Spring & Australian Money

December 1, 2010

G'Day, Mates.

The Spring season is upon us. The Aussies measure it from the first day of October rather than from the Equinox. Summer comes the same way here, down under, measured from the first day of December instead of the Solstice. I assume it is a traditional thing.

Time changes here too, like it does back home, so that we are now into daylight savings time and light lasts just that much longer into the evening. The computer can't keep up with the change, particularly when the time doesn't change back home. I have those 24 hours clocks set to San Francisco, New York and Canberra. But none of them tell me the correct time since Daylight savings started down here. Currently we are 19 hours different from San Francisco, but the clocks say more.

This year has been the wettest in a very long time. I claim to have brought it in from San Francisco, but probably not; the country has suffered under a drought for more than 10 years, so the rains are a god-send and probably part of nature's cyclical plan. People are generally happy about it, because the temperatures remain rather temperate than hot, as it was this time last year. Well, maybe everyone except the farmers who are bringing in the crops now. Prices will shoot up in the supermarkets soon.

Speaking of prices, goods do seem to cost a bit more down here than back home, by 5% to 15% more. It's across the board, though there are some peculiar differences, which I'll have to mention in another post.

The price difference wouldn't be a bother, except that the Australian dollar has reached parity with the American dollar since I have been here. Last August 2, the AUD could get only $.89 American but it has inched up to $1, since then. Fortunately, it may be on the way back down; tourism and exports are down as a result.

Lynn wanted me to talk about "regular daily life" down here. What's a day in the life like, she asked. So while we are speaking of money, let's start there and I'll use the next few blog posts to outline other interesting tidbits about life in Oz.

The paper money is quite pretty, shades of iridescent reds, blues and green with pictures of famous writers, politicians, military and social heroes, and of course, the Queen of England. The latter is the "ruler" of Australia, and her representative in Australia, the Governor-General, must approve and sign every law that is passed by the Parliament. But that's a discussion for another day.

The bills all have an oddly shaped transparent plastic piece embedded somewhere in the bill. The portraits are punctillated, like those on the US bills. The drawings alongside the protraits tell a story about the person's endeavors and, if you still can't figure out who it is, the person's signature is displayed clearly there for you to read. The mandatory signatures by the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia and by the Treasurer are also there to see, with those cryptic numbers that somehow identify that bill, and that bill alone, from every other.

The standard denomination that comes out of the ATM machines is the $50 bill, rather than the $20. That's because everything is so expensive. One hands over  $50 bill for just about everything one buys it seems. "Petrol" (that's gasoline for the car, for you Americans), is at about $1.25 per litre, about $5 a gallon. So it takes about $50 to fill the car.

The coins are rather different than American coins. The 'gold' coins are dollar coins; the smaller of the two types worth $2 and the larger worth $1. They are rather thick coins and are easily told apart by feel. The $2 coins are easily lost in the folds of a pants pocket, and easily dropped on the ground by accident as you fumble to find the proper change. I know; I found a $2 gold coin in the parking lot just yesterday. Made my day.

The other coins are silver colored, but reverse the trend set by the gold coins. That is, the smaller ones are indeed worth less than the larger ones. The smallest denomination is $.05, and nobody seems to call it a 'nickle'. When a price in a store lands up at say $.82, you are allowed to give the shop-keeper $.80. But if it ends up at $.83 you have to fork over $.85. That's just the way it works.

$.10 is the next bigger, then $.20 and $.50. There is no "quarter". The half dollars are big and bulky; nobody likes carrying them around, but because of the gold coins, it ends up that everybody carries around lots of metal in their pockets and purses. Because I don't expect a dollar to be anything other than a $1 paper bill, I still can't figure out whether the shop-keepers are giving me the right change or not. There are no $1 and $2 bills. The paper money starts at $5, then $10, $20, $50 and $100. I don't have wealth vast enough to encounter a bill larger than that.

It is interesting to see that lots of items are priced around the $3 range, things you would think would be about $1.50 or so. It is as if people don't want to waste your time breaking down the $2 coins with all that change, so they'll take your $3, thank you.

Cheers. And g'day.

New Digs

G'day, mates.

I moved into new digs two weeks ago. I am now within walking distance of the ANU in an older, established area of Canberra, called Campbell, not far from the Australian War memorial and the Anzac Parade. The War Memorial looks down the Parade directly at the old and new Parliament buildings in the distance across Lake Burney Griffin.

My landlady is a young 81 and still plays a regular game of golf every Tuesday. She spends much time in the garden, however, and has already offered me several different types of herbs including curry leaf. She is lively, talkative, thoughtful, listens and shares her opinions well. We have sat down to dinner together a couple of times already and she pours the wine. I barbied up some chicken last night for her.

Her last tenant needed to move on unexpectedly, and she worried about getting an older, professional person to take her place. Rarely does the flat come up for rent because the tenants generally remain a long time. A month ago, I realized that David would soon be returning and I didn't have a place to live. A feeling kept nudging me to get on the net and look. Begrudgingly I sat down and did a rather thorough search of the districts all over Canberra focusing on units that I thought I might afford, between $280 and $340 a week. After about 3/4 hour this one popped up. I kept coming back to it and wondering whether it really looked as good as the pictures suggested. I ended up taking the bus into Civic the next day and walked over from the ANU. The landlady was home and within minutes we both felt comfortable with each other. Fortunately, no one else was on the list in front of me.

The back yard is covered with the shade of a large palm and what appears to be a type of oak. The shade will help considerably during the summer to make the very pleasant backyard livable in the dry summer heat of Canberra. A wooden table with chairs covered by a large umbrella will be a great way to enjoy the summer sun. The next door neighbors have a swimming pool.

Her son designed and built the flat. The L-shape holds a bedroom, study, a kitchen, large living area, and a bath. A real brick arch separates the living area from the bedroom. The colors are warm, almost Mediterranean; large sliding glass window/doors let in the outdoor light, smells and sounds.

There is plenty of shelf space for books and papers. And plenty of closet space for clothes and other odds and ends. She has already stocked the kitchen with kitchenware, plates and silverware. I just need to bring the food and the odds and ends needed to make this a comfortable home for the next three years.

The buses leave a block away every ½ hour on the weekdays starting at 7 AM and drop me off at the Civic interchange. It's a neighborhood bus and wanders through several of the small suburbs, but arrives in about 20 minutes.

The bus system in Canberra is remarkable. You can get just about anywhere without waiting very long. Each district has its own main interchange and sends out local and distance buses. Typically it takes about ½ hour to each interchange.

Bus tickets are about $4 per ride unless you have a concession. You're either a senior, a student, a school child, disabled, or you just bought a ten-tripper. A ten tripper is a set of 10 trips for free. You can get monthly cards too. So rarely does anyone pay full price. The student concession card puts you on the bus for $1.26 a ride, which is defined as any place you can go in the entire system within 1 ½ hours. If you try to ride after that you get charged, but within that limit you can go from bus to bus to bus as many times as you want. The card readers are often broken; apparently there is a big to-do about replacing them. I have ridden many times without paying. They say about ¼ of all riders are riding for free because of the broken card readers. I suppose that will all be fixed soon.

My friend Tricia and I spent an afternoon wandering the city and ended up on the viewing deck of the Telstra tower, which sits on the top of Black Mountain and overlooks the city. The views are spectacular. That tower is quite a bit bigger than meets the eye when viewing it from the city below.  Here is what you see from the top.

From the bottom of the tower.

Views of the City all the way around the tower.

Come visit me and I'll show you the sights.

There are more pictures here.

Cheers.

Australia's Finest: The ANU

The Australian National University is quite a large campus as university campuses go. At 160 hectares (400 acres) it takes nearly ½ hour to walk across it along its widest dimension. As you might expect, ANU is the pride of Australia's universities. King O'Malley, after whom a well-known pub in civic centre is now named, set aside land in the first decade of the 20^th century, but the university itself is not the oldest one in Australia. It is however the first to be founded primarily for research and post-graduate education. It was founded in 1946 with the passage by the Australian Parliament of  Australian National University Act. The school opened to coursework students in 1960. My school was founded in 1994.

At any one time, 2500 graduate level students follow their research endeavors or coursework load. The ANU ranked 17^th in the world across all disciplines in the 2009 Times World survey, just below Stanford University and just above McGill University. It ranks 42 in Engineering schools.

One finds the campus map divided into eight "precincts", each of a different color, for ease of identification. Precinct signage and building identifications follow the color scheme, so visitors can find their way about campus easily. Precinct names commemorate individuals who played a significant role in the founding of the university: Kingsley, Daley, Baldessin, Liversidge, Garran, Ellery, Banks and Dickinson. The main road through each precinct carries the precinct name.

Dickinson and Liversidge are filled mostly with residential halls; Garran with Astronomy, Astro-physics, Nuclear Physics, and Medical Research; Ellery with the School of Law, Social Sciences, the Old Administration Buildings and the Chancelry; Baldessin with the Schools of Art, Arts, and Music; Kingsley with Union Court, the Library, eateries, the School of Mathematics, Economics, Business, and Asian Studies; Daley with the Engineering, Information Sciences, Physics, Chemistry, Psychology, and Geology, the Sports Centre, and Toad Hall (I put that there because it sounds so British); and finally Banks with the Biological Sciences, Botany, Biology, Zoology, Geography, Earth and Marine Sciences.

There are 11 libraries scattered about campus, 20 large lecture halls, four childcare facilities, and 9 named Research Schools. They are the John Curtin School of Medical Research, and the Research Schools of Astronomy and Astrophysics, of the Biological Sciences, of Chemistry, of Earth Sciences, of Information Sciences and Engineering (my school), of Pacific and Asian Studies, of Physical Sciences and Engineering, and of Social Sciences.

Sullivans Creek passes directly through the campus, cutting it in half north to south. It acts as catchment for water flowing from the reservoirs in the northern part of the city into Lake Burley Griffin and catches runoff during winter storms. Here is a shot of the creek just before a rain, and the morning after. It looks almost flood stage. The campus is crisscrossed with walking trails, since foot seems to be the best choice, and the student choice, as means of transportation. There are a few bikes, but not many; perhaps it is still too cold. The weather has been chilly this last week and a half, almost 0 degrees Celsius at night (freezing) and near 10 to 13 degrees (50+ degrees F) during the day.

The campus sits at the foot of Black Mountain, atop which sits the Telstra Tower, which can be seen from everywhere in Canberra. It is the mark that lets everyone know where City Centre lurks from where they presently stand. A restaurant rotates half-way up on the tower.

Most trees around campus are still bare, but Spring is around the corner and some cherry trees have begun their bloom. The trees in Phillip just outside the house are beginning to bud also. They reckon Spring from the first of September.

 Quite a bit of construction is underway, primarily on housing in Dickson Precinct and on the new School of Sciences in Banks Precinct. The student union is like any other, but there are at least beer pubs inside and near the union. The one inside is quite fancy with pool tables. A sign says that they cannot serve students less than 18. Across the plaza is a tent, which houses an outdoor pub, which serves beer and wine. Vivaldi's, a fancy restaurant opens evenings, particularly to theater-goers who attend theatre next door.

One of the University's finest buildings in the old University House and Centre, built as a central residence for visiting scholars and international PhD students. Securing a room is very difficult and the waiting list is long, but the rooms are coveted. The Graduate Student Lounge is in the centre; it has a fine bar and eatery and is the scene of some very good parties and activities for graduate students.

You can see more pictures at my website. 

Phillip to Canberra, The Bike Route

G'day mates. 

Today I left Phillip, the suburb where I am housesitting, for a bike ride into Canberra to the ANU and back again. Today's post is a picture record of the sites along the way. David offered his bike before he left, which was quite kind. It is one of those sit-upright kind of bikes with semi-mountain tires, rather than the speed oriented street bike with thin tires. I won't complain, since it was a wonderful ride and I experienced a lot of Canberra up close, but my buttocks and legs will, and did, when I finally returned 7 hours later. There are more pictures here.

OK, so the Australian Capital Territory (counterpart in the US is Washington DC) is overloaded in the north by the city and suburbs of Canberra and overloaded in the south with the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, parkland, open space and sheep/cattle ranches.

The Brindibella Mts flow through the southwestern side. The ACT is completely surrounded by the state of New South Wales; indeed it lies way down in the south eastern tip of the state.

Green space separates Canberran suburbs into 7 distinct districts, each of which has many distinctly named suburbs. Phillip, where I live now, is in the Woden Valley, and is one among 12 suburbs in the Woden area. A settler named the Valley in 1937 after the Anglo-Saxon, and therefore "pagan", god, Woden, a Father god. Our word Wednesday comes from this god's name.

Woden Valley was the first "satellite" of the central Canberran district to be built. The signs say that Woden Centre lies roughly 14 km (9 miles) from city centre by bike along the bike paths. I don't believe it, given the time it took me to bike into town. One of the three major hospitals of Canberra is here, across the street from David's house, and serves also surrounding areas of NSW.

Here are a couple of views traveling along the bike route. The roads and cars are barely visible, since the path runs next to the creek in the flood channel. I see a number of playing fields, mostly soccer, rugby and tennis. Here is a youth rugby team playing.

Unexpectedly, since I thought I still had quite a ways to go, I was riding across the dam that holds back Lake Burley Griffin near city centre. The rather large lake splits the city into two parts, north and south, with the Parliament Building sitting prominently on the southern side. The dam is on the far western side of the lake. Scrivener dam is named after the fellow, one Charles Scrivener, who suggested the site for the Australian capital in 1903. The lake is named after the American architect, Walter Burley Griffin, who won the design contest. Canberra follows his original design somewhat, but was changed over the years for many reasons, from the start of construction before WWII through the 1950's. For one, the lake is much larger and bears his name; the final layout ended up following Scrivener's original plans more closely than did Griffin's.

Circling the lake was easy; the bike path is well marked, well paved and except for a couple of not so steep hills, pretty flat. I was quickly on the ANU campus. The entire ride from Phillip, on my next to poorly shaped bike (for my body), was all of 1 hour at a modest pace with site seeing.

I'll explore the ANU campus and city centre another time. Right now, I'll show views around the lake, the Parliament Building, and the road home.

This week is Australian Science Week, so all sorts of science events are happening around Canberra. I stopped at the Academy of Science building, called "Shine Dome", and saw this old DeLorean with its own flux capacitor, reminding me of Back to the Future.. A venture into the theatre led me to a quite interesting presentation on the Physics of Computer Games.

The waterfront has some marvelous views of the Parliament building across the lake and of the large fountain that accentuates the National Carillon, seen as the "tiny" structure to the left of the fountain in the distance. The Carillon, a gift of the British people to the Australian people has some 55 bells covering four chromatic octaves. Several other national buildings surround the lake, among them the National Gallery, the National Museum, the National Library, and the High Court (like our Supreme Court).

Commonwealth Bridge spans the lake and leads directly to the Parliamentary Zone, capped by the Old and the New Parliament Buildings. Here are views of both from the park centered between them. Old Parliament first, then the new Parliament Building.

Reconciliation with the Aborigines has been a major concern over the last few decades with a formal apology from the Labour government given this last year. The history was much like American treatment of Native Americans, but the US has never formally apologized, as have the Australians. Here is a shot of Reconciliation Place just outside the High Court building.

The way home took me under a number of road overpasses and I was surprised to find them all well graffitied. I came to realize that the graffiti is also planned, and these fellows were quite well into their designs and having a grand time. I found these in Phillip, just before arriving back home 7 hours after my start. So the day was a very pleasant and interesting one of exploration.

The Uriarra and the Murrumbidgee River

G'day mates!
Last Sunday afternoon I waited at Union Court on campus to be picked up for a hike in the Uriarra. Union Court is like Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley but not quite so expansive, yet usually filled with students and trinket or clothes sellers. Since national elections are coming up, election rhetoric is in high gear here in Australia. A rally in support of effective Climate Change policy was in progress. The students, mostly undergraduate, were being whipped up by a band and speeches, before heading off for a march into city centre. 

If anything I have found politics to be a bit tamer than in the US, and rather issue-focused, even though complaints on TV news has it that all the parties aren't terribly different in their approaches to these issues, so the politicians have nothing better to do than be negative. As that may be, I have found the news programs that surround the election greatly informative, issue laden, meaningful and full of energy and passion.

Last night I saw a particularly interesting debate on population growth and control. Every body who had been somebody in government seemed to be participating. Viewer's opinions, twittered in, flowed across the bottom of the TV screen. Members of the audience commented as much as the 20 some professionals on the sound stage. The conversation opened with a documentary on the impact of climate change on Australian life. The conversation went on for a couple of hours, people respected each other, were allowed to talk and say their piece. I found the whole thing quite informative and fair sided. It seemed mostly a a profound understanding of the issues, with many insightful considerations.

Two  colleagues on my research team, Fiona and Angelika, picked me up at 1, accompanied by Angelika's friend, Karl (Charlie), and Fiona's friend, Bianca. We then picked up Sudha and drove about 15 miles outside town to the Murrumbidgee watershed for a walk around the Uriarra hills. The area is somewhat northwest of the city.

This area also was devastated by the 2003 fires and is in regrowth. The hillsides are nearly barren, where they were overgrown with trees and shrubs before the fires.

Rain poured down Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this past week with a letup Thursday leading to glorious sun today, Friday. I spent much of the time indoors out of the rain. Here is a picture of the river that flows through campus taken last week when the sun was out, and next to it a picture of the same river after the first day of rain. I'd say nearly flood stage, wouldn't you?

Work for me has now started. I have much to read and study before I am up to speed with everything needed in order to make a contribution. we are starting out with a new type of semi-conductor junction, to see how that might help with the design of more efficient solar cells.

Cheers!

Deep Space and the Tidbinbilla

Saturday, August 7, 2010 – Deep Space and the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve

The temperatures have been near freezing at night all this week, but rise to the high 50's, giving the days a seasonably warm feel, but with a bite of fresh breeze to keep the chill on. I run around with only a fleece and am quite comfortable.

Katie and Phil show up about 1 PM ready to ride out to the Deep Space Complex and to the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve to see Kangaroo, Koala, and Platypus. Katie is a friend of Nicole, with whom I worked at The Marin School. She found the house where I am staying and was friendly enough to invite me out for a tour of the park area west of Canberra.

 The Deep Space Complex has been essential to the world's space program because Australia can hear signals from sections of space that the northern hemisphere can't, simply because of the geometry of a sphere and the way the Earth moves about the sun. Many Americans know about the Parkes observatory, a considerable distance from here, since it played prominently in the the movie "The Dish", but few know that "The Dish" got it wrong in one way, which, I suspect, gives Canberrans a certain bit of pride. When the first pictures from space arrived from the moon in the US, they were upside down on the TV because the Parkes technicians had failed to flip an important switch to "invert" the signal. So the US switched to the Canberran signal, which was fortunately upright, though a bit weaker. Once the Parkes astronomers got their act together, their signal was used. But Canberra actually sent the first moon-walk signals to the US for the world to see that day.

The complex, no more than a 45 minutes drive outside of Canberra, is a beautiful place, surrounded by sheep ranches and low-lying hills. The valley protects it from stray radio signals. The exhibits were wonderfully explained and demonstrated. I need to return for another look just to see it all. More pictures here.

The Tidbinbilla preserve is home to emu, kangaroo, birds of all types, a few koalas, platypi, and I am sure much more. But that's what we saw (well, everything except the platypi; they didn't seem to want to show themselves). You can see more pictures here. I was surprised that the kangaroos are so small, but I am told that the "red" kangaroo of the bush area can grow to 6 feet.

The ones here are the "eastern grays" (if I got that right) and stand no more than my height, 5' 7". We saw one with a little joey hanging out of the pouch. Kangaroos are, as you probably know, marsupials. These were not easily frightened, since they see people all of the time.

They remind of deer back home, the ones that amble through the neighborhoods and travel in small herds out in the Golden Gate National Recreational Area. They kind of look at you and wonder what you're doing in their territory.

There is a wonderful drive through the nature reserve that leads to various places of interest; one was the platypus enclosure and another the koala enclosure. The koalas were impossible to find, hidden away high up in the Gum (Eucalyptus) trees. But we were fortunate that a handler showed up as we were leaving and pulled one out of the enclosure for some visitors from the US embassy to see. We tagged along and got a couple of good shots.

Stromlo Observatory

Saturday evening, 8 PM, August 7

Last Wednesday morning, frustrated by a discovery that my new camera is not at home in San Francisco, I called United in Sydney. I was astounded that they had my camera securely under "lockup" and would hand it off to a courier. I paid $50, and got my camera back Thursday night, just in time for a trip up to Stromlo Observatory on Friday with Catherine and her friend Tricia. Leave it to me to learn more about the outdoor environs around Canberra before the city of Canberra itself.

Map of Australian Capital Territory

Stromlo is ANU's official observatory located due west of city centre, as you can see from the map. Canberra, being the seat of Australian government, has its parliament building surrounded by pomp and ceremony enclosed by a circular roundabout, just to the south of Lake Burley Griffin (on the map in the upper right corner). It sits about ¼ of the way south into the ACT (Australian Capital Territory, like a Washington DC). The remaining ¾ of ACT are suburbs and rural areas, marked by farmland, ranches, the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and the Namadgi National Park. The park abuts the Brindabella Mountains to the northwest (seen in the picture), on the edge of the "Snowy Mountains" where Canberrans go skiing. Before European settled in 1830, the region was inhabited by the Ngunnawal, Walgalu and Djimantan Aborigines.

A wildfire of massive proportions devastated the ACT, parts of New South Wales, the National Park and the preserve in the summer of 2003. Started by lightning, three wildfires combined to form one massive firestorm, caused 2 deaths and destroyed 500 homes, not to mention park and nature preserve buildings and the Stromlo Observatory. All buildings except the main observation telescope itself were brought to the ground. The observatory, as you can see from the photo, seems to be up and running again.

The next few pictures show a 180 degree view and gives us a wonderful view of Canberra. This picture, looking northeast, shows the Telstra Tower on Black Mountain. City Centre is to the right toward Lake Burley Griffin. Moving toward the right shows additional suburbs and a flavor of the land once covered by dense forest, all lost to the 2003 fires. What you see is reforestation over the past 7 years.

Friday afternoon I meet with my advisor and research group at the ANU and listen as a departing doctoral student outlines the basics of her doctoral dissertation for the two newcomers, myself and Angelika from Austria.

Angelika is a post-doc Chemist, intending to work with a specialized coating she developed in her doctoral work. I will be starting my work with Sudha, a theorist in the group who is working on nano-arrays on silicon substrates. Angelika and I are asked to tell everyone where we are from and why we have come to work with Kylie our lead advisor, and group convener.

More pictures here.