Colorado skiing

hey guys- some pics from the top of Copper mountain during my colorado skiing"adventure". These would represent the better half of the trip :) It was beautiful and the skiing was amazing- Enjoy!

Farewell from Australia

So I guess all good things have to come to an end, and so my time in Australia is finally over. 3 weeks just seemed to go by way too fast but I have had a great experience and lots of good memories to bring back with me.

As it turns out, I ended up canceling my trip to Sydney. There were several reasons for this. Although I had found a great flight for the weekend, for some reason I could not find any accomodations anywhere- I literally called 20+ places and everything was booked solid. I couldn't figure it out. The cheapest places I could find would have cost $250-300/night and I just wasn't willing to pay that. Then I discovered the reason for that was b/c it was Mardi Gras weekend in Sydney... aka Gay Pride weekend culminating with this big parade on Sat. night with about 700,000+ gay/lesbian people filling the streets. Needless to say, it was easy decision to cancel my flight. For all the more liberal people possibly reading this, I will refrain from using the number of explicitives I was thinking at the time about the whole situation.

But it turned out fine regardless, and I ended up having a great weekend at the beach and was able to do some more things in Brisbane like climb the Story Bridge (and had amazing views of the city at sunset!) and party until 4am... I mean visit all of the cultural events of Brisbane.

After packing up today (sad:( ), Blair, and several of the people from the hospital I had worked with had me out for some farewell drinks and dinner. It was a lot of fun and I will miss them and Australia when i am gone, but I guess I will just have to come back sometime and see the rest of the country.

I hope everyone has enjoyed the blog... it's been fun.

Cheers!

Ahh, just another day of sailing

What a great week it has been so far. After returing from Cairns on Sunday, I did some surgery at the Royal Brisbane and then one of the surgeons had me over for dinner afterwards which was great. Him and his family were very interested in American politics and everyone has been wanting to know who is going to win the election and all about the Obama and Clinton drama. They were very confused about the whole primary/general election, caucases, delegates, electoral college, etc. and indeed it as quite confusing. On Tues. I did some more cases at the Royal Brisbane and then afterwards a few of the residents/interns at the hospital and I went out for dinner and a few drinks. They are a really good group and have gone out of their way to include me in a lot of activities and have been fun to hang out with.

Then yesterday, after arriving at the office at 10am and seeing 3 pts. for some "consulting" (clinic), I was off to meet up with Blair's brother in law to do some sailing. As I arrived at his unassuming office I wasn't sure what to expect but after saying hello we started to walk out to his car, which I suddenly realized was a brand new Porsche 911 Turbo (I think my heart stopped for a second... no wait, that would have happened at about 200+km/hr and taking curves at speeds where normal cars would have flipped several times before being wrapped around a tree, but the Porsche held the road like super glue- incredible!!). It was the most amazing car ever and I was all smiles. I think I need to get one. Anyway, so we arrived at the Queensland yacht club and boarded his 43 foot yacht for some racing against 30 other yachts. Every Wed. they have a "non-competitive" race around a course in the Bay outside of Brisbane. He had a crew of a few other guys and it was so much fun cruising around the Bay drinking a few beers. Afterwards we went back to the yacht club for some drinks and just relax at the harbor after a tough day. I am not sure if I enjoyed the sailing more or the ride in the Porsche.

Today I am off for an afternoon of tennis on grass courts (my first time playing on grass... I am so excited!). There is a foursome that usually plays doubles, but one of the docs couldn't play today so they asked me if I wanted to fill in. Since the week has been so tough, Blair has given me the day off tomorrow and then another barbie tomorrow night. Then on Sat. I head off to Sydney for a few days. Can't wait!!

Sunrise and Sunset over the Reef

Enjoy these last few of my reef adventure!

More pics from the Reef

These pics were taken by the photographer on the boat, so they are representative of what I saw. Since I used an underwater disposable old school camera, I can't really post those pics. Hope you enjoy some of these images of the reef. But no picture (or a thousand) can truly do the reef justice.

Pics of the reef

Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is virtually indescribable. It is certainly one of the most amazing places I have ever had the chance to encounter and an awesome display of marine life. It took about 3 hours by boat to get out to our first dive/snorkel spot for the day, and just to put things in perspective, the reef stretches over 2300 km and covers more than 340,000 square km. So Cairns is just one of the major cities/towns for getting out to explore the reef, but is definitely the most popular and supposed to be one of the best. When we finally got out to the reef, I was immediately taken aback at the immense beauty of this place. Suddenly I was a part of another world it seemed, swimming alongside the most beautiful fish in the world. As soon as I had thought I had seen the most amazing fish ever, another would swim by. I saw hundreds of different species of fish, with every vibrant color you could imagine (I even found Nemo!). And they acted as if I wasn't even there, swimming within only inches if me; sometimes so close they brushed my leg as they swam by. I even saw one of the bigger ones eat a small fish and you could hear them constantly feeding on the coral. The coral itself was a spectacle in its own right. No less impressive than the fish swimming around me, it too was made up of many beautiful colors and included some other amazing plant life. At times I would be snorkeling only inches above the coral (it was that close to the surface) then before you knew it, it would drop off into a seemingly endless blue ocean. I also saw some of the big turtles (not sure if they were loggerheads or green turtles- they are both enormous and difficult to tell apart).

I had bought an underwater camera and after the first 5 minutes I had used almost the entire roll. I could have easily taken thousands of pictures- that's imppressive the reef was. It truly lives up to its designation as being one of the natural wonders of the world. After a couple more dive/snorkel spots, I had a great meal on the boat and enjoyed talking with some of the other travelers from all over the world. The next morning I got up at 6am for a sunrise snorkel which was amazing. I was lucky with the weather the whole trip and had mostly clear skies and sunshine the whole time. The sunrise over the reef with the rays streaming through the water was beautiful and many of the fish were out in large numbers to feed after a night of sleeping. We were also told that sharks were in the area and deperately wanted to see one so I went over to the area where they would supposedly be. But unfortunately I could not see/find them and was mildly disappointed. However, later in the day on my last snorkel of the day, I was swimming along one the reef edges and a white tip shark approx. 9 feet in length was suddenly only a few feet below me. I was able to follow him for a few minutes until he dove toward the ocean floor. It was so cool!! One of the most memorable experiences of my life.

It was such a great trip and wish everyone could have been here to experience it with me. The Great Barrier Reef is definitely a must do- I promise you will be blown away. I would post some pictures, but right now I am not at a computer where I can do that so I will try to post some after I get back to Brisbane.