Today I turn twenty-nine years of age. A day may come where I view getting older with dread and apprehension, but I am not there yet. I am very happy to be 29. For a while I felt like I was working towards achieving my goals rather than actually living my life. Now I feel like I have finally arrived. I feel so lucky to be living in such a fascinating country, with a great job and a wonderful husband. Adrian makes me feel like every day is my birthday.

The next one will be interesting too. Thirty years old. I wonder what that will be like?

We welcomed in 2008 on a flight back to Seattle, unaware that it would be our last year in the USA. We both worked very hard during out post-docs in medical science, and we both made novel discoveries and uncovered some of the mysteries of the development and function of white blood cells. Adrian had his work published in some excellent journals, and I learned that the paper from my post-doc “may be suitable for publication, pending revisions” in a great journal. Adrian has been offered a professorship, and I am investigating some interesting jobs in clinical trials. We experienced the freezing winters of the North that will never make me consider Canberra to be a cold city ever again.

I attended MacWorld and witnessed Steve Jobs give his last keynote and unveil the Macbook Air to the world. We explored more of the USA in dribs and drabs – Arizona, Nevada, California, and Hawaii – as well as exploring the Ukraine and Moldova.

The biggest issue that we faced in 2008 was the decision about where we would live in 2009. At first, it was between Maynooth (Ireland), London (UK), Montreal (Canada), and Brussels (Belgium). We visited all four places, and it came down to a battle between the two bilingual cities, Montreal and Brussels, and then Brussels won due to employment and travel opportunities. We celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary in the country that was to become our new home, and Adrian will starting his own lab at the University of Leuven from February 2009.

We finished up our post-docs in Seattle in November, made huge progress towards completing our Masters of Public Health degrees, and finished up the year visiting extended family in Australia that ranged from Brisbane to Adelaide. After nearly two years outside of Australia, we are able to see our birth country with new eyes, and appreciate its charms as well as its challenges. It is a country of relative compassion and opportunity, but is also isolated and monolingual. The weather is nearly always warm with blue skies and extraordinary wild-life, but the water crisis is hitting hard and many of the main rivers no longer reach the sea.

In a few weeks we fly off to Brussels, to begin our new home in Belgium. My goals for 2009 are:
- To find a short-term furnished apartment
- To get a residency permit
- To find a job
- To start learning Flemish
- To get a work permit
- To start my job
- To start learning French
- To buy a house

I think that’s enough to keep me busy for twelve months or so. It is a bit overwhelming to be faced with so many changes, but I realise how lucky that we are to have this opportunity, so the main emotion I feel is excitement. We had a great time in North America over the past two years, and while I think we are better suited to Europe, I am very thankful for all the happy memories that we have of the United States of America.

Wednesday, November 5 was my last day as a senior post-doctoral fellow at the University of Washington. We went out to Lydia’s Last Lunch at Serafina with current and past lab members. I had some delcious trout, and they gave me a lovely card:

“thank-you for all your help and for answering all my questions… thank you for teaching me awesome Australian words: arvo! I will miss you! You’ve always had a smile and a kind word to share. You know how to distract me when I’m nervous (i.e. you let me rattle on about my cats)… we’ll miss you.. We are sad to see you go!… I have enjoyed and learned a lot from our many conversations… Thanks for all your support to me, especially when things have not been going the best. Your positive attitude and kindness have been very helpful so many times.”

I may never again walk through the university library, watch the squirrels hide and recover acorns, see the mountain behind the fountain, celebrate a birthday with cake, or a paper with sparkling apple juice. We have made so many wonderful friends here in Seattle. Now I am leaving my career at the bench behind, and looking forward to a rewarding future in clinical trials.

Lydia arrived in Seattle in late January, moving in with Adrian to their apartment in Fremont, overlooking Lake Union and downtown. While we spend most of our time thinking about and conducing our research on T cells at the University of Washington, we still make time to explore our new home.

We have gone on bird-watching trips to learn from the Audubon society, and joined the Woodlands Park Zoo only a few blocks away. We feed the squirrels at the park and befriend the neighbourhood cats as we walk home with our groceries.

We have explored the University of Washington. In April we decided to canoe around Lake Washington. Adrian told Lydia she didn’t really have to wear her life-jacket. She did anyway, and then they capsized in its icy-cold waters. Luckily we were rescued by a woman from the Waterfront Activities Center before hyperthermia set it. Lydia doesn’t like small boats.

In May, Lydia hosted a Pottery Painting Party at University Village for her birthday. She painted a small plant pot blue, with red bugs and butterflies. Adrian painted a yellow bowl with black branches. We finished off the day with purple cupcakes and coffee.

In June, Lydia’s lab spent a day hiking up to Bridal Veil Falls and Lake Serene, still filled with snow in the middle of summer. We rested and refuelled on Lunch Rock with some greedy chipmunks before the long walk down.

The Summer Solstice was marked by a huge parade through Fremont, filled with body-painted cyclists, Ents, bands, giant puppets, and all sorts of characters. It seemed like the whole of Seattle had turned out to celebrate the freedom to be peculiar.

In September, Lydia’s mum and her mum’s partner came to visit Seattle. We took them to Tacoma to see the Bridge of Glass and the Tacoma Art Museum. We saw live glassworks, and marveled at the nonchalance of artists twirling red-hot glass as if it were honey. We showed them downtown Seattle – Elliot Bay, the Seattle Art Museum, and all the Pigs on Parade painted to raise money for Pike Place Markets. We spent a day in Fremont climbing the Troll and eating Cold Stone icecream. We even discovered a Little Norway in Poulsbo, past Bainbridge Island.

In October Adrian and Lydia celebrated their first Halloween with their dapper friends Shyla and Luke. We are a demon, a priest, a pirate, and a ladybird.