Saturday, August 23, 2025

Big changes, big city life

The past 24 hours have brought more changes to our lives than the past 11 years! It's on par with having a baby, to be honest, maybe even more in terms of life disruptions (in a good way).

We couldn't check Zari in until noon, so we first did some necessary errands: charging the car, getting her a sim card for her phone (the cheapest plan we could find!), and buying her a cart full of groceries. Then we headed downtown to see her house.

It was perfect! A professor lives on the top 2 floors with a lovely, friendly dog. She has two children, the youngest who just left for university. The main floor and basement is a separate apartment with 2 shared bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Zari will be all by herself this week (freshman orientation) and then 2 housemates from Trinidad Tobago join her next week. She still doesn't have a roommate in her bedroom yet; it depends if her landlady finds someone else to rent.

It's on a quiet residential street with old townhomes. Out back there's a garden and patio and place to store a bike, once she gets one.



Eric looked for months on the off-campus housing listings and we couldn't be happier with this one! She's just a 10 minute walk from Trinity College on the U of T campus, and within a few blocks either way of her house there are loads of restaurants and shops.

Once we got her groceries unpacked, it was time for lunch! We ate at a nearby Lebanese restaurant and had enough leftovers for dinner. Next stop: setting up a bank account. While that was in process, Eric went to the university bookstore and bought himself a sweatshirt.

With the essential errands finished, we finally walked over to campus. While there are some ugly 1970s era buildings, many of them date to the early 1900s or earlier and are gorgeous. Zari's main building at Trinity College looks like something out of Hogwarts.






We walked all around campus and then headed to the downtown Ikea (just a few km walk away) to get everything else she needed (towels, bedding, a few kitchen items). On our way out, we saw a person in climbing gear securing two ropes attached to the top of a huge skyscraper. We thought he was going to start climbing up, but it turns out he's a window washer and was finishing his day. His last task was to secure the two ropes--probably getting ready for the next day's work. People were asking him questions while he was pulling the ropes tight and tying them to the railing. Very interesting!


We came home, ate our leftovers, and then headed out again to a nearby thrift store. Zari needed a small purse or over-the-shoulder bag and found something perfect, plus two lovely scarves to keep her neck warm in the cold weather.

We finished the day watching an episode of Mr. Robot.

It's been a fantastic day. I'm so excited for her. I wish I could start university again! She's going to have such an amazing experience in Toronto.
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Friday, August 22, 2025

Canada bound

Today is a momentous day: driving Zari up to start university at the U of Toronto! Adding in charging the car and crossing the border, it took us 11 hours. My parents are watching the other kids, so they all said goodbye--with some tears, especially from Ivy--before we left this morning.

The drive went by quickly. It's fun to have a captive audience in the car. We did a lot of talking about her upcoming year and Big Important Life Things.

We're staying with Eric's cousin, who lives about 20 minutes east of downtown. Zari's apartment will be ready tomorrow at noon. We have lots of things on our to-do list: get a SIM card, open a bank account, move Zari in, stock her kitchen with groceries, and move her in. Then we'll spend some time exploring the campus and the surrounding city.



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Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Rough transition

It's been difficult adjusting to US time. We arrived late Monday night after 28 hours of traveling. I figured I'd sleep well because I hadn't really slept at all during the long flights. But no! And last night was the same issue. Anyway it will eventually get better, right?

Zari has 1 more day at home with everyone, and then we drive her up to university on Friday! We went to dinner together tonight because my some miracle, no one had soccer games or evening soccer practice. We were also hoping to play games or watch a movie, but the kids all had homework.

Zari is mostly packed: 1 big suitcase, 1 small suitcase, and 1 backpack. Her housing got finalized this week; she's sharing an apartment with 3 other girls just a few blocks from campus. The owner is a professor who lives upstairs. I have the feeling that I wrote this is an earlier post. If I did, blame it on jet lag!

We went to the big box store for some final supplies (sock, underwear, toiletries). Now it's a matter of remembering all the little miscellaneous items. But it's not like she's going to a remote undeveloped country! She'll be in an enormous city (Toronto) and will have shops galore.

I put 2 new patches on my apron. Can you spy them?



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Monday, August 18, 2025

Home, finally!

Zari and I made it home without any issues, other than some stress-inducing turbulence over the Pacific. We've been up for 30+ hours now and I'm not going to last much longer. Life continues at a fast pace for the other kids. Ivy and Inga had soccer games this evening and Dio is working on an English essay about "My Name Is Asher Lev." I'm hoping for a good night's sleep and then back to work tomorrow.
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Sunday, August 17, 2025

Conference done!

I gave my presentation late this morning. I'm so used to public speaking that I was surprised to feel a bit nervous. It's not that the audience was scary--they're midwives!

I didn't take a single picture, other than pictures of other presenters' slides, but someone took a photo with me and sent it to me. I had my breech earrings on because why not!


I met with Betty-Anne Daviss after the conference to go over our video analysis paper. Then Zari and I headed out for a walk to the grocery store. Dinner was sandwiches, salad, and strawberries. We bought lots of goodies for the family back home: chocolate and Tim Tams. She also has a bag of flavored mealworms. Yum? She ate some but I just couldn't.

We head home early tomorrow morning, flying with the sun so we'll have a super long day and get home in the evening local time.
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Saturday, August 16, 2025

Conferencing day 1

After 3 days of teaching, attending a conference is like a relaxing spa retreat! All I have to do is sit and listen and eat delicious food! (To be fair, I also multitasked and got some breech work done.)

I loved the Cloak of Righteous Anger, a "craftivism" project about obstetric violence and protecting and nurturing laboring women. It is totally the kind of thing I'd love to help create! I took a picture of the slide and I hope to get pictures of the actual cloak tomorrow.


https://www.instagram.com/cloak_of_righteous_anger/

https://www.instagram.com/p/DA_EElSy-GU/

I give my presentation tomorrow morning! Super excited. I hope I can finish on time.

Zari visited the Australian National Maritime Museum and loved it. She spent 4 or 5 hours there.

We had a gala dinner tonight and I had so much fun laughing at midwife humor and swapping stories.
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Friday, August 15, 2025

3 days of teaching

I just got done with 3 days of teaching in a row: 2 days at Birth Time doing our usual vaginal breech training, and then 1 day of breech skills & drills as part of the Convergence of Rebellious Midwives. I could barely grip the baby by the end of today's training!



Because I'm speaking at the conference, Zari and I transferred over to the conference hotel last night and felt very awestruck. This hotel is super posh and we don't feel fancy enough! We woke up to a gorgeous rainbow from our room on the 27th floor.


Tomorrow will be relaxed for me: I'm just listening to conference speakers. On Sunday I give my presentation in the morning.

Zari and I had a few hours this morning before I taught. We did touristy things and visited the zoo and the aquarium in Darling Harbour, right near where we're staying. She got a multi-pass ticket and went to the wax museum and the observation tower in the afternoon.















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Tuesday, August 12, 2025

In Sydney

We drove back to Sydney this morning, arriving at noon at the airbnb. We dropped our bags, ate lunch, and then caught a bus to downtown Sydney. I had business cards to pick up, and since we were there, we walked through the botanical gardens to the opera house. Then we wandered back through the skyscrapers, browsing in some stores and enjoying the big city energy.

We had dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant with a few of the other instructors. Lots of midwife talk, which Zari endured patiently.







We discovered finger limes at my friend's house yesterday. Amazing! They are dark purple, about as long as my thumb, and filled with little round crunch lime-flavored bits. They are native to Australia and I've never seen then anywhere before.


3 big teaching days coming up, then speaking at the conference. Phew!



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Monday, August 11, 2025

Grand Canyon Track bushwalk

I love the term for hiking here: bushwalking. We did the Grand Canyon Track today, and it was amazing. We overprepared for it with tons of water and snacks, many layers of clothes (which we greatly appreciated given that it was just 7C when we started), and a snakebite kit. Our friends insisted we bring it, even though this time of year it's not very likely to encounter snakes.

I'm happy to report that we emerged snake-free.

The hike was listed as a 3-4 hour hike, but we finished it in just over 2 hours, including a lunch break. It was about 6.5 km with a LOT of elevation change. From the top, the Grand Canyon looks like big uniform hills. But as soon as you start to descend, you realize that the area is riddled with deep canyons, sometimes just 5 feet wide but hundreds of feet deep. It's astounding.


There was so much water that the huge stepping stones across the creeks were submerged in a few places. No big deal--it felt great to take our shoes off and wade across! We were muddy by the end of the hike because it's been raining in this area for the last week or more. Today was just a light drizzle towards the end of the hike, plus lots of falling water from the cliffs.

We had some down time after we got home. Zari read a book (Cloud Atlas) and I did several hours of video editing. My friend brought us on a lovely drive through the western Blue Mountains, showing us her previous house (straw bale house, off-grid). We saw many kangaroos and wallabies, although the emus weren't visible tonight.

We ate kangaroo for dinner. Yum!
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Sunday, August 10, 2025

Scenic World

My friend treated us to a visit to Scenic World. It's not really a theme park...more like a touristy nature park with gondolas, cable cars, walkways, and the world's steepest railway. We had rain and fog, but miraculously as soon as we started descending into the valley the cloud cover dissipated enough for us to see everything!








We're going to hike in the national park tomorrow--so excited. The rain is supposed let up, finally.

I had some breech meetings and tasks today. One fun one was watching a live session together with my host/friend! Lots of interesting conversation about her work here as a private midwife in Australia.

I made another chocolate tart, this time with some white chocolate decorations (done by her 12-year-old).
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Saturday, August 09, 2025

Palm Beach & lighthouse, Curl Curl beach, drive to the Blue Mountains

Forgot to write last night. Yesterday started early with an excursion to Palm Beach. Our host had a golfing appointment and we tagged along. Zari and I hiked along the peninsula and up to the lighthouse while she golfed. We ended at a restaurant, where Zari had brunch.







We stopped by the grocery store again for dinner supplies. I think we were otherwise at home in the afternoon, me working and taking breaks to watch Murderbot.

I gave a test run of my conference presentation--70 minutes. About 10 minute too long. We also got a simulator all set up and converted to an right position and then worked on the simulator for a while.

Today we wanted to get out in the morning, but there was a lot of rain. It let up late morning, and we took a walk south along the cliffs over to Curl Curl beach. We wanted to take the coastal path, but it was far too muddy.






We got packed up and on the road by 2:45 pm. It was my first time ever driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Not too bad, but I kept turning the windshield wipers on when I was meaning to use the turn signals! My brain knew it was on the opposite side, but my muscle memory kept overriding. We made it by 5:15 to my friend's house in the Blue Mountains. The last part was super foggy--quite eerie to drive in.


 

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Thursday, August 07, 2025

Hello from rainy, cloudy Sydney!

We left at 1:45 pm on Tuesday Eastern Daylight Time and arrived at 6:15 am on Thursday local Sydney time. It's still so bizarre how you lose an entire day somewhere in that 24 hours of being on an airplane.

We had 3 flights: a short one to the Twin Cities, then a longer one to Los Angeles, then a realllllllly long one (15 hrs) to Sydney. Everything went smoothly. Not much sleep at all--I couldn't get my head to stay in place, so every time I'd fall asleep I'd wake up as soon as my head nodded or fell to the side. I've tried a few contraptions for this situation and so far nothing has worked very well.

A midwife friend picked us up at the airport and drove our rental car to her house. She insisted because, with all of the traffic and fatigue, she thought it would be best to drive us to her house. It took almost 2 hours even though she doesn't live very far (in a suburb north of Sydney).

From when we left our house to when we arrived at hers, it was 29 hours and 45 minutes! Whew!

She revived us with breakfast and herbal tea. After showering and brushing our teeth and putting on a fresh change of clothes, we felt much improved. We then headed out for a lovely walk through some bushland until we got to the sea, at which point our host parted ways with us. We took a long walk up to the point, stopping to find shells and watch the kite surfers.







Our next stop was the grocery store to buy chocolate (I wanted to make a tarte au chocolat). We ended up buying lots more things than planned and had an impromptu picnic with salad mixed, cheese & crackers & dips, and more chocolate.

We kept ourselves awake in the late afternoon by baking and watching a few episodes of Murderbot. Zari fell asleep almost mid-sentence right before dinner. We're both feeling extremely uncoordinated and giggly because we're so tired.

Meanwhile a day earlier yet at the same time, it was the kids' first day of school!
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