In Australia?!

For those who didn't know, yes, we are in Australia.

Australia: We live in Canberra

We are here from February to December. We left on January 30th and will return sometime around Christmas. So, essentially, all of 2017. We live in Canberra - pronounced "C'nbra."

Why? Because James is allowed to take a Sabbatical year as a professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland. This means that James is exempted from his teaching and administrative duties in order to focus on research. And they encourage research outside of the university in order to make connections with other universities and departments. So YES! James is working.

Why Australia? Because we liked it here when we visited 7 years ago with Erica and Scott in Perth. And there's this nice university here that does some of the things that James is interested in for research. And because they speak English, have warm weather, and nice people. And because Nancy and David did it. :)

Canberra seen from Mt.Ainslie

Why Canberra? It reminds me a lot of Ottawa - the capital of the country but a smaller city. So it has all the national museums and tons of family-friendly programming without the metropolis feel. It's inland and a bit more southern so it doesn't get the intense heat of Sydney or the storms along the coast. They keep telling us here that it gets cold (you know - almost to zero sometimes!) and we just smile and nod. We did bring sweaters, jackets, mitts and hats but that was mainly in case we got stuck somewhere between St. John's and Vancouver for a couple of days in transit. They'll do us fine while we are here. Oh, and there is the Australia National University which has accepted James as a visiting fellow to do research with them.

We like it here. It's warm, the people are nice. There's lots to explore. There's no language barrier. And we're really thankful we aren't in the U.S. (which was our second choice for location).

Countryside we drove through