This is the third time that I've been in Australia, and it has the funny feeling of being both home and not-home at the same time. Everything here has become quite familiar, almost boring, really --- which just lulls me into a sense of false security, making me that much more surprised when I'm confronted with something typically and uniquely Australian. Like this:
Vegemite on buttered toast with avocado, tea, sunny-side eggs. Oh man, no one does breakfast like the Australians.
Or like these guys:
They're brush-tailed possums, nocturnal marsupials, snacking on just-formed tree buds. I'm sure I'd find them considerably less adorable if I lived here (cf. Japanese tourists cooing over squirrels), but since I don't: Awww!
Unlike our two previous trips, where we stopped off in Sydney for a little while or traveled around, we decided this time to head straight to Canberra and get right into the thick of it. We've been here a little over a week, and after stocking the kitchen and re-acquainting ourselves with our surroundings, we've allowed life to fall into a cozy and predictable pattern. I've already written a bit about being at ANU here, so suffice it to say that it's been an enjoyable week. Tea twice a day, talks twice a week, evenings at the pub, fantastic southeast Asian food...it's a wonder that anyone gets any work done, really. If it weren't so damn cold, it would be perfect.
One nice addition since the last time we were here is the Tempo and Mode research group, a joint venture of the biologists and the philosophers of biology, who hold weekly lunch meetings to discuss topics of mutual interest. It's great to see such a well-functioning inter-disciplinary venture, and although I'm not particularly moved by their research questions (nor knowledgeable enough to follow their discussions!), I really appreciate how well it works and how welcome they've made me feel. And I'm not just saying that because they've bullied me into giving a talk in two weeks...oh dear.
Another new discovery is the Sunday market at the old bus depot in Kingston. It was quite a long walk along the edge of the lake to get there from our apartment, but it was well worth the effort. There wasn't much produce, but there were several stalls selling chocolate, as well as handmade textiles, chutneys and jams, spice rubs, coffee, organic strawberries, freshly squeezed orange juice, and bread --- it's ridiculously hard to get whole wheat (e.g., "wholemeal") bread here for some reason, so we bought two loaves. And some pistachio macarons. Yum.
The academic lifestyle here tends to mesh rather nicely with the general Australian outdoorsy anything-goes attitude. Although this often means that I'm stuck sitting outside on the patio at teatime, freezing to death and guarding my biscuits against prowling birds, it also means that everyone takes kindly to the desire to get out of the office and into the bush or down to the beach. So last weekend we celebrated the end of jetlag by taking a hike up Mount Ainslie (more on that here), and this upcoming weekend we're planning to head down to the coast. Kim, our main academic mentor / philosophical pirate, and his wife Mel have very generously allowed us the use of their new bush house for a few days. I hear rumors of lyrebirds in the scrub around those parts, and I can't wait to get away from my computer, stretch my legs, and go looking for them.
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