A lot has happened this week, so much I can't really tell all of it. I'll just give you glimpses and a lot of pictures..

Saturday: We FINALLY get off the plane. Vicki goes to the Ladies and I go to buy a phone card. My brain is not working well, I just pick the $10 card off the reader board in the airport newstand. Once I open my mouth to tell the nice lady what I want, she wants to know where I'm from and launches into a careful and long explanation of which phone card is cheapest and best for calling the U.S (its only 1.5 cents a minute!) and how to use it and by the way, don't use the Australian 800 number they take minutes off your card and the local numbers are best and is this my first time in Australia, and welcome, you'll love it here, etc, etc. Very chatty!

Driving to the hotel from the airport: Its about 4 pm in Perth and we are dog tired after a 40 hour trip. The cabbie asks why we have come to Australia- I tell him I'm going to work as a doctor in Derby.. "OH" he says. "Awful up there. Hot and full of flies. And the people... well, I reckon they diverged from the human race a long time ago, you know?.....". I am so tired I just don't know how to respond to this blatant racism. He goes on to tell me he doesn't believe in global warming either.

Sunday: We sleep till 8 am. 12 hours almost. Still jet lagged. Take a morning walk in Kings Park. We go shopping to get some food. Take a nap. Later, the traffic is very sparse, I suggest we go out on a drive so I can practice driving the the left side. I pick out a course due West. See the pictures: Hello Indian Ocean...

Monday: First day of orientation. We arise at 0600 and walk for an hour in Kings Park. On my way back I take a picture of a sign in the apartment building next door. (See the picture below.) A lady comes up to me and I explain I have never seen an apartment advertised with "good feng shui" before. She turns out to be the owner. She is a retired doctor. Her family fled China to Malaysia, then she went to England when she was 15 and attended medical school there. She emigrated here and has retired. Real estate prices have shot up in Perth and she would like to take her capital gains exclusion. And the apartment has great feng shui in that it faces South, where the healthy winds come from. She is very nice and talks a mile a minute and also extracts my story from me. She would have taken me up and showed me the whole place also, but I have to beg off so I can make my appointment. But if I have any friends who would be interested.... ( you can call the number in the picture yourself, Dr Lu is very nice!)
Medical Board at 9 AM. LOTS of paperwork. Then rest of the morning at the Western Australa AMA for beginning orientation. Back to the grocery and a bit of shopping then home to rest.

Tuesday: Another early morning walk in Kings Park. More orientation today, this morning from the WA Rural and Remote Medicinne Center. They have wonderful support here for rural medicine. A network for spouses, conferences and CME, even a counseling line staffed by a woman who just became an Anglican priest for any kind of problem or just to talk. Vicki and I agree that if the U.S. had this I might still be in Quincy, Washington.
A nasal swab for MRSA at the local hospital. A drop into the Rural Clinical School offices to pick up a laptop to use in Derby.
And we spend the afternoon at the the Art Gallery of Western Australia and also at Western Australia Museum. The latter has a very detailed exhibit on the origins and history of the First Australians. More on that later on I think.

Click on this picture to see the Photo Album!