In 12 hours, I will have been in Australia for one week...
First some updates on my last post. The office is a bit more lively now with 3 people and we all have working computer stations (with power). An Australian did say today though that things were "getting a bit squeezy." As for the right turn from the left thing, Mark informed me that it's called a hook turn, that it's only done in the CBD of Melbourne (downtown), and that it even confuses the locals. While that does make me feel better, it was crazy to be on a tram the other day that turned left directly in front of a car turning right (i.e., their turn lane was to the left of the tram). Yeah, it's that crazy.
Today was my first day working out of our field office. It appears that I will be splitting my time between our downtown office and our field office about 50/50, which might just be perfect. Some days I will have quiet, sparsely occupied downtown office and other days I will have louder, livelier field office. It was definitely great today to have more people to interact with and the Australian sense of humor is a trip. I also got to experience my first blast as they are blasting the tunnel underneath the office. Two blasts went off today; the first one sounded like somebody dropped a bunch of stuff in the next room while the second one felt like a miniature earthquake with sound effects. Granted we are pretty far away, but I was expecting more.
At the site office I met my first footy fan and my first cyclist. Hopefully I will spending more time with both of them. The footy fan invited me to a big game coming up between Carlton and Hawthorn and then didn't un-invite me when he heard that we would be pulling for different teams, so that's good.
Additional things I discovered today: ordering coffee in Australia is more complicated than Starbucks (espresso, long black, flat white, strong flat white... [sidenote: I wonder if Starbucks here sell drip coffee - will report back later]), Australians take their coffee seriously (I have never seen such an intelligent espresso machine and at a field office no less), and that newly-arrived Americans should not even bother trying to do an Australian crossword puzzle.
This is a picture of me in the botanical gardens taken by my tour guide. I am actually standing in a massive herb garden. As for the picture above, I got nothing. It's kind of like the sign today on the toilets at the field office: "Put your butts in the ashtray." :)
First some updates on my last post. The office is a bit more lively now with 3 people and we all have working computer stations (with power). An Australian did say today though that things were "getting a bit squeezy." As for the right turn from the left thing, Mark informed me that it's called a hook turn, that it's only done in the CBD of Melbourne (downtown), and that it even confuses the locals. While that does make me feel better, it was crazy to be on a tram the other day that turned left directly in front of a car turning right (i.e., their turn lane was to the left of the tram). Yeah, it's that crazy.
Today was my first day working out of our field office. It appears that I will be splitting my time between our downtown office and our field office about 50/50, which might just be perfect. Some days I will have quiet, sparsely occupied downtown office and other days I will have louder, livelier field office. It was definitely great today to have more people to interact with and the Australian sense of humor is a trip. I also got to experience my first blast as they are blasting the tunnel underneath the office. Two blasts went off today; the first one sounded like somebody dropped a bunch of stuff in the next room while the second one felt like a miniature earthquake with sound effects. Granted we are pretty far away, but I was expecting more.
At the site office I met my first footy fan and my first cyclist. Hopefully I will spending more time with both of them. The footy fan invited me to a big game coming up between Carlton and Hawthorn and then didn't un-invite me when he heard that we would be pulling for different teams, so that's good.
Additional things I discovered today: ordering coffee in Australia is more complicated than Starbucks (espresso, long black, flat white, strong flat white... [sidenote: I wonder if Starbucks here sell drip coffee - will report back later]), Australians take their coffee seriously (I have never seen such an intelligent espresso machine and at a field office no less), and that newly-arrived Americans should not even bother trying to do an Australian crossword puzzle.
This is a picture of me in the botanical gardens taken by my tour guide. I am actually standing in a massive herb garden. As for the picture above, I got nothing. It's kind of like the sign today on the toilets at the field office: "Put your butts in the ashtray." :)
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