Friday, April 30

Derwent River panorama

I'm about to give my first talk at the new workplace and I'm excited about it in a geeky kind of way - basically I love the data :)

But I thought I'd quickly share with y'all another love of mine, and that is the view from this part of Tassie. Click on the photo to make it bigger. I stitched together a panorama of shots taken from a little hill (called the battery because they used to have some kind of cannon defence system there!) about 5 mins from the middle of town. To the left are the foothills of 'the mountain' aka Mt Wellington. I couldn't fit the mountain in but you'll see better shots of that later. It is our compass and companion here - you always know where you are based on where the mountain is. Heading to the right you can see the city (tiny little Hobart) and the bridge over to the Eastern Shore (the dry looking landmass you can see over the water) and to the right you're heading down the Derwent River (which is exceptionally deep so all sorts of ships port just near downtown) and out towards the sea at the far right.

Remember to click on it and make it big!

Enjoy!

Sunday, April 25

Home...where to start?

Well, we've been in Tassie for two weeks now. I'm not really sure where to start this post! It feels like so much and yet so little has happened in that time.

The exhausting hours spent in LAX seem like years ago!

Travelling with a child means travelling with lots of stuff! The stroller is super useful for hauling it all around though. And for those of you who asked, we got the stroller back the same night we arrived! Go Qantas :D

It has taken Marty a full two weeks to recover from the jet lag, move, new foods etc and I'm still not entirely convinced that he's fully settled, but he is doing really well. Not so good at the whole sleep caper yet but then again, he never was! He's crawling like a mad thing, pulling himself up on anything he can find, and actually crawling into anything he can get his paws around, like suitcases, or the fire place! All this activity of course results in bonked heads but he's tough. He's also loving the garden and hooning round under the clothes line - a unique Australian experience! I'll have to remember to take the camera out there next time. He's met Purry our cat and they seem to get on pretty well. Purry has even let Marty pull his fur, tail and ears without complaint and he still hangs around! It has been wonderful to have him back.


I spent the first day in Tassie (a Saturday) sitting in front of a computer finishing off a grant that was due the next day. Not at all fun with the ground going up and down under my feet - at least that's what it felt like! The rest of the week was spent talking to banks, medicare, looking for somewhere to live and chilling out with the Roo getting him settled. We still haven't really caught up with many people, and those we have seen have been flying visits. We'll get there though. For the first week we were all in bed by 7pm at the latest! Which of course meant Roo was ready to roll at 6am.

I started work on Monday and have been there for a week. I'll write a separate post about that later. Short story: all is going well. The new building it pretty awesome although going from my lovely office in Texas to a cubicle sucks, no matter how nice the cubicle may be.

I can't say too much about how it feels to be back in Tassie yet because we're taking it pretty slowly but it sure is beautiful here! It isn't like I forgot how stunning this place is but it still takes my breath away whenever I look out the window. We are staying with Jo's folks until we work out where we're going to live (rent or buy? argh!) and the view from their place across the mouth of the Derwent river is just sublime!

The view from the front doorstep

Same view, stunningly different evening!

A very foggy day and some good old Aussie telegraph wires

Moving here is totally different to visiting... Usually we try to pack all our favourite activities, people and food into a week or two. Now that we know we don't have that kind of time limit we're letting ourselves take it really slow. We're working on finding our feet, getting into the rhythm of work, beginning to socialise and slowly working out a longer term plan. We've been pretty stressed about the whole house thing but I think we just need to relax a bit more and really enjoy Tasmania! We both have phones now so if you want the numbers please email me (jac dot wabbit @ gmail dot com) - we'd love to hear from you!

Friday, April 9

We've arrived

Mostly intact, temporarily missing a stroller but we're here! The ground still feels like it is going up and down and my head it too full to even start with how we're feeling but the important thing right now is that our phones don't work! Anyone who called or texted us from about 10pm last night, sorry but we didn't get them and we won't now. I'll let y'all know by email when we have new numbers set up but for now stick with email etc.

Marty was an absolute trooper and took the whole trip, delays, lost bags and all, so much better than his poor tired mummies. We've done little more than shower, eat, and walk down to the ocean but that's plenty for now. My heart is still a little on the broken side but we'll find a way to make Tassie home again - and that doesn't change that fact that Texas will always be home too. We're danged lucky to have such amazing friends over the globe.

Thursday, April 8

Up in the air

Nope, not the film but us! We're currently in the air somewhere between Dallas and LAX. Yup, my first ever mid air blog post, neat eh?

Our flight out of San Antonio was delayed but thankfully so was the one out of Dallas so we made it with moments to spare (why is there always a bottom to change in Dallas airport?) Marty is currently sleeping in his Mama's arms and we're feeling sad but on track.

Not sure if I'l be able to keep you posted from LA but at this point we're looking good to make our flight to Melbourne - then it is just a matter of getting our insane collection of bags and three very tired people through customs, immigration and on to the domestic side of things - Jetstar that is.

I'd like to send a huge thank you out to our wonderful Texan family for not only putting yourselves through the pain of an airport goodbye, but for helping us with all our gear and the general logistics. We will miss every one of our San Antonio friends - I can't even write about it properly yet. Just know that we love and miss you all.

(oh crap I just made Josie cry again...)

This was taken in the afternoon after the movers had almost finished packing up our apartment. I only wish I could lay down like this right about now!

Trying to be on our way!

We've done the teary goodbyes. We've dropped off our gazillion bags and made it through TSA... But now we're stuck doing laps of San Antonio terminal 2 waiting for a flight to Dallas which is currently surrounded by a belt of thunderstorms which is causing the usual US travel dramas! At the moment it looks like we might make it to LA... We'll do our best to keep you updated on here!

For now, here's a photo from a couple of days ago when life was so much more simple!