Tomorrow's the big day

So we have had two days of introduction to the hospital and the exchange program, and tomorrow is our very first day in our wards. We met and spoke with the Australian coordinator, Chris, who has worked in the ICU for 14 years or more. She was very nice, but I get the feeling that even the high paid nurses aren't nearly as professional as the nurses in Denmark. I'm not sure how to entirely explain it, but things here are very relaxed, and nursing in general is not centered around the patient. There isn't a lot of focus on protecting the patients, but rather a lot of instruction on how to best accomodate the nurses. For example, we were being instructed on how to use a patslide to move the patient from one bed to another. The instructor allowed the three nurses who were pulling the patient onto the new bed to raise one knee on the bed, while balancing/stabilizing themselves on the foot on the ground. This would never fly in Denmark, basically because by putting your knee on the new bed, and especially three nurses, you're already contaminating the patient's new bed. Nurses here are allowed to wear jewelry and have painted nails, other no-nos in Denmark. They are also instructed to wash their hands between patients, whereas in Denmark it is encouraged to disinfect your hands with 85% alcohol. This is because it is proven that disinfecting your hands is a more effective way of cleaning them than washing. Combined washing and alcohol is even better. Here, however, they were instructed to just wash. Anyways, I asked a lot of questions at the intro, without getting a whole lot of satisfactory answers. Plus, their presentation of quality and accreditation was just horrible. They concluded that quality was defined by the patient, and therefore no standards could be set! That would give my nursing teachers at home fits! Patient experienced quality is only one type of quality, there is also structural quality and professional quality... It's just hard not to raise my hand and ask questions - each presenter has no more than 15 minutes at a time to speak. I kind of doubt the point of their presentations is to start a big discussion...

Anyways, moving on. We had the intro, went into town today and shopped around while we killed some time before seeing the movie Juno. It was primarily me, well, it was only me, that wanted to see it, and I kind of dragged the girls to see it, but they took it quite well. They are apparently drawing the line at seeing a rugby match. The rugby season starts in March, so I thought it would be great to see a match, and they even play at the Olympic stadium, so that'd be even better. The more local teams are the Sydney Roosters and the Sydney Swans. Apparently there are two different leagues, but I don't know much about it. One plays in world tournaments and the other in national tournaments. The state, New South Wales, also has a team. The other big thing right now is cricket - but I think I'll pass on that one. Games can go on for days, but rugby goes on for 90 minutes only. I can take that. Back to the movie. In Australia the ticket cost $12.50 AUD, which is about 56 DKK, which is about $11.25 USD. Fine theaters and bad popcorn, they also eat ice cream at the theater along with popcorn.

My sunburn is doing better, and from now on it's SPF 30+ day and night. Other than that, everything is going well and I'm liking it more and more. The weather is fantastic, just sun and more sun. Not too humid, either. After St. Louis in July I can take anything. It sounds like the Aussies are pretty relaxed about letting us take time off to travel, so I'm soon going to start taking donations to finance a trip up the east coast to the Great Barrier Reef at the end of April, start of May. Mainly I'll be appealing to my mother (let's hope she's reading this...). What if I never come back? I need to see what I can now... We might be going to the zoo this weekend, they apparently have a new baby koala. Okay, I'm off. It's getting late and I need to get to bed. Good night!

Pictures of it all

This was where we went walking, but I mistakenly called it Rozelle Bay, when it in fact is called Iron Cove. So there you go. Our apartment is on a hill above Iron Cove, so we walked down to the waterfront the first day to see what it was like. We live about 800 meters from this picture.


And here is the famous Bondi Beach. This is from my first day in Sydney, what an introduction to the country, huh?

Bondi Beach from the south end...

On the left is Bettina, from Odense, and on the right is Jeanet from Esbjerg. They are the two Danes I'm living with and who are also at the same hospital as me. Bettina is in respiratory services and Jeanet is in the ER.

One of the spiders, hanging out. This is just one on a massive web that stretched across an entire road outside our apartment. It's massive, take my word for it.

That's it for now, I think I better put on some moisturizer and get to bed. Tomorrow is the first day we have plans, we have to be at the hospital for an intro at 8 am. Good things the birds/insects/reptiles/amphibians/mammals wake us up at 6 am.

Fabulous is going to get old...

Everything is fabulous. The word comes out of my mouth enough to irritate myself! The weather today was partly cloudy, which suited us sunburned people very well. We took a train to the eastern suburbs and shopped all day, mainly for sunblock and after sun products... One of the girls, Bettina, is extremely burnt, from head to ankle. She dug her toes into the sand at Bondi so that's basically the only part of her that's not red. I wanted to send some pictures, so you can see where I live. I've never tried it before, but I'll see if I can get a picture in here.

Success! This is my room, a small but okay room. Old carpet and windows, but at least the windows have an insect screen in them, plus two kinds of shades against sunlight. That's especially nice in the morning...

We're going to make fajitas for dinner tonight, and I promised I'd help now, so off I go. I'll try and continue later.

Sydney at last!

It's fabulous! I'm here and I have recovered. At least from the jet-lag. Let's start at the beginning. I left Hamburg at 7 am and arrived at London a little after 8 am. I wasn't able to check in for the London-Sydney flight in Hamburg, so I had no boarding pass. At no point did we go to a ticket counter or get directed to a ticketing area, so I arrived at the gate sans boarding pass. I eventually got a pass and spent some time bumming around the airport. The first leg of the flight from London to Singapore was okay, besides sitting next to a man who used absolutely no deodorant. Luckily the ventilation was in full swing and that helped a little. We flew over Pakistan, Iran and India, which could have been interesting to see if it had been clear skies. Qantas takes very good care of their customers, but still don't give them more room than other airlines. We got lots of food: candy, fruit, sandwiches, soda, water, you name it. There were at least 50 movies showing, including documentaries and foreign films. There were tv shows galore: news, sports, Discovery channel shows, House, Bondi Beach Rescue (my fav)... There was also Tetris and plenty of music to choose from (including good REM albums). All this is very important on a 22 hour flight! We had one hour to get off the plane in Singapore while they cleaned up and restocked on fuel and food. We flew in over the NW corner of Australia and down across over Ayers Rock and into a cloudless Sydney at sunset. I got through customs fine and met my contact person in the lobby. Leaving the airport I was suddenly very aware of where I was - the landscaping includes these big tropical plants with massive leaves and the weather was amazing. A clear sky, 80 degrees, a slight breeze.... Wow. The woman drove me to what they very generously call an apartment and basically dumped me off. We are living in what is an old psychiatric hospital, and it looks like it's been abandoned. I won't be walking around at night, not because it's dangerous or anything, but just because it's a little creepy with all the old buildings and overgrowth and tall trees. Inside it's a long dank hallway with small rooms and unisex bathrooms - I've heard there are two guys staying here, otherwise it's all girls. It was a very sad impression I got of the place, and I was really looking forward to the morning and daylight so I could have a better look around. I hadn't had any dinner and the other two girls I'm living with were out for dinner and drinks, so I took a very long shower, ate a bag of peanuts and called it a night. My room had dead insects on the floor and some mites in the bed (live), but I killed them all and went to sleep. This morning I woke up at 5:30 to sounds I've never heard in my life. I don't know if it was a bird, an insect, an amphibian or a mammal. The racket was so obnoxious that I couldn't get back to sleep. Luckily the other girls couldn't sleep either, so we got up, got out and walked to a nice little place for breakfast. This summer has been a bad one for Sydney, with lots of rain and low temperatures, but yesterday and today were both in the low 100's and fabulous. Really amazing weather for a girl who is coming out of Denmark in February...! This suburb reminds me a little of Portland, the cafés boast free-range eggs and cruelty free bacon (how that one works, I'm not sure). Things are expensive, though, so I doubt I'll be eating out a whole lot, or maybe just not around here. After breakfast we walked around the grounds and took lots of pictures of the humongous spiders overhead suspended between the tree tops. We're not talking a buffed-up daddy long legs, we're talking tarantulas on steroids. There are bats and spiders and everything else to be afraid of, but so far no bites or dangerous incidents. We walked down to Rozelle Bay and dipped our feet in the warm water and decided to head out to Bondi Beach as fast as we could. A taxi drive later and we were there. Glorious! Absolutely glorious! People everywhere, blue water, nice waves, attentive life guards, it was glorious! Two hours later we were so cooked it was painful. In this time of pain and suffering, I comfort myself with the thought that my poor, schmuck classmates are back in DK riding their bikes through miserable weather on their way to their Danish departments while I'm sitting here basking in the sun in AUSTRALIA. Anyways, pictures to come later. A little heads up, we are borrowing Internet from other girls here, so I am not on regularly until I find an Internet café or get hooked up at the hospital on Wednesday. But hopefully I'll be able to get on reguarly and give updates. Tomorrow we're staying out of the sun and going to see downtown instead - supposed to be another great day! Only problem is, I miss Steffen... I don't think, after reading about the spiders, that he's going to make it down... :-( Talk to you all later!

Who can travel without baggage?

This from the British Airways website:

"On Thursday 21 February, ALL transfer passengers through London Heathrow Terminal 4 should not bring luggage to be checked in as they will not be able to travel."

They still have one more day to fix this!

To Germany and beyond...

I'm off to Hamburg tomorrow (Thursday) to catch my plane Friday at 7 am. I'm going to try blogging about this whole Australia trip so I only have to write/record things once. I am not taking my laptop, so I figure time should be maximized at a computer, and what easier way to keep folks updated than a blog? So the update now is that I'm totally busy and need to get some packing done tonight so we can get on the road tomorrow at a reasonable time. Heathrow, where I connect to my long-haul flight, is having a baggage crisis, so they are not accepting baggage at the moment. UHM... No baggage on long-haul flights? I am very anxious to see what happens tomorrow and Friday. More later!