Mar -what- supial

A sad day in Europe for this sports crazed country. The Shark (aka Greg Norman), predictably, stumbled in the final round of the British Open and finished in third place and Cadel Evans lost the Yellow Jersey in the Tour De France and is now in third. The Greg Norman story is actually rather nice as he seemed to have emerged from the Jurassic Period even to have competed -- seriously did you know Greg Norman still played golf.

Also the pope departed Australia this week after a week or so in Sydney for World Youth Day. I must say I am crushed by his departure. Other than that things continue to be grand from this great big island. I've been doing a lot of different teaching activities, which I've come to really enjoy and think I'm actually kind of good at. I've taught a small little text based class for continuing education series, a weekly introduction to Judaism class, a group of 11th graders on a Synagogue visit from a local catholic school and bar/bat mitzvah kids. I told the high school group that one of my close friends was Jerry Seinfeld.

Socially things are going pretty well - even though I was home at 10:00 pm this last Saturday night. But I've found someone to play tennis with once or twice a week. Plan on attending the Democrats abroad happy hour this week and went to another footy match last Saturday afternoon. I love Australian Rules Football.

The economic downturn in the US has made the Australian dollar nearly level to the US dollar, which is shocking considering less than two years ago it was at about 60 cents to the dollar. Therefore what was once a cheaper country is actually pretty expensive. I get paid in Aussie Dollars.

The pictures that follow are some older ones (i've since cut my hair) taken when Ethan was visiting. That's me and a Koala, The Hungry Jack's Fast Food Chain and Me and Ethan with Rod Laver!!!