Back in Sydney

Hi everybody! I got back into Sydney last Friday and have successfully worked my way through jetlag. Thanks to everyone who's been so sweet to us these past weeks.

Semester 2 is well underway at the ol' Conservatorium. It looks like we're both going to have light semesters--we both get 6 weeks off of orchestra in the middle of the term. What are we going to do with our free time?!?!?! Both of us have taken on extra work, though. I'm doing some substitute teaching at St. Andrew's Cathedral School, one of the biggest primary music programs in the city, and Mike will be touring with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in September. Whoohoo!!!!

Life at the Con wouldn't be the same without a protest, so, to oblige us, the students staged a walk-out on Tuesday. They all met in the cafe and made about 200 signs, which they hung outside the Dean's office. These signs were quite adorable. Mostly they protested the fact that they have to play in orchestra or sing in choir--when "We all plan to be soloists!" Oh dear. How pathetically naive!

We're becoming very hopeful that spring will arrive soon. Every morning when we wake up the birds are singing their little hearts out. It's slowly warming up during the day, although nights are still pretty chilly. We had a dramatic incident with our space heater. Friday when I got home from the airport, we tried to turn Zippy, our favorite $15 space heater. Unfortunately, $15 only take you so far. First there was a painful squealing noise...then smoke gently wafted from his vents...then I saw flames. But alas and alack, Sydney stores are now into summer merchandise. No more heaters available!

Here, at long last, are some pictures of crazy Tasmania wildlife. THESE are pademelons:



Australia is full of small, hoppy creatures. Pademelons are essentially small kangaroos. Two nights we were in Tassie, a whole group of these little guys came into our front yard. They are very fond of apples and sweet potatoes ;-)

We'd heard that there was a chance we'd see some wombats in Tassie and were very hopeful. "Wombat" is just such a funny word! We'd learned that they leave square droppings on anything new to mark it as their own. We saw trails of said droppings (we have pictures, but I'll spare you...) and kept hoping. The second day it was very foggy and we just driving through the park because it was too stormy to hike. All of the sudden Mike stopped the car.



He waddled down the road in front of us and finally ran off to the side. They're related to koala bears and definitely waddle, although he can run at quite a clip when pressed. He snuffled in the brush for a few minutes as we stopped and cooed over him. THEN he got the bright idea to run and snuggle up next to the car tire (or "tyre" here in Oz). Mike's eloquent quote: "Um...shoo??" Luckily the wombat decided the car wasn't as pleasant as he'd originally thought and trundled off. Crisis averted!

~Ruth Ann