The Hills are Alive.... with the Sound of Frigid Wind & Magpies

Two weeks ago, we headed up to the "Australian Alps". True to the naming scheme I've noticed in the bird guide (e.g. Australian oystercatcher, Australian magpie, Australian white ibis, etc.), it means it's just like the other version, except Australian. Well... sort of. OK, they're a little shorter, and have a little less permanent snow on top, but still! They're mountains, and in Australia... so that's something!

I'm just kidding. In all honesty, the "bogong high plains" were absolutely breathtaking, as you can see by my enthusiastic use of panoramic shots framing this post. We were up there helping out with a long term global nutrient study. Not a shabby place for a field site...

We spent the afternoon making notes about measurements of willow growth, and then stretched out hundreds of meters of neon string to mark the grids we would 'treat' with various cocktails of nutrients. The next day, we spent a chilly and foggy morning sprinkling little whitish pellets evenly over about 500 sq meters of earth. I felt like a tiny elf decorating a giant birthday cake. But as we finished up, the cloud were blown away, and we were treated to a beautiful sunny afternoon. Saw a kestrel seemingly floating on the wind, and watched some pelicans (Australian, mind you) hanging out on the reservoir.

The most beautiful part about the high plains is simply the peacefulness of it all. No large animals venture up into that habitat (and few people outside of ski season). The deer and roos stay further down the mountain in the lusher vegetation of the gullies. The only things flitting about were a few robins and lots of ravens and magpies. Just quiet and space.

Two things I did NOT expect to see:

1) --> Gwen in waist deep snow! OK, well, next to waist deep snow.

2) <-- Daffodils! Strange... we couldn't decide if a few bulbs had rolled out the back of some truck driving past, or if these were the potentially invasive kind that actually seed out. Might have to wait til next spring to find out :/

Regardless, I'm happy I made my way up to the hills. Not a view I'd like too soon forget.

Australian vocab:

schoolie: a recent secondary school graduate, one who is celebrating their freedom (in the US, the equivalent would be 'beach weekers')
toolie: some one who is no longer in school, but feels the need to hang out with recent graduates to steal their fun (a.k.a. creepy douche-bag)
For examples see: this news article or this one, or google it for yourself

Cute Explosion

The weather in Melbourne, sunny one moment, raining the next, manages to provide a world full of rainbows a la my favorite weebl's song. However, also makes getting dressed for the day difficult. I have yet to get it right. I'm either dragging around a coat, scarf and umbrella  while being scorched by the sun on a 30 degree day (that's hot in Celsius), or tripping along in sandals in a sun dress, covered in goosebumps and a light sprinkling of rain. I've tried checking the weather online; that doesn't actually seem to help. If the weather forecast is vital to your outfit, you should only get dressed moments before its necessary.

Non-weather related events from the past weekend include a Saturday full of kids-activities. I headed to 'Scienceworks' to see an exhibit on Wallace & Gromit, the famed bumbling inventor clay-mation pair (<--One of their many movie sets). After wandering through the rest of the museum and hogging the funnest interactive exhibits (including a rock climbing wall, laser dodging room, and lots of optical illusions involving staring at spinning shapes), I headed to a North Melbourne playground to get in the way of other more suitably sized humans on a jungle gym. All in all, a glorious day of hanging out with fellow scientists who refuse to grow up.

Sunday, headed to St. Kilda, an urban beach just south of Melbourne CBD. It was a very shallow sandy beach with clear water, like many more tropical waters. Relatively clean, considering it's location, but we did notice quite a few invasive starfish in the sand and sea grass beds (hmm.. I may have to do a retrospective blog post to explain my knowledge of these guys). Regardless, we headed down the long pier and around to a rocky breakwater guarding the Yacht Club's anchorage for the big show of the night...

... PENGUINS! Yep, that's right, humans built a big pile of rocks to protect their expensive boats, and little penguins (that's their actual technical name) decided it looked like a great place to hang out and make their home. Now after making it into a non-natural nature preserve, building a viewing platform, and organizing volunteers to patrol the hoards of idiots trying to climb the rocks and pet penguins, folks can gather every evening at dusk to watch these guys come back from a day out catching fish. Let me tell you, 15" flightless birds are not the most elegant climbing boulders back to their nest, but boy are they cute flapping and stumbling about. Then they stand around scratching themselves and chatting to their neighbors while hundreds of tourists snap (flash-prohibited, and thus very blurry) photos. And they sound like retarded frogs.

Australian vocab:

CBD: 'Central Business District'. a.k.a. downtown
kiwi: not, a fruit, but someone from New Zealand
torch: flashlight (much less flammable)
thongs: flip-flops, ex: 'I was going to the beach for the weekend, so all I packed was my thongs'

Obamarama 2012: Obama Barracks my World... take 2

Being on the other side of the world does mean that I didn't have to put up with all the s*** that comes with being from a swing state (my apologies to whoever lives in 116 indigo terrace in Williamsburg, aka my last registered address as an independent in VA); however, it does not mean that the election doesn't reach me.

While diligently procrastinating, and meandering around the vast expanses of facebook, I happened upon an old friend from the College of Bill & Gary. Not only was he living in Melbourne, working on a law degree at the Uni, but also in charge of the local chapter of Democrats Abroad (didn't know that was a thing until today). Not only all of this, but ALSO, his club was hosting a meet-up to watch the election at a pub!

I'll be honest, I was expecting 6-7 nerdy poly-sci guys gathered around an ipad, debating exit polls. And well... there was that, but so much more too! There were easily a hundred people overwhelming the small wait-staff. There were lots of ex-pats, but excited Australians watching too. There were local news teams covering the people watching the coverage of the election. I'll admit that Australia doesn't have a lot of dramatic national news to report on, but I was still shock that there was so much buzz. Every news station on  Australian TV was covering the US election. It was surreal to hear an Australian accent talking about Kaine taking Virginia (yay). In fact, I've been reflecting lately about how Australia is kind of like being in a dream, in the way that dreams can be very real, and you think that you're awake, going about your day, but then something's a little off. So, being in Australia feels just like being in the US, except things are just a little off. Like, the cars are coming from the wrong direction, and when you flip a switch up the light goes off instead of on. Well, this whole event just exacerbated that feeling. It was a US election with US candidates, and I was drinking beer, and there were people yelling things at the TV as if it was a sporting event.... all normal... yet, the beer was bad, the accents were all wrong, it was daylight outside, and for some reason people wanted to take my picture, because apparently being an American was cool in this one strange dream-like moment.

Anyways, point of the story, is that Australia is excited for us, so rejoice! Because the rest of the world still respects our choices for the next 4 years.

Exclamation points!!!!

Blogging fail. Sorry I haven't been updating since leaving Brisbane. Hopefully, I'll have time to reflect on those changes soon. 

In the meantime, here's a series of pictures of me getting excited about stuff: