God Bless America...

The outcome of the election is restoring faith in the Americans (I was really worried what would happen if McCain/Palin won). Whether or not Obama will be good for the country, he will definitely be good for the country's image!

Since I haven't posted for awhile, I figured I'd also give a little unpolitical update. As Mark mentioned, October was a difficult month for us, with the death of Bailey being the worst of it. She was so full of character and personality, definitely a one of a kind. It's going to be hard going back and not having her shower with me every morning or in my face when I'm trying to talk on the phone or read the paper. I try not to think about it too much now because I want to enjoy my experience here in Australia, but I know I won't be able to avoid it when I go home.

Fortunately, things have started looking up. I had the day off yesterday for Melbourne Cup Day (it's a national holiday to celebrate horse racing), so I went to a barbeque with my friend from school, Carol, and her partner, Tim. Since people get really dressed up to go to the races, Carol and I decided to dress up a little for the barbeque. I'll try to post some pictures later because it really is something. Anyway, we placed bets on the big race (we drew horses at random) and my horse came in last place so I won my money back :) That was the only race we actually watched and, I must say, I can't imagine getting into it enough to spend the entire day watching all of the races.

Next Friday we leave for Sydney, but we're only there for a few hours before boarding a cruise ship and heading off to New Zealand! We spend 9 nights cruising from the south island to the north island. I think it's going to be similar to an Alaskan cruise, so we should have lots of beautiful pictures to post when we return.

Then on the Sunday that we get back from our cruise, I leave to help out with a bioethics workshop put on by Monash University. They asked me if I'd be interested in volunteering during the first part of the week, which I thought was an honor so of course I accepted. The workshop is about an hour and a half outside of the city and they'll provide my transport, accommodation, food, etc. After that, it's back to Melbourne for a week and then we leave for Christmas vacation. We fly out on the 4th of December, spend a week with family and friends in Los Angeles, and then get into Billings on the 11th. At this point, we aren't sure when we'll be in Seattle, but we're definitely coming and we'll let people know when we get it figured out.