Spatafora Family - The Thailand Sabbatical

August 15 - 17th

Well we made it out of town. I was a bit doubtful we would get everything done on time but we did. We were packing down to the wire, but we left the house at 2pm. John, a student in the lab, drove us to the airport and then dropped the van off at a friend’s (Jim and Susan Kearns) barn. Everything went very smoothly. At least I am assuming the return trip went well. Right John? (just kidding) The flights from Portland to San Francisco and then San Francisco to Sydney went without a hitch. After the recent incident in Britain, security was tighter than normal, but it actually made things go quicker. Fewer people and those traveling had less carry on.

The flight to Sydney was on a large 747-400 and lasted 13.5 hours. 13.5 hours! It left San Francisco at 11pm on the 15th and after dinner we all fell asleep. We slept okay - at least as well as you can in United Economy – which is important because we arrived in Sydney a little after 6am on the 17th. Customs also went quite smooth, which was a relief as Australia is notorious for be very strict on what you can and cannot bring in. But our gifts of chocolate and Oregon Myrtle Wood passed inspection. We then hit the ATM and caught a shuttle to our hotel, the Carlton Crest, arriving there around 9:30 am.

Check in at the Carlton was not until 2pm, so we dropped our bags off and did some sight seeing in the area around the hotel. We began to wear down around noon and headed back to the hotel. They allowed us to check in earlier and by 1pm we were napping in our room. A much needed nap. The hotel is nice and is situated just outside of Chinatown very near Darling Harbor. After the nap we headed to Chinatown and had a very good and cheap meal. The cheap part I am quickly learning is rare for Sydney. This is an expensive city. Fun, but expensive. After dinner, we walked around Darling Harbor, one of the main harbors of Sydney. It is a beautiful harbor lined with high rise buildings, shops, restaurants, public art, museums including an aquarium, and an IMAX theater. We walked around the harbor and then took in an IMAX movie on ancient Greece. Sounds like home schooling to me.

Anna, Gioia and Nick at Darling Harbor

We are starting this blog site to document our sabbatical in Thailand. Hopefully this will be good way of keeping our family and friends informed about our adventures. This will be a brief post as I am just making sure everything works correctly and looks how we want it to. We will first travel to Australia to attend the International Mycological Congress. We will be in Sydney and Cairns a total of one week each. This will be our first trip to Australia so we are very excited about it. From Australia we will travel to Thailand for a six month sabbatical. I have been conducting research in Thailand for several years and two years ago the whole family went. The picture shown here is from that trip when we were in northern Thailand just outside of Chiang Mai at the temple at Doi Inthanond. We love Thailand. Its hot and humid and the food is spicy - it's like an asian Louisiana. So when the opportunity for a sabbatical in Thailand arose, we jumped at it. Things have worked out well with the planning. We have rented the house to a great couple (John and Lynn), Julep (our dog) is staying with friends who are also using the truck, and the van is being stored in a friend's barn. We have an apartment in Bangkok and once we arrive I'll post our address. We leave in two days so the packing has begun in earnest. There is a lot to do in two days!! All for now.