Whiplash!

Or...I'm now gainfully employed in Australia!

I was getting a bit depressed, the HR departments around here are very prompt in their rejections.
Evidently, if you're a good match they're just as quick in the other direction as well. I applied for a job that I wanted at a company I wanted to work for Monday of last week and had a verbal offer by that Friday. Signed my contract this week and I start next Monday.

Thanks to everyone who supplied leads, references, and support!

What is wrong with this photo?

Dazza just located this photo. Here I am, arriving in Australia, clearing customs...see anything odd?



Other than my carryon and my computer, no luggage. My luggage decided it wanted to spend some time in LAX.

Lesson learned: NWA counter agents don't realize that Northwest does not have a luggage agreement with Qantas.

When I showed up at the counter with five pieces of luggage, my carry on and my computer bag, the agent says (in reference to the luggage): I'm checking these through for you.
"Great! I don't have to find them in LA and check them back in through customs? (I had to switch from the domestic terminal to the international terminal last time...that entailed finding my bags and lugging them down two terminals.)
No, you just check back in yourself. Your bags will go straight through.
"Great!"

In LA I checked with the counter agent there: "Do I have to go back and get my bags?"
"No, they're checked straight through."

Only on paper baby, only on paper.

When the five pieces of luggage were delivered two days later (always always carry a change of clothes in the carry on!) one of the pieces wasn't mine.

That one didn't show up until I'd been in OZ for a week! It was damaged...badly...but nothing inside was broken!

Qantas seems to be on top of the replacement process though, we dropped it off at their claim service and we're waiting on the settlement. The best part of the whole experience was when the poor luggage guy who I was dealing with the evening I landed said to me:
"You're the most reasonable woman I've ever dealt with in this situation, most of them are screaming by now."

Ah, but I was on the ground safely. Yes, I did pack things I wanted to have with me at the start of my new life, things I didn't want to have to buy again, things that had some sentimental value to me...but it wasn't his fault that they weren't with me. It was partially my own for believing the people at the ticket counters of two different airlines. It all worked out, and screaming just would have upset the nice dinner that Wisey and Kay brought over to share that night in celebration of my arrival.

Kangaroos - not a hoax!

"So, tell me, why haven't I seen any of you outside a park?"



Darrell suggested we do a touristy thing on my first Sunday afternoon in O so we wandered on down to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary: http://www.koala.net/index.htm

I've now met a kangaroo or two. I'm still suspicious, but they appear to be real. These guys aren't too big though. I suspect as they allow small kids into the enclosure, they keep the large ones apart.


Here's a cute Wombat for Lisa!


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And of course, the koalas. I passed on cuddling the koalas, they seem to be quite happy hanging around in their trees.

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And we met some interesting local birds
A wedgetail hawk
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barn owl
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sea eagle
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quack
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Darrell has one of these purple flowered trees in the backyard, it's beginning to flower
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So, my goal is to find all these critters in the wild and take pics of them there as well.