney.

Unfortunately, I ended up getting stuck in the middle seat on the flight with an extremely obnoxious Japanese kid behind me who kept kicking and pulling on the seat during the whole flight. It was too bad that the kid's mother didn't try a little harder to keep her son under control. Anyhow, the flight was only an hour and 5 minutes long, so it wasn't too bad. Upon arrival to Sydney, I collected my bags and made my way to the train station to catch a train to the Sydney Central train station. There, I finally found my way to the correct train (it was really confusing and there were very few people around to help out). And here I am now.

I enjoyed seeing Brisbane and I think 1 full day of touring the city was pretty good to get the feel for what Brisbane was all about. I had a good time checking out the mall and shopping areas of the city and the koala sanctuary was absolutely awesome! It was nice to visit the University of Queensland and it was nice to spend half of the day with Anita and Matt. They will both be at the two upcoming conferences that I am going to, but beyond that, there will only be 2 days where Anita and I are both in Melbourne before I head back to the U.S. (Anita and I will be able to wave to each other as our planes practically pass each other while she flies back to Australia from a trip to the states and I travel home to the U.S. I will miss our morning coffee discussions and I am certainly very grateful for her kindness in helping me get established and centered during this trip. Her advice on both research and social/sightseeing activities around Melbourne has really helped me quite a lot and it has made this trip even better.

Well, I should probably sign off for now. I'll meet up with Aaron and Ludo in Wollongong when I arrive as I will be sharing a suite with them for the duration of the conference.

Koala Cuddling!!

The weather in Brisbane wasn't great today. This was unfortunate since today was my day to see the city. However, there were a few silver linings. On one hand, it only sprinkled for the early hours of the morning and, on the other hand, the clouds kept it from being a very hot day.

I started out with breakfast at the hotel and then made my way down to the riverfront. My hotel is right next to the Story Bridge, so I could walk to the central business district (CBD) along the Brisbane River. I made my way along a few city streets and essentially crossed through the city to the Victoria Bridge on the other side of the CBD. Here, I picked up a ferry to take me about 11 km up the Brisbane River to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. This ended up being an excellent decision.

The ferry itself operates to transport people to and from the sanctuary. Along the way, they had a running commentary that talked a lot about the history of Brisbane and landmarks along the river. During the roughly hour-long ride, I learned a lot about Brisbane and the history of the city. We passed the University of Queensland (I will visit UQ tomorrow) and I learned that the University was built just before World War II and that the Australian Army took control of the University before students ever started there. The army based out of UQ because Gen. Macarthur moved his headquarters to Brisbane after he left the Philippines with his 'I'll be back to save the day and take credit for this later - but for now you're on your own' pledge. It wasn't until after the war that students began to use the university. We also saw some fruit bats sleeping hanging upside down from trees along the river. They were pretty big. Apparently, fruit bats can see as well as, if not better than, humans (unlike other types of bats that actually are blind). We also saw several very expensive homes along the riverbank. There were several other interesting bits of information from the trip and I was glad that I opted to take the ferry compared to taking a public transit bus. Finally, we made it to the sanctuary.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary holds a few records in the Guinness Book of World Records. For one, they have the largest collection of Koalas in the world (more than 130). Each koala is individually named and every staff member at the sanctuary is required to be able to identify every single koala by name. They also have quite a few kangaroos and wallabies in addition to other native Australian animals. Clearly though, the koalas steel the show. The other record that they hold is the record for longest documented koala life. They had a koala that lived to be 23 years old (the average in captivity is 12-14 years and the average in the wild is 8-10 years). So, this particular koala really outlived the averages!

Apparently, it is generally illegal in Australia for visitors to hold koalas (they don't like to be cuddled or held and this tends to upset them). However, because of the large number of koalas at the sanctuary, they have been given an exemption to this law. So, I got to hold a koala!! Each koala can only be held for a total of 30 minutes every 2 weeks. In any case, I got to hold one of the female koalas (they are smaller and lighter than the males) and it was great. They are very docile and perfectly fine with cuddling up to anything they can get their hands on. Koalas sleep something like 20 hours a day and spend most of the other 4 eating an enormous amount of eucalyptus leaves. Because the leaves do not have much energy, the koalas are generally very sluggish and sleepy (this would be more or less like a human living only on lettuce).

In any case, the koala was really soft and it was great to be able to hold her. At one point, she picked up her head and looked right at me such that we were essentially nose to nose! After taking a few photos, it was time to hand her back over to the handler and I moved on. I took plenty of photos of the other koalas throughout the facility. They had several young koalas in separate areas and the little ones were generally more active than the older koalas. I could probably continue to write for hours about all of the things I learned and experienced regarding the koalas, but I think this gives a good general flavor for the experience!

I also spent a bunch of time feeding kangaroos. There were a lot of kangaroos and they were all pretty friendly. The girl kangaroos were more social than the boys in terms of actually getting up and bouncing around. But, the boy kangaroos were much more aggressive in terms of trying to get food from people. One boy kangaroo jumped up on a lady to try to get into her bag where she was keeping her bag of kangaroo food. It wasn't really a big deal, but there was definitely a difference between the males and females.

After a busy morning of enjoying the koalas and kangaroos, I took the ferry back to the city. When I got back, I decided to work my way through the CBD. I first came across a sort of farmer's market that was setup along a street. I bought some lemonade and walked around to see what folks were selling. Afterward, I went to see city hall. Apparently, they were doing filming for some movie or documentary and there were a bunch of film crew trucks around the building. After this, I went to check out the Queen Street Mall (pictured in the photo). This was a very exciting environment and I walked up and down the mall several times to see all of the shops and take in the atmosphere. There were several street performers along the open-air mall and a lot of people were making their way through the area. At the one end, I saw the shopping center that used to be Gen. Macarthur's headquarters during World War II. I think it's kind of funny that it is a shopping center now. Anyhow, I found a coffee shop and had a coffee while watching folks walk around the mall area. Afterward, I checked out some other streets in the city and walked around for a bit making my way down to the City Botanic Gardens. I walked through the gardens for a while and then made my way back along the river front to the Story Bridge to get some photos from the bridge walkway. After all of this, I returned to the hotel to take a shower before heading out for dinner.

I had a great seafood dinner at a great restaurant! I had oysters and Spanish mackerel and it was absolutely excellent. The restaurant afforded a great view of the river and the Story Bridge (which was all lit up for the evening). After dinner, I walked back to the hotel and caught some great views of the city skyline lit up for the evening. After getting back to the room, I worked on my talk for the conference that I am presenting at in a few days. I heard from Anita and Matt when they arrived and plans are set for the trip to UQ tomorrow!

Arrival in Brisbane

I have arrived in Brisbane along this whirlwind tour of various parts of Australia! My seminar went well at UNSW this morning and it was really nice to speak with Vicki Chen about the work that they are doing in Sydney. The UNSW lab facilities are very impressive and they certainly have much more of a focus on commercial systems and membrane preparation than we do in Austin. I met several of the students in the group and enjoyed lunch with Pierre Le-Clech and a few students. The University seemed nice, but unfortunately, I didn't get much of a chance to see it as I was tied down with my luggage for the day.

After the seminar, I camped out in one of the post-doc offices at UNSW until I finally got sick of sitting around. Then, I had the incredibly stupid idea of trying to walk from UNSW to the Sydney airport (this is about a 10 minute ride by car). This was almost as dumb as the time I decided that I would try to walk from UT's main campus to Pickle on an 80 degree day (that ended shortly after it started when I hoped on a bus along the way). Anyhow, for some stupid reason, I took off walking down the street toward the airport. Mind you, I had no map and no directions as to how to get there (at least I knew where I was going when I tried to walk to Pickle). I had a rough idea as to where the airport was and I guess I just figured that I would walk toward the city and hope to find signs or something like that. Luckily for me, my common sense kicked back in after walking a few miles dragging my luggage behind me. It was relatively easy to flag down a taxi (since I stayed on main roads) and so I finished the trip to the airport that way.

I had a bunch of time to kill at the airport. Looking back on it, I could have done some things differently (in terms of setting the schedule for the day) that would have made things easier and more streamlined. In any case, everything worked out just fine. I managed to write a few abstracts and I started the tedious process of compiling my expense report for my entire 10-week trip. There aren't too many expenses, but there are several things. By far, the taxi expenses will be the most tedious to compile. In any case, it was good to get that started...

The flight to Brisbane was nice. We were on a Boeing 767 and I got lucky and had a whole exit row to myself. The flight was only an hour and 15 minutes long, but they still served drinks and a snack. I had complimentary white wine and chips and salsa to enjoy during my flight (coming back to the U.S. domestic airlines is going to be tough after experiencing what air travel is like in other countries). I did a little bit of work on the plane and, before I knew it, we were getting ready to land.

The weather in Brisbane was not good. It was pouring rain and the plane actually went into a small skid right after touchdown (the pilot and co-pilot recovered quickly). The taxi ride to the hotel was interesting as I had a crazy Australian taxi driver who loved to talk. He was telling me several stories and just kept going on and on. I couldn't understand everything he was saying because he had some sort of speech impediment (in addition to a very strong Aussie accent). But, it was still funny and it made the ride more enjoyable. I'm checked into the hotel now and I am getting ready for bed. Tomorrow should be a big day of exploring Brisbane!

Goodmorning from New South Wales!

This morning, I woke up at 5:30am to go see the sunrise over Coogee Beach. Unfortunately, clouds muted what I'm sure would have been a spectacular sunrise. In any case, there were a lot of people out on the beach at 5:45am. There were all sorts of aerobic / conditioning programs going on. In one instance, folks were army crawling through the sand as part of their morning workout. I wandered around for a bit and watched a few red-eye 767s make their overhead approach into the Sydney airport. They were followed by some jumbo jets (a few 747s and a couple A380s) presumably arriving from the east - though they could have been coming from the U.S. as well.

I finally settled in on watching the surf crash over some rocks down by the water's edge. The waves were particularly strong as the tide was coming in this morning. It was great to experience the raw power of the water as it smashed over the rocks. I managed to get several photos. Unfortunately, the clouds were still sticking around, so the view was probably quite what it would be on a clear day. But, it was still a good morning.

Now, I am at a coffee shop catching up on e-mail and blog posts. I meet Dr. Chen at UNSW at 10am this morning, so I have about another hour and a half before I need to make my way over there. I'm looking forward to the seminar and getting to meet all the folks at UNSW!

Hamilton Island to Coogee Beach

Today was my final morning on Hamilton Island. After waking up to the spectacular balcony view of the rising sun over the Coral Sea, I began to pack up and get ready for my flight to Sydney. I had about 2 hours between check-out and the time that the bus would leave to take me to the airport, so I went for a walk down to the marina and spent some time watching yachts sail in and out of the marina. After a quick lunch, I returned to the hotel and was on my way to the airport!

The airport on Hamilton Island is very small and does not have air conditioning in any of the areas of the terminal. I checked in for my flight and decided it would be better to stay outside of security where there was a nice breeze. I sat for a while reading up on Sydney and Brisbane in my travel book and then decided it was time to go through security. I arrived in the departure lounge and immediately regretted that decision. It must have been 90 degrees and 95% humidity in that room! They had a bunch of fans going, but nothing seemed to be helping. I found a seat next to a window that offered some breeze and I figured that was about the best I could do. After sitting for a while, the girl sitting next to me decided to start up a conversation by asking about the flight they had just announced. After I replied, she asked where I was from and, low and behold, it turned out that we were both from Austin, Texas! What are the chances of meeting someone, by chance, from the same city on a tropical island located on the other side of the world.

Anyhow, I talked with Alex for a while. She is an event coordinator who works in the Far West area of Austin and lives down south of the Colorado River. She had something like 18 days off of work, so she decided to do a whirlwind tour through Australia for a couple weeks. It was nice to have someone to talk to since it made the heat and humidity seem less noticeable. She liked to talk, so I did a lot of listening. Turns out that she was born in the San Francisco bay area and went to college at Cal Santa Barbara before moving to Austin a few months before I moved there. So, that was nice. We talked about San Francisco (since I will be going there after I return to the States). It's always interesting to meet new people - especially when, compared to everyone else here, we had so much in common. Eventually it was time for her to head off to Brisbane and my flight for Sydney left shortly thereafter.

Boarding the plane was an interesting experience. The outside air was so humid, that it looked like the plane was filled with smoke because the air conditioning in the plane was condensing most of the water right out of the air. It was a bit strange, but the AC felt great! The flight was just over 2 hours long and it wasn't too bad. I've been somewhat spoiled by all these international flights and the domestic flights just aren't quite the same. Eventually we made it to Sydney and we had a great view of the harbor from our side of the plane. It was really cool seeing the Opera House as we came in to land at the airport.

I made my way to Coogee beach where I will stay for the night. Tomorrow I will give a seminar at UNSW (right down the road) and then I will fly to Brisbane to meet up with Anita and Matt to tour the University of Queensland. I was given an upgrade at the hotel to a 1-bedroom apartment! That means that I have a room with full laundry facilities and a fully equiped kitchen! The first thing I did when I arrived was make a trip to the grocery store to figure out what I was going to cook for dinner! I was limited by the fact that I will only be here for a night, but I decided to do baked salmon and a salad. Not bad considering I wasn't planning on being able to cook. I was so excited, though, because I haven't been able to cook a meal since I left Austin! Dinner was great and it was nice to sit down to a homemade meal.

After dinner, I made my way down to Coogee Beach. I would describe the town of Coogee as being similar to Virginia Beach in that the town is a bit outdated in some aspects (though I think this is not quite as bad in Coogee). However, the beach and surrounding rocky cliffs blow the beach at VA Beach out of the water! The sun was setting on the town side of the beach, but the views were still great and I walked around quite a bit. The weather and general feel of the area reminded me of our high school band trips to VA Beach in 2001 and 2003. Those were fun times and I certainly have a lot of good memories from those trips!.

I climbed up to the top of one of the cliffs and just stood there for a while enjoying the view and watching the surf crash over the rocks below. A lot of people were out walking around and it gave the place a very laid back and pleasant feel. Even though it lacked the 'middle of nowhere' feel of some of the other places I've been recently, it was still spectacular and I really enjoyed being out there for the evening. I stayed out until the sun went down and then came back to my room to finish things up for the night.

I took advantage of the laundry facilities (by 'purchasing' laundry detergent from the mini-bar). Even at $4.50 for the detergent, this will likely be the least-expensive laundry opportunity I'll have during this trip. So, I definitely wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to wash all of the clothes that I wore hiking and exploring during my Hamilton Island visit. I also finalized and practiced my UNSW talk one more time. I just finished ironing my dress clothes for tomorrow and setting up my timing plan for how the day should go. I plan to get up early to go watch the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean and then I'll head to UNSW for the seminar. My flight is later in the evening, so I should have some time to make it back to the beach before I need to fly out!

Happy Valentine's Day to Me!

Today was Valentine's Day and I had a great day here on Hamilton Island! I started the day off by sleeping in a bit (I had been so exhausted from the synchrotron shift that I went to bed at 8:30pm and woke up at 9am this morning). It felt good to be fully rested and I was ready to enjoy the day. Unfortunately, some clouds and rain storms had rolled in during the night, so the weather wasn't great in the morning. I took advantage of the opportunity to (while still enjoying the awesome view from the room) watch some of the coverage of the Olympics! I saw the first ski jump event and the women's moguls (featuring the youngest athlete at the Vancouver games, a 15-year old Aussie - though she didn't advance to the finals, she was quite the object of the telecast). As they closed the broadcast, one of the Australian anchors made a comment about how the U.S. hadn't won a medal in the first three medal events. It kind of surprised me considering that there weren't any Americans favored in those events. In any case, it was nice to see some of the games and it was a good way to spend a rainy morning. I was hoping to go snorkeling today out on the Great Barrier Reef, but a jellyfish advisory kept that from happening. Apparently, there are jellyfish here that have an optical index of refraction essentially equal to that of seawater - thus you can't see these jellyfish in the water. They are very dangerous in that you have to go to the hospital if you get stung by one. I'll willingly yield to things that I can't see but could put me in the hospital... I guess it is better to view the reef during the spring or fall when the water temperatures are lower - apparently, the jellyfish don't like the cooler water.

By lunch, the weather had begun to improve. I went to a cafe and had a yummy chicken salad. Afterward, I decided to try another hiking option since the weather was improving. I lathered up with sunscreen and a little bit of my super-awesome bug repellent and I was on my way. I went a different route today and reached a secluded beach called coral cove. No one else was there and so it was nice to enjoy the scenery before thinking about the difficult hike back up the very steep trail. The clouds burned off to a large degree and it got really hot while I was hiking back. I was very happy to make it to the part of the trail that was highly shaded. The views along the track were really great though and I really enjoyed the fact that I felt completely in the middle of nowhere. By law, 80% of Hamilton island is natural terrain, so it makes it very easy to find unique scenery and wildlife!

When I got back to the resort, I decided to head straight for the beach. After a quick cool-down, I found an awesome chase lounge. I ended up sitting there relaxing for close to 2 hours. This photo was taken while relaxing on the chase lounge - not a bad view. I sat and watched the Coral Sea tide go out. As more and more of the beach was revealed, people were walking pretty far out to go swimming and look for seashells. All in all, this was definitely a pretty nice way to spend my Valentine's day afternoon!

I had dinner at the steakhouse on the island. The steak was great and I was able to enjoy it while watching the sunset over the harbor and marina. After dinner, I came back to the resort and went for a swim in the pool. No one else was in the pool so it was nice to be able to float up and down the pool on my back enjoying the palm trees and colorful sky above.