Friday June 24, 2011 End of the first work week

Friday June 24, 2011

Today Theresa had her day off and thus I took the bus into town. The bus station is only a block away from the house and buses run in the early morning very frequently – overall 6 buses between 7 and 8 am. The ride takes about 30 – 40 minutes passing Howrah (pronounce Harah), Rosny and heading over the River bridge into Hobart. In the city center one connects to the University bus which is another 10 15 minute ride. With connecting directly from one bus to the other I caught today the 8 am bus filled with school kiddies and myself the only adult passenger. I was sitting in the front of the bus and three girls were sitting opposite to me. It was the birthday of the one sitting in the middle. It was exhilarating watching them as the birthday girl was unpacking one small present after the other. Lots of insider jokes I guess. One of them, even I got the joke. It was a pair of extraneously large fake golden plastic earrings and she not even had her ears pierced. With this nice entertainment on the bus the day had started very well and I was ready to rock and roll.

The day was packed with more organizing, some great discussions and catching up with my colleagues, a good bye party for Sue, a luncheon seminar from a Thomas a visiting scientist from the AWI passing through on the way to the IUGG meeting next week. The last hour of the afternoon I spent running errands, getting information on medical insurance from Medibank, depositing some money on my bank account and I almost would have gotten my drivers license though I was missing a bit of paper with my current local residential address on it.

Well a couple of things I will now have to deal with first things on Monday – signing up for Medicare, signing up with Medibank for the medical insurance and than getting my driver license.

After running the errands I headed back to the Uni and the IMAS bldg. Every second Friday one of the student clubs holds a beer hour and today was the second Friday. A great opportunity to meet more of my colleagues and others working in and around IMAS (Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies) and ACE (Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre). A beer later and several pieces of cheese, chips and crackers later, I hitched a ride back to Tranmere with Sue.

Another successful day and my first workweek have passed.

2011-06-23 Third Day

Thursday June 23, 2011

Most of the morning I spent on most important things - getting hocked up to the internet and a printer, and pulling everything together to get reimbursed for my Visa, moving and travel expenses. After lunch I took one of the department cars and headed down to Kingston to drop them off.

Ok – I have to admit that I got a little bit confused these days. The sun passes in the North and cars are driving on the left side of the road. With cars driving on the left side of the road, everything on a car is reversed – the passenger side is the driver side and the driver side is the passenger side. So which side was again the driver side? While the past couple of days I quiet often caught myself heading towards the drivers side of a car before getting I actually got this time into the passenger side and was surprised to find the steering wheel on the other side. Daaahhhhh. – out of the car and getting in on the right hand side…. With the steering wheel being on the right, driving on the left however is much easier than one may be afraid of. The trick here is to take the median of the road always next to the steering wheel, except if you drive in the middle of the road one will always drive on the correct (not the right :-) side of the road.

Off I was to Kingston and ruckizucki back to my office. The afternoon I than spent with more conversations and printing out and reading some science papers, overall catching up with the work of my colleagues.  

A part of my time I also spent on checking on my shipments. Yesterday I had received the bill for the shipment and a couple of pictures of my palletized belongings. Looking at the pictures I thought there was something funny about the pallet. Comparing the picture against the pictures I had taken in Illinois, I discovered that someone had reorganized the majority of my palletized belongings.

From the pictures it looked as if all the boxes are still undamaged though the fact that someone – not custom – went through my boxes and reorganized them isn’t much comforting. Most annoying is that who ever did this increased in this way the overall height of the stacked items and thus the volume costing me money as the my shipper is billing it by the dimensions they received. We will see, how that goes.

Also somewhat annoying is that my bicycle hasn’t yet arrived. Most likely this is due to the ash cloud lingering over the Tasmania and impacting air traffic. Seems I was really really lucky getting into Hobart on the only day this week air traffic hadn’t canceled flights. 

And with this another great day is over.

2011-06-22 Second day - slowly settling and catching up with things

Wednesday June 22, 2011 – another busy day passed quickly. In the early morning I settled a bit more into my new office. The ACE CRC is located on the third and forth floor of the Centenary Bldg. a relatively new and modern building. Some of the offices are in the Earth Science building, an older building adjacent to the Centenary Bldg., which can be reached via a small bridge. My office is on the other side of the bridge the second door to the right. The office is part of an office suite with 4 individual offices and a central room from which one accesses my office, in which a number of students have their desks. One advantage of having my office here is that there is a printer right outside of my door, others are that one has company or one can close the door and focus on one’s work.  

Aside from unpacking my things and putting my few things onto the desk and sorting them onto the shelves, settling into my office also included unraveling nice presents from former occupants. These included some field work pictures – or better pictures from some fieldwork parties and a bunch of other useful things. Most useful was to find the key which opens both the front door to the office suite and my office door.

Aside from settling into my office we had a planning meeting in the morning, discussing current and future work, a teatime of the ACE-CRC in which I was called up and welcomed to the department followed by the second half of our meeting and another trip to Kingston to drop off some paperwork and pick up my staff-ID.

With this, a little bit more organizing in my office, some sorting through my travel and moving receipts, figuring out how the phone system works and a few more short discussions with my colleagues the day was already over and it was time to head home.

2011-06-21 First work day

After a good nights rest I headed early in the morning to Hobart. Its about 15 kilometers from Tranmere to Hobart and so I hitched a ride with Theresa my couch surf host.

My first stop in Hobart was my new bank NAB – National Australian Bank located conveniently in the center of town. While waiting for the branch to open I stopped at the Metro office in the downtown post-office and acquired the Greencard – it the electronic ticket for riding the bus around the city. In order to finish the set-up of my bank account I had to provide my immigration documents and passport. Taking the opportunity I also asked my relationship banker Stuart a bunch of questions about mortgages, insurance and what other important things I could think off. After setting up my account I was off to my new workplace at the University of Tasmania.

Walking through the hallway at the ACE-CRC I received a nice welcome – Great seeing, Welcome to Hobart, You made it finally. Checking in with Tony we went through the check-in list and I got the keys to my office, A nice window on the backside of the building with large windows though only a gorgeous view onto another brickwall. Just before Lunch we than headed down to Kingston, to the headquarters of the AAD to fill out some more paperwork and provide all the information needed to set me up in the system and for me to receive my first paycheck in early July.

After this was done Tony and I headed off for lunch with people from the atmospheric group. The rest of the afternoon I started settling into my new office, talking with colleagues and headed out early to catch my ride back home with Theresa.

2011-06-18/20 Immigrating to Australia and Arrival at Hobart

Good Evening

Time is flying. Saturday evening I left the US from San Francisco bound for Sydney, Australia arriving Monday early morning. My third time to Australia and yet different from any other travel I have taken before. I have been arriving to start my new job and to take up permanent residency in a lovely country - my new home.

Arriving at Sydney airport I was nicely greeted by Australia. I passed through custom like any other time. I handed my entry form with the cross on A - Migrating permanently to Australia. The custom officer - Gabrielle - a beautiful blond Aussie woman - asked me a few questions, stamped my passport and welcomed me to Australia with a big warm hearted smile. Just a little gesture and I had become a permanent resident of Australia.

What a feeling - taking up residency in a new country - When I moved to the US almost 12 years ago I had no intention to live there for ever. The original plan of mine was to do my Ph.D. in the US quickly, take up a temporary position and apply for university positions back in Germany returning as professor.
As planned I relatively quickly went through my Ph.D.. However instead of returning to Germany I remained in the US first as postdoctoral fellow at the Byrd Polar Research Center (Ohio State University) than on a research position at Northern Illinois University.

Now twelve years later I was waiting for my 4 bags to appear on the baggage claim and to clear custom. The secret to clearing custom efficiently is to follow the instruction - declare everything, and if you uncertain declare it and talk with the custom officer, as much as they are working to protect their country they also working with you as long as you honest and truthful. I declared my 10 bottles of wine and 1 bottle of rum, my chocolatte and Haribo Gummibears, showed them my hiking boots, which were all clean and showed my few rock samples I had with me, which were also clean. Another Big Welcome to Australia I cleared custom heading out into the Lobby with my big cart of luggage.

On my way to the Quantas luggage drop off I stopped at the Optus telephone shop got a new Sim card and reloaded my pre payed phone with $30. Still the same number I received last year - ready to rock and roll.
Checking in with Quantas I had to reorganize my luggage. Quantas has a much stricter luggage policy than United. 32 kg - not more. Also your cabin luggage will have to be less than 7 kg. Well on the first a bit annoying - on the second it forces you to be smarter. After reorganizing my checked luggage I checked one of my two carry-ons. The good news - a supplemental piece of luggage was only AU $30. Much less than the $100 United charges for the same. I guess one can get used to the stricter rules.
Before paying for the bill I dropped off the large bag at the odd size baggage drop off and returned the cart to the others. As usual I pushed a couple of them standing all across the area together and into line with the others. This got me a big big smile and Thank You from the counter agent. Yeah we both have no idea why people can't return their carts properly and leave the work for others.

Next stop - changing terminal. On the bus a nice lady mistook me for one of her travel partners and all four of us chatted first about autism and later about energy and the future of clean energy. They had just arrived from Calgary working in the energy business and heading onward to Perth for some business meeting.
5 hours, a good unhealthy breakfast and 2 hour nap later I headed onward to Hobart.

At Hobart I only had to wait a few minutes for my luggage to arrive and a few more for my host Theresa to arrive. Off we went to a lovely place on the eastern shore of the river in Tranmere, I will call home until I decided where around Hobart I will set down my roots.

Greetings from Down Under with a lovely sun set enhanced in color through the ash lingering in the air.

One small Step after the other gets you there - Step packing Illinois

Good evening

Another busy week has passed. Monday I shipped my belongings from Illinois and today my California shipment was picked up.
What's the magic word in the automotive industry - On Time Delivery. On my end it was an On-Time ready for pick-up. I literally printed the last shipping document out when the door bell rang. All I had to do was switch off the printer - pack it into some plastic, drop it into the space on the pallet tie the knots on the rope I had designated to hold it in place and plastic wrap the entire pallet.
The longest was to find the keys for my rental car so that we could recover the pallet from the driveway. They were hiding dearly. At the end I found them and the pallet got loaded onto the truck. What a good feeling after three days of hard work.

After cleaning up and starting packing my luggage for the plane ride tomorrow I spent the evening with friends having a picnic in the park and some very good chat. Now I am off to bed so that I can fully enjoy my last day in the Bay. We'll see - what ever it bring I have a confirmed upgrade and will sleep soundly on my way Down Under.

Thanks to everybody who helped me on this awesome journey. Special thanks to Karl & Lisa, to Harry, David and Marc.

2011-06-07 Vancouver - getting organized

Hallo Everybody

I am out of the Wilderness and have safely arrived in the urban jungle of Vancouver.

My next tasks will be getting organized to move to Hobart Tasmania in a week or two.
This means currently making phone calls to moving companies and finding some alternative to the quoted full size containers, which previous moving companies have quoted.

As I will find the time I will fill in the missing blogs from my travel and will add some additional information on this travel. For now I created a new page - 2011 Bike Adventure on which I listed my travel itinerary and will update which blog sections I have published. The blogs I will backdate to the actual date of travel. So check back from time to time and check out the blog archive as I will transfer my journal into this blog and add pictures.

stay tuned and all the best wishes