job prospects, soccer, tv, new friends = happy hubby

all fears have been assuaged for jose now which is great! he's found a work place in town that is helping him find jobs and training for the jobs. we moved in to find a tv ready and waiting for us with four whole channels...many of which play soccer games, so he was excited. we've made lots of really nice new friends and have more social opportunities than ever before, sometimes too many. we also found a group of guys who play soccer every evening on the high school football field! So he is in heaven. I even got to play with the guys last night and had a total blast...dusting off the old defensive skills.  really enjoying the town here a lot. the new job for me has been kind of overwhelming, but it was expected.  we miss everyone back home....

dinner, halloween, hikes about town and roo's

we've had quite a first week in derby!  place is still great, so are the people - super friendly. we went to a co-workers place for a great dinner (8 of us), then the next night played beach volleyball (which i suck at), then we had a big dinner at jila's cafe with work friends (great pizza and we tried kangaroo! yummy). Then last night we got dressed up as vampires and went to the local halloween party which turned out to be super fun. All the hospital staff and friends were there in great costumes with good drinks and finger food. we have a lovely neighbor who took me out this morning very early in search of kangaroos in the wild!  We saw tons of them on our walk but they are too fast to photograph.  i will try another time.  then i decided to stay home and make cake instead of doing anything social.  so far so good here...our derby album has been updated with more photos - see album link in sidebar for those.

Final Destination Derby

after tons of travel and at long last we rolled up to our final destination (for now) in Derby.  It was about 6pm, full moon out, and we met my lovely operations manager from the hospital who was kind enough to meet us at our new digs to give us keys, info, etc.  Our new place is amazing!  We've been here two nights now and love it.  The town is very small but everyone is nice, the views are stunning and we have most everything we need here.  It does get super hot here and there are a lot of mozzies but other than that it's really lovely.  we went grocery shopping, walked around town, saw their small saturday market, went to the jetty at sunset, i have started cooking now that we have a real kitchen, and i've been doing tons of laundry now that i have a washer again!

Broome, new job, 100 degree weather, and more!

it's been a bit since we wrote last...i've been super busy getting oriented to my new and intense job in the kimberley.   Everyone here is great, super fun, nice and easy to collaborate with.  The weather here is really hot, almost 100 degrees most days, and now it's almost wet season so it'll get even hotter!  The food here has been really yummy (expensive though) and the local brewery is fantastic.  The beaches are so blue, clear, warm and fun to swim in. Luckily it is safe to swim here (until november when the jellies come out) and we are getting our fill before heading to Derby today where we can't go in the water at all because of the crocs. I drove on the left side of the road yesterday which felt super weird.  to my delight they even have a target here which i fully intend to check out today!  can't wait to see our new digs in Derby this evening. 

opera house, harbor, zoo, manly beach...

We have had an amazing time in Sydney so far. On our second day here we took an epic walk from our hostel in Potts Point around the harbor, through the botanical gardens, to the opera house, to circular quay where we took a ferry to the Taronga Zoo. We spent several hours there and it was Jose's first time at a real zoo! Then we caught the ferry to Manly beach where we walked around the boardwalk and got little cakes to enjoy on the beach. We took the ferry back to the opera house and walked home through the park at sunset with tons of cockatoos flying about. 

First day in Sydney

It was rather cold, windy, and drizzly on our first day in Sydney but it's spring here.  We walked all over Potts Point and Kings Cross and the city center to get a book on Australia and get our internet and cell phones squared away.  We walked through Hyde Park where Jose's picture was taken and then stopped off at Joe's Cafe on Victoria Street where we are staying and had some of the best food I've had in ages.  My soup was enormous and almost as good as mom's.

long travels

We had very long travels to finally get to Sydney... flight from Cusco to Lima, then one short hour to get through customs, security, etc to fly from Lima to Buenos Aires. We had beautiful views of the mountains to Lima at least. Then we flew from Buenos Aires to Sydney...15 long hours.  But we flew over Antarctica and got to take photos!  The last photo here is as we came into Sydney.