And so...

ends the Australian blog by a Wisconsinite.... :(

Hungarian Goulash...

...is actually what I'm eating in the Qantas lounge right now. Thank goodness for Tyler having a complimentary guest pass so I could hang out in here for my 4 hour layover in Sydney. Free cheese, crackers, wine, etc - I never want to do normal airport waiting areas again!
So the last weekend in Australia was as great as all the rest of them. It's always so much fun to hang out with TJB and we definitely always find a way for an adventure. (There I go with the mushiness again...) It started with the delicious and very filling Burmese dinner mentioned earlier with Claudio and Sandra. Then we went out to an Irish bar in North Adelaide that supposedly had live music although seemed to be on an endless break the entire time that we were there. We didn't stay too long before Sandra was falling asleep on Claudio's shoulder and it was time to go home. Tyler and I weren't quite done with our night so we decided to wander in to the bar next door to Tyler's apt. We'd always been curious about it but usually too scared to go in. It was advertised as "topless" which supposedly doesn't mean strip club in Australia. So we went in. First - standing at the door - was a tall midget. Nuff said. Then we went up to the bar to get a drink and saw only one topless girl. As we sat down in a booth in the sparsely filled bar, several different girls with 1/2 of their teeth came up to talk to us. They sat down at the booth and awkwardly asked us if we needed anything. It was actually a really comfortable booth and the music was playing soft enough for conversation and had we not been awkwardly approached several times - we might have stayed for more than one drink. Oh well. It was an adventure.
Saturday we woke up early to cook some breakie before heading out to Hahndorf - a local German town in the Adelaide Hills outside of city. It was advertised as having one of the largest Lutheran settlements in Australia. We found the main street quickly and were surprised to see how busy it was. By Australian standards - it was FREEZING outside - maybe like 45 degrees and grey - so we expected no one to be out. There were lots of people though. We explored a few shops and did some cheese tasting in the cheese factory. We also grabbed some chocolates to take back to Adelaide at the N05 factory. Then we made our way out of town to the nearby wineries. Another afternoon of wine tasting. We were becoming quite the experts. We made it to 5 wineries and then stopped at a brewery called Grumpies for a delicious dinner of pizza and beer. It was a great Saturday! We then headed back to Adelaide to meet up with Doug (Tyler's coworker) and hang out with him for the rest of the night.
Sunday we again got up early to grab breakie of French toast down the street and do some last minute souvenir shopping. We then ended up in a nearby park on East Terrace to throw a boomerang around a bit. No trip to Australia is complete without boomerang throwing, of course! Tyler got the hang of it much quicker than I did - although I can hardly throw a Frisbee sometimes so even small advances were counted as a success. Then we headed off to the bus stop to meet up with Doug again and grab a bus down to Port Adelaide for the Port Adelaide vs. West Coast footie game! It was awesome to see an Aussie rules game! I didn't quite understand all the rules but Tyler did a good job of filling me in on the basics. It was awesome! Port Adelaide killed West Coast by about twice the score (120ish to 60ish).
Tyler and I then ended my last night in Adelaide with a DELICIOUS steak dinner at the 3rd steak house we'd been to in town, Gaucho (an Argentinian Steak House). It was delicious! And the service was amazing too! It hardly felt like Australia! We shared both a large 500 g rump steak and a full Barramundi fish (a relatively common fish in South Australia). Amazing!
Leaving this morning was no fun and hardly amazing at all though. The alarm went off at 4 AM and Tyler took me to the airport. Luckily in Australia - you don't need a boarding pass to go through security so he was able to come hang out in the lounge with me for some breakie and cribbage. We even tried the yeast-y Australian spread of Vegemite on an English muffin. It was so disgusting! I couldn't take more than my tiny bite.

Burmese Impersonator

Friday Sandra took some time to take me grocery shopping for some Burmese food (where she moved from a year ago) and then cook a Burmese dinner for Tyler and Claudio. She even brought out several of her Burmese formal traditional outfits and we tried them on. It was tons of fun! And the food was delicious! I wish I could say that I might be able to cook Burmese myself in the future - but I'm not nearly as good as she is! She just knew which spices to add when - it was great!

King of Australia

Friday I finished up my souvenir shopping by stopping in a few local bookstores. I ended up upstairs at Adelaide Booksellers and asked for the Australian history section. The lady pointed me in the direction of the area but then I asked for a recommendation. She had tons of good information. She talked a lot about how Australia doesn't really have too much history - even comparing it to the US - another relatively young country - as compared to the old old cities in Europe and Asia. She talked about how there hasn't been a civil war here or even that many important leaders. They just don't have that much to talk about. And even until recently, the whole convict situation was kinda kept under wraps. It was interesting talking to her for sure.
She also pointed me to the Australian politics section where I was prompted to ask what she thought about Australia ever breaking away from the UK. She said she thought it would happen in the next few decades. She was probably around 50 years old herself and she felt that her generation and younger were not as tied to the UK as people who had participated in WW2. Those people had a real connection that they didn't want to break. She also talked about a referendum - which seems to be the same as a bill in Congress - that was attempted to be passed in 1999 getting the ball rolling for this break away. Unfortunately the prime minister of Australia at the time was very conservative and not very supportive of the referendum so he worded it in a way that would not be supported. There is currently still a party known as the Republicans who are continuously trying to work this angle and eventually hoping to break away. I bought a book about this so let me know if you're interested in borrowing it....

Boomerang Symbols

Thursday I concentrated on locating the best of some of those souvenirs that I had been scouting out for awhile. I eventually wandered into an Aboriginal Art Shop where the owner was super helpful. He had tons of information for me regarding boomerangs, didgeridoos, emu callers, and opals. He didn't seem to high pressure sales me either - he was just giving me lots of historical type information and then leaving me to look around by myself. He explained what a lot of the different symbols often used in Aboriginal paintings meant. He talked about how the boomerang and then Aboriginal style of painting originally came to be. He even let me play the didgeridoo! It was pretty cool. Of course I ended up buying a boomerang there and I can't wait to show it to everyone! It has symbols on it that basically tell a story even!

With the Wind in our Sails

Last Wednesday we had an all day layover in Sydney so after wandering around the city a bit, having breakie at Pancakes on the Rocks, and starting some blogs from glow-worm adventures, we decided to go sailing on the Sydney Harbor. We found a sailing company in Tyler's Australia Lonely Planet book and made a booking. The sailboat actually ended up being almost exactly - if not exactly - the sailboat that I had looked at with Laurel last summer as a potential purchase for her. It was a really nice Hunter with a good bit of space. Allan was the captain and there was a family of 4 with us as well. It was really fun. Allan let us do most of the steering and even help a little with the sails. And the views of the Harbor and the Opera House and the City and the Bridge were amazing! It was tons of fun! Allan was great and super interesting to talk to - being an Australian born citizen who had a lot of questions about the differences in the US - which prompted a lot of interesting conversations regarding politics and economics.

At the end of our tour, we hurried over to the Shangri La hotel where we met up with Jill and Ruben for some drinks on the top floor. I had been there last time I was in Sydney due to a suggestion from Tyler but this was Tyler's first time. It was awesome!

Heading Home

So I'm currently sitting in the Sydney airport for a 4 hour layover here before my flight to San Fran, likely a run through San Fran airport to clear customs and get to my next flight, back to Seattle. And its lonely. I'm used to traveling with Tyler. Tyler was even with me on my way to Australia from San Fran! It's terribly sad. I miss him like crazy for sure. There's no one to play cribbage with. Or look at youtube videos with. Or be a pillow. Or tell me stories. Or listen to my stories. Who signs up for a year of long distance? It's silly. But he's been amazing. Absolutely ridiculously amazing! I couldn't have asked for a better 2 months off. We had so much fun together and... ok ok - I'll stop being mushy. I should probably stop thinking about how it might be as much as another 5 months before I even see him again. Ugh. Yay skype conversations. :(

Anyways - lets focus on some other happenings since the trip to New Zealand which was the last thing I wrote about.

(BTW - don't get me wrong - I'm super excited to come back and see everyone in Seattle and hang out with everyone there and get back into a normal life with routines instead of just doing whatever I want all day - I just wish Tyler were here to spend some of that time with too...)

Glowworm Hospitality

After an unsuccessful ski day on Sunday, highlighted with: missed buses, transportation issues, skiing 1 run in an un-skiable 5m of visibility, retiring to lunch and wine in the bar, late pass closure announcements (to late to react to), returning to the bar for more drinks, and finally making it back to Methven in time to catch our shuttle to Christchurch; We were anxious to have another day to live up to heli skiing in the southern alps. The small town of Westport came through.
With an early 3:45 AM alarm we stumbled out of our hostel to catch the flight to Westport. The only shuttle available was a 4AM shuttle which got us to the airport 1.5 hours before our terminal even opened. Eventually after wandering the Christchurch International airport several times over, it was time to head to our gate: no security, no ID checks, just a long, cold outdoor hallway to a small satellite gate.
At checkin we noticed we were seated in the same row, but in seats A and F, this seemed strange for tickets bought together. However, upon walking out to the plane it was evident why – A and F were still right next to each other in the 20 seat prop plane. With the little sleep we had, we both passed out immediately on departure and wokeup to the landing in Westport, about 45 minutes later.
We were greeted at the Westport airport by Jeff from underworld adventures, who drove us into “downtown” and gave us a mini-tour of the city. Expecting Jeff would just drop us off on main street to find breakfast before our adventure, we were surprised to get a full tour of the town, including the closest point to Oz, and then brought back to Jeff’s house where we enjoyed a “Scottish” breakfast (porridge, toast and coffee) We spent a few hours chatting with him and his wife who were super friendly before Jeff drove us down to where our expedition would start.
In Charleston, we met Lynn who would be our guide and who promptly fitted us with wetsuits, wetsuit jackets, gloves, booties, and helmets. We then boarded a “wee” train that Jeff was driving and took us in to the rainforest where our hike would start.. We both made the connection at this point that Jeff looked a little like the original Willy Wonka and we were expecting to hear him say “Yes, the danger must be growing. Cuz the rowers keep on rowing. And they’re certainly not showing, any signs that they are slowing!!!!!”. Both the hike and the train ride were beautiful – wandering through the rainforest. Everything was so green! We picked up inner tubes along the way and Lynn told us about the hike, the surrounding area, and her due-in-6-month baby.
At the entrance to the cave she stopped and gave us some scientific facts about caves and their formation. This is a bit of a unique cave because it was found relatively recently and is not very commercialized at all yet. The boy scouts had gone through and put ropes up for a path and did a bit of smoothing on the ground – but that’s about it. It doesn’t have any lights or anything like that so the only lights came from the lamps on our helmets. The formations in the cave were amazing! Tons of stalactites and stalagmites. They were awesome! There were 3 levels of the cave so there was lots to see for sure.
Eventually we stopped to turn off our lights and looked around. There were dots on the ceiling and walls that looked like stars in the distance. These were the glowworms! Awesome! Turning back on our lights – Lynn showed us the webs of the glowworms and you could actually even see a few of the worms. They were tiny! We then walked just a little bit further – scampering over rocks – until we reached the river in the cave. We got into our inner tubes, linked together, turned off our lights, and floated (or were pulled by Lynn) down the slowly moving river out of the cave.Looking up at the glowworms above was incredible! They basically followed a line down the center of the highest point of the cave. There were so many! It seemed like we were outside just looking up at the stars. They were awesome!
Reaching the exit of the cave, the light from outside made the glowworms less visible. The exit was beautiful – with the light shining on the rocks and the green plants – it was great! We then used our huge paddle gloves to paddle down the “rapids”. The river level wasn’t too high so it wasn’t too extreme. It was fun though. We soon reached the bridge we had passed over on our hike and paddled over to the side. There were other people on the bridge this time as well and I can imagine they thought we were crazy being on the river on such a chilly day. It wasn’t too bad at all though.
After taking the Willy Wonka train and bus back to Charleston, Jeff gave us another little mini tour of the West coast. We drove through the “town” of Charleston. It was once a town of about 30,000 during the time of the gold rush (around the 1860s) but now there is hardly any town at all. I would guess it probably has about 50 people in it. Then we stopped at Cape Foulwind (named by Captain James Cook for obvious reasons) where we got a closeup view of a wekas bird. This is a flight-less bird that is closely related to the kiwi. The kiwi only comes out at night though so we didn’t get to see one of those. Cape Foulwind is also known for its large community of fur seals. There were so many all over the rocks – including some baby seals jumping around in the water! It was cute!
Jeff then dropped us off in Westport – with an offer to come pick us up if we wanted a ride to somewhere in particular – but otherwise coming to pick us up in 90 minutes to take us to the airport. We grabbed lunch at a little café that he had suggested. Tyler had the whitebait which we learned was a Westport delicacy. We wandered down the street after lunch to a brewery we had heard about in Westport. It was basically just a large garage/warehouse where they were currently cleaning out kegs. They had to scramble to find a few glasses for the tastes. Most of them were pretty light – as most Australian/NZ beers are. We felt like we should buy a glass or something since the tastings were free but they didn’t sell glasses. They only sold a plastic liter bottle full of beer. Haha! Crazy.
By the time we were done there, it was time to head back to the information center to meet up with Jeff. He took us to the airport, walked us in, made sure our flight was ok, and waited with us a bit. The hospitality was amazing! We gave him a tip even though its not normal in NZ to give tips at all – but he had been great all day with the breakfast, private tours around the West coast, and familiarity with Westport.
The night ended splendidly. We flew back over the Southern Alps with some awesome views. We then had an amazing pizza dinner at a place called Winnie Bagos in Christchurch – just down the street from our hostel. The night ended with a bit of live music at an Irish bar and then my whooping by Tyler in a game of cribbage. Eek!

Go # 5!!

Not to overshadow the previous post, but… bottles of wine, live music, and gambling on sheep races… nuff said….

Heli-Powder!

(Note – Tyler and I wrote this one together the day of our Heli-skiing adventure!)
Dropped on the top of a 7,000 ft peak, from a AS355 twin engine Aerospatiale Squirrel, with blades rotating at 394 revolutions per minute, you click in and point downhill to grab fresh lines down a vertical kilometer of untouched New Zealand backcountry pow in the Southern Alps. Meet the Squirrel at the bottom and repeat… 5 times. This is Heli-skiing and this is our day 2 on the South Island.
We spent a full day tearing through the meter of light kiwi powder on a bluebird day.
We started out the day by being picked up by the local Heli group and rode the hour drive down a dirt road crowded with cows and sheep. We eventually arrived at a little farm house in a valley surrounded by snowcapped mountains. We geared up and were given little beeping walkie-talkie sized boxes that we needed to strap on to our chests. These were our avalanche beacons! Eek! We were given instructions on what to do in case of an avalanche and practiced finding a beacon hidden in the yard. We were then prepared. Supposedly.
Split up into groups of 4 skiers/boarders, a guide, and a pilot, we boarded the helicopter and took off. We ascended quickly and flew through the white mountains. It was beautiful! We went up close to a few different ridges so our guide could check them out and see if they were solid enough to ski on. Some of them had winds that were too high and we could even feel it pulling and pushing the helicopter. Soon we found one that he liked. The chopper was landed and we hopped out into the Arrowsmith Range. Hopping in and out each time required ducking down over our skies and boards and protecting our faces and necks while the helicopter created a cyclone of snow around us. It was crazy!
Our guide dug a snow column out of the slope to check out the stability and then he headed down. That’s it. We were just supposed to follow down this steep run that no one has skied on before and meet him a bit further down. No problem? Angie (a lawyer from NZ) started out on her snowboard and did just fine. Then it was my turn. Eek. Scary. Tyler says it was only as steep as runs that we’ve done before but I was pretty scared. So I fell. Of course. Then Nick (Angie’s husband) flew by on his snowboard. Then Tyler sped down, floating on the powder with tight bouncing turns. Quote from Tyler: “It was tasty gorgeous.” We soon met up and continued on, going 800 meters at a time before re-meeting up. When we hit a good flat spot, the helicopter was called and we were picked up and brought to a new spot. It was exciting! But scary. And nerve wrecking. And beautiful!
The second run was on more untouched powder. We hopped out of the helicopter and with encouraging words from Tyler; I was determined to do better this time. Then I hit a large pot of choppy crusty powder, twisted my skies over my head, gashed my ear off (and it was my good ear), and buried my skies in the snow. Ok so I didn’t gash my ear off. Tyler describes it more as a shaving cut. “What were you doing shaving your ears?” We soon were back on the light fluffy powder, making the turns smoother and more controlled.
After 2 and a half runs, we stopped for lunch on a flat spot at 5,600 feet. Our guide dug a picnic table into the snow and the helicopter came by and dropped the food off. We had a delicious lunch of pumpkin soup, salmon sandwiches, chicken legs, chocolate cake, apples, and candy bars. And the views were incredible! I don’t think there’s a restaurant around “with a view” that could compete. The other groups with other guides met us as well. Quote from Tyler: “It was yummy in my tummy.”
After lunch, with Tyler’s encouraging words and confidence building comments, I was hopefully ready to go again. Then we “landed” on a ridge that was a little wider than the heli’s forks, with a steep rocky 100m drop directly below the door (as shown in the pic). Our guide got out first as he always did, pulled out our equipment, and we carefully maneuvered out onto more sure ground. It was definitely scary. One wrong step and we would have been over the cliff. Luckily, we didn’t ski off the steep rocky side – but instead took the steep wide open side (apparently on bigger snow years our guide had done the former). It was beautiful. By this time, I was starting to get a bit more confidence and putting a bit more trust in Tyler’s word saying “you can do it!” It was fun! And scary. Still scary. But definitely fun and awesome as well. Gliding over the light and fluffy white stuff was amazing!
We met the helicopter and it took us to one last run at another peak. The top was beautiful and we got a group picture (by this time we had lost Nick to another group so it’s just us three).The run was quick, steep, and wonderful. We waited at the bottom and after unsuccessfully lobbying for another go, we boarded the chopper to head back to the farm. Tyler, with his newly formed raccoon eyes, sat in the co-pilots seat and took some pictures of the ride back.
We had some tea and coffee at the farm, then navigated through the cows and sheep back to Methven and were dropped back off at our Hotel. We hesitantly meandered to the hot tub as there was already a group of teenage girls singing the titanic theme song taking up one of the tubs. After a little bit they left and we were able to relax and enjoy the spa (and the IPA Tyler had found at the shop earlier in the day). For this reason, Tyler wanted to name the title: “My Bader in my left hand, my beer in my right… relaxing in the hot-tub after a day of heli-skiing”

Reading the Newspaper

We spent a bit of time on the plane earlier today reading the newspaper - something that we don't get to do enough of around here. It's certainly interesting to see some of the differences in things going on here. In 2 main examples from today - a new political party is starting in Australia. It's trying to have a white only immigration rule - crazy! And in the other story - the newspaper had done a study on which schools are better - public or private. The point that I found most crazy was that a law exists that prohibits the newspaper from publishing the findings. No freedom of press here....

Prisoner of Australia

Remember learning how Australia was originally populated by convicts sent here from Europe? I found it interesting that in my exploring of the many museums of South Australia and Adelaide - I have not found this mentioned once! In Bill Bryson's book, he mentions that in talking to Australians - he's found that this part of Australian history is barely even taught in schools here. It's not joked about or even acknowledged. Really - they should be proud that they were able to take on this crazy place and make it a livable and prosperous society - even from these crazy beginnings.

Overlooked Australia

So I've finally gotten around to reading the famous book by Bill Bryson - In a Sunburned Country. As an interesting side note, they have this book in Australia and as far as I can tell its the exact same book - except its called Down Under. Odd.
It's been really good so far and speaks very truthfully about the Australia that I've seen since I've been here. I've often commented on how I feel like we overlook Australia at home. I don't really think about it, don't really hear about it, and don't really wonder about it very much. Yet - the US is constantly in the news here. In fact - probably about 40% of the news is about the US, 40% about the UK, and then about 20% about Australia - on the local news channels - haha! Lately of course though Michael Jackson is the only thing on all channels all the time.
The book has confirmed this idea though. The author did a brief study of how often various countries and topics were mentioned in the New York Times in a given year - he took 1997 cuz it happened to be sitting on the table in front of him. Here's an excert from his book:
"In that year across the full range of possible interests - politics, sports, travel, the coming Olympics in Sydney, food and wine, the arts, obituaries, and so on - the Times ran 20 articles that were predominantly on or about Australian affairs. In the same period, for the purpose of comparison, the Times ran 120 articles on Peru, 150 or so on Albania and a similar number on Cambodia, more than 300 on each of the Koreas, and well over 500 on Israel. As a place that caught our interest Australia ranked about level with Belarus and Burundi. Among the general subjects that outstripped it were balloons and balloonists, the Church of Scientology, dogs (though not dog sledding), Barneys, Inc., and Pamela Harriman, the former ambassador and socialite who died in Feb 1997, a misfortune that evidently required recording 22 times in the Times. Put in the crudest terms, Australia was slightly more important to us in 1997 than bananasa but not nearly as important as ice cream."
It's interesting how that happens. The author goes on to describe the story of a mysterious seismic disturbance in the middle of Western Australia. No one could figure out what it was so they just let it go. A few years later, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo released nerve gas in the Tokyo subway, killing 12 people. It was later found that this cult owned 500,000 acres in Western Australia - near the mysterious event. There, authorities founda lab that provided evidence that cult members were mining uranium and had 2 nuclear engineers involved. Their aim was the destruction of the world and the event in the desert may have been a dry run. How did this go unnoticed???? It's definitely scary that Australia is so vast and unknown that something like this could just happen out there!

Spoiled in the Club

Tyler and I are right now hanging out in the Qantas Club room at the airport in Auckland, New Zealand! It's been a long day of flying and we have one more flight to go from Auckland on the north island of New Zealand to Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand. Then we'll be picked up by a guy with a sign (hopefully) who will drive us the 90 km out to Methven where we will check into our resort.
We've found NZ to be an interesting place so far. The trip was more difficult to plan than any I've done lately. It just seems a bit chaotic down here. We had been trying to decide if we should shuttle or just rent a car to get around NZ and I was doing lots of emailing to different companies and getting very inconsistent responses. One second they would tell me they could get me at the airport and then 20 min later, they would send an email saying they couldn't. One second they would tell me they had a 4WD car for us to use and then 2 seconds later, they'd email back saying they didn't. It was crazy. I had somehow figured NZ would be pretty similar to Australia in its infrastructure and technology but after the difficulties planning - I was beginning to doubt. Our idea was even slightly confirmed when we had to walk 10 min outside along a wind-y sidewalk path to switch from the international to the domestic terminal at the Auckland airport - likely the largest airport in the whole country - crazy! We'll see what we conclude after a week here :)
BTW - luckily Tyler is a frequent flyer club member on Qantas - after his many flights back and forth across the Pacific - so we're able to hang out in the special club rooms at the airports where it is much quieter, has much more comfy chairs, and free food and drinks. That's definitely nice.

Bike Ride to the Beach

Today was a beautiful day! It was probably about 60 degrees outside and perfectly clear. And the people around here say "wow - I can't believe you came in the winter - how are you holding up?". Yeah. I wish we had days like this in our winters! Yesterday though had definitely been one of the colder days - maybe around 40 or 45 degrees but it was still sunny and clear outside. What a life.

Anyways - I decided it was a good day to try a bike ride south on the River Torrens path. Sandra and I had biked north last time so it was time to see where the other way went. I started out the bike ride from Tyler's apt. Even though I've been biking quite a few times now, I still have to stop and think about what side of the road I am supposed to be on. haha! In a car, its easy to just follow traffic but its not as obvious on a bike.

The total length of the path ended up being about 20 km one way (so about 12 miles). It ended at the beach which was pretty cool. It actually didn't even really end there - I could have gone either direction down the beach. I'll have to save that for a bike ride next week. It was fun though. The river was beautiful the full length. At the very end, there was a sort of horse farm lining both sides for the last mile before I got to the ocean. Kinda odd placement of a horse farm...

Unfortunately I wasn't able to stay at the beach too long - the planning of our NZ trip is taking up more time than I thought. And we're leaving early tomorrow morning - eek! Kiwis here we come! :)

(As a side note, the first pic has the horse farm and the second pic has the "dunes" at the beach - as they were described - obviously they haven't been to Indiana!)

Planting Plants

Then today Tyler dropped me off early this morning at the SA Conservationist office because I had signed up a few weeks ago for the volunteer day today. I had tried to sign up for more days but most of them were all filled up. We loaded up into a van and drove about 20 km down to Pelican Harbor. There were about 7 older (retired or almost retired-ish) aged men - including the leader. Then there was a young Korean girl who was going to uni in Adelaide to learn English. She had been here about 4 months and had another 6 months to go. Right now though she was on a 10 week holiday from school - I guess its like winter break for them. And there was another young Asian girl but she didn't say much and kinda sat in the corner with nice clothes on and didn't get dirty. Kinda odd for a day of digging and planting. We went out to a big field type area where people unfortunately sometimes put garbage and did some "beautifying" of the land. Luckily we didn't have to pick up garbage but we did plant almost 300 small little plants -including some tufts of grass. I mostly planted with a guy named Paul who just chatted the entire time so that was super interesting. He was really friendly but had a really strong Australian accent so it was sometimes hard to understand. We definitely talked about everything from jobs to families to school to politics to economics. Haha - it was interesting. We took a break for morning tea and then another break for lunch. It was a fun time for sure! I'm sad I couldn't sign up for more days!

Wine and Penguins

Then the rest of Sunday we spent exploring more of South Australia. We did a hike around the Onkaparinga River gorge. Then we went to 4 different wineries - one with an amazing luncheon. These were in the wine region of McLaren Vale - another major wine region in South Australia (keep an eye on the labels for this!) Then we headed down to Victor Harbor where we ran the 1 km across the causeway bridge cuz we were hoping to see the penguins before it got dark. Turns out - the penguins don't come out of the water from fishing until after dark so we had got there the perfect time. We took a little tour where they took us to places where the penguins normally come in from the water and actually saw 7 penguins. It was pretty awesome just seeing them in their normal habitat for sure! Unfortunately - it was super hard to get pics of them in the dark - but we definitely tried. You can kinda see 2 in this pic.

Australian Lutheran Church

Sunday morning I got up early to try out in Australian Lutheran Church. Unfortunately I went to a traditional service instead of a contempory service. It was about the most traditional service I've been to since the times of David's Star and the old hymnal. Eek! I was probably one of only 3 people in there without gray hair. We were in a very old church that looked really cool. We used the old hymnal and the old style of service. And the sermon didn't use any examples of real world type things - only other stories from the Bible. It was different than what I've been to in a long time. Plus - it wasn't in a gym like at home in Wisconsin and Seattle (until recently) - haha! It was also kinda clear to hear the Australian accent.

High Five Rejection

Going out in Glen Elg - we went back to the same place we had been last Saturday and saw Tom and Rosey playing music again. It was tons of fun for sure! A bunch of Tyler's coworkers and their wives came out with us too. During one of their breaks, Tyler and I went out to just hang out with Tom for a bit and I put my hand up to give him a high five for the good show. And he said "um no - I don't do that." I guess he says its "too American" of a thing to do so he wasn't doing it to be rude - he just never does high fives. Instead he normally just shakes hands - and we were like "isn't that American too - haha!". I tried to give some of his friends high fives too just to get a more complete sampling of the Australian reaction to a high five and then generally kinda hesitated too - haha - maybe just cuz Tom was there - but who knows. We had never even thought of it that way - Crazy!

Happy 4th of July!

Some of Tyler's coworkers and their wives who I've met a few times had a barbecue for the 4th of July on Saturday! It was also a going away party for Susan and Scott who are heading back to St. Louis after living out here for the last 6 months. It was fun for sure. Tyler and I got there fashionably late after the Gorge and then a brewery and then some wine tasting and then a train not running that we had been planning on taking and having to take the bus instead. Some of the people were even leaving already by the time that we got there. (It had started at 2 but we didn't get there until 5 - oops.) Some of the people stayed and hung out for quite awhile though so that was fun. Then some of us went out in Glen Elg for a bit again....
(This was the cake I had made - topping compliments of my Grandma's normal 4th of July cake)

Making Friends with a Monkey

Saturday morning we headed up to Adelaide Hills to go to a wildlife park that we had heard about. It was awesome! The pics definitely tell the stories best so just take a look at those on my picasa account. I think the best part was definitely when Tyler made friends with a little monkey. He kept smiling at the monkey and the monkey just kept "smiling" back. He was definitely opening his mouth and showing his teeth. Sometimes it would run behind another monkey and peek around and smile at Tyler from behind the other monkey. And when Tyler would lean to the side - so would the monkey! Haha! Awesome!

Feeling at Home

Friday Sandra and I went to the Tea Tree Plaza which is basically a mall in a suburb of Adelaide. We took the bus out there. It ran on a special road just for buses so that's pretty nice that's its completely unaffected by the traffic. The mall was exactly the same as any mall at home. It had a lot of the same stores or at least equivalent type stores. It had a couple large department stores - although I didn't recognize their names - at the end. It had a food court with normal fast food including KFC and McDonalds and Gloria Jeans. (BTW - in case I haven't mentioned it before - there are NO Starbucks in Adelaide - at least not that I've found yet - but Gloria Jeans are everywhere.)
Then Friday night Tyler and I went out to a really really good steak restaurant called Cos. It was so delicious. I had a fillet with a gorgonzola topping - amazing! Plus - the service was great as well! They even asked us how our food was! This was the first place in Adelaide that I've actually been impressed with the service - so we HAD to tip :)

Adelaide Old Gaol

So I haven't written in a few days and usually I just let this go and write about the most recent thing but really - I'm thinking it might just be interesting for me to read someday when I'm old and grey too so I'm going to write a couple different posts about a few of the different things that we've encountered this weekend (and later last week).

Thursday I went to the Old Adelaide Gaol. This is actually the Old English spelling of "jail" but is pronounced the same way as jail. It had been in existence for around 100 years but they closed it down in the late 70s-ish. Basically they had run out of money so the people were moved to other locations.

Being a chilly rainy Thursday afternoon, there weren't many people there at all. In fact - there was really just one other couple walking around and it was pretty big grounds so I didn't see them too much. I was getting freaked out reading all the stories of the crazy criminals that were in there and all the hangings and other executions that had been done there. The escapes are not comforting to think about either. Definitely not a fan! So yeah - I didn't really read all the stories but what I did read was interesting...

Shrimp on the Barbie

Last night Tyler and I decided to try to cook our own shrimp on the barbie. I had always thought this was an Australian food - probably influenced in my mind by Outback Steakhouse - but I haven't seen it on a single menu down here. So we decided to cook our own. I had found a recipe online that required marinating the shrimp for 5 hours beforehand so I did that in the afternoon. Then I walked over to the train station to pick up Tyler so we could walk back together, stopped for a hh, and then got home to get the grill ready and stuff. We only needed to cook the shrimp for like 2 minutes on each side so it went super fast but I think it turned out pretty good! Yay! :)

Speaking of Barbie - can I also mention other Aussie words that they just add "ie" to on the end: Sunnies, brekkie, bikey (as in "bikie gangs" aka biker gangs), bities, mozzie, shonky, tazie

And non-ie words: bonzor! (wow!), shiela (girl), bushwalking

GNO

Last night I got together with a bunch of the "American Ex-pats" wives for a Girls' Night Out dinner. It was fun for sure. There were 7 other girls including Sandra who I've mentioned before. I also already knew Susan and Rose because I had met them for lunch a few weeks ago. One of the other girls has been here with her family for 3 years and she's leaving later this week to head up to Newcastle - a city a bit north of Sydney - for another year. She was sad to leave Adelaide cuz they loved it here so much. Susan is leaving on Sunday with her family to head back to St. Louis - where they are from. And another of the ladies just got here 5 weeks ago so she's pretty new. It was interesting talking to them and about how they were adjusting their families to moving to Australia and getting ready to move them back. It sounded like their kids all loved it here so that's good.

I Saw the Sign

The in-credibility (aka lack of credibility) of the signs in Oz strikes again! This has happened to me more times than I can count so you would think I would have learned! This morning, after working (or running) Tyler to the train station, I decided to go grab some tea and waffles from a coffee shop that I walked by many mornings and afternoons. The smell of waffles always pulled me in so I decided it was time to try it. I wandered over and took a look at the menu posted on the huge board on the wall, listing all the different sorts of waffles. I asked for just an original waffle, with syrup on the side. The lady behind the counter gave me a surprised look that may have also passed for a bit confused. She said just a minute and went to talk to another girl. She then came back and said that they weren't serving waffles yet (using a tone - like "obviously"). It was 8 am, seemed like prime waffle time to me. I asked when they do start serving waffles. She had to go back and ask the other girl again who kept looking over at me like "who is this girl who wants to eat waffles at 8 am?" - and came back and said they don't start the waffles until at least 10. Obviously. Who would want to eat waffles at 8? That's ridiculous.
In some of other many examples of sign situations we've encountered:

• A bar down the street had a sign outside that advertised acoustic guitar on Friday night. On Friday night, Tyler and I went and there was no live music. We asked at the bar and they said the guy wasn't coming tonight. We told them their sign (on paper) was still posted on the door. They said "oh". It was still hanging when we left after having a drink.
• We went to a bar/club in Cairns that advertised 2 for 1 drinks all night on the sign outside. We went to the bar to order the 2 for 1 drinks and they said they weren't having that deal. Meanwhile, on a ppt behind them, the screen showed 2 for 1 drinks all night. The girl was like "oh - I don't make that presentation".
• Many restaurants, stores, and coffee shops don't post hours at all. I've heard that this is so they can open/close whenever they want.

Hardcore Bikers with the Band

It's been a fun weekend! We stayed in Adelaide for once instead of traveling around the country so that was a bit different. We went to some of Tyler's local hangouts including the Pancake House for dinner on Saturday and the Belgian Beer Cafe (BBC) for drinks on Friday night. Then Saturday night, we joined Claudio and Sandra and headed down to Glen Elg, the city on the coast that I've been to a few times now. Claudio's friends had a 2 person duet/band deal that was performing. It was just this couple that's been performing together for years and years - and they perform 5-7 nights a week! It's their full-time job basically - besides doing booking for other bands. They were really good. The guy played guitar and the girl sang. She had a great voice. They did mostly classic type covers that everyone knew and could dance to so that was fun. And when they had a break - we all went across the street to the coffee shop and stuff. They were super nice! It was tons of fun hanging out with the "band".
Then this morning, Tyler and I suited up our bikes (well I used his coworker's Doug's fancy road bike) and met up with Claudio and Sandra and Rudy for a hard-core bike ride up Mount Lofty - the highest point in the nearby suburb of Adelaide Hills. I had been pretty nervous before. I don't even know if I've ever been on a ROAD bike with those super skinny tires and we were going with people who do road races! How was I ever going to keep up? It ended up not being too bad. We biked the 5ish kms over to the path and then took a long windy path up the mountain. It was steep in parts but we weren't going too fast - in fact Tyler was definitely the quickest. It was a good workout for sure and the scenery was beautiful. We were on a bike path too that was separate from the road so we didn't have to worry about cars to that was really nice. When we got over the top, we stopped at Norton Summit for a snack/dinner and a chance to warm up our hands. We had already started going down a bit and the cool air blowing right at my hands was freezing! Before long it was starting to get dark so we hurried on down. Down was way harder than up for me. This time we were on the real mountain windy road with cars and tight turns. I was constantly breaking! Luckily Tyler stayed back and hung out with me to make sure that I made it down ok. It was a little freaky going too fast and the brakes on Doug's handlebars were maybe a bit further than normal reach for me so my fingers were getting stiff by the end. It was an awesome day though and the views both with the vineyards on the way up and the sunsetting on the way down were incredible! Unfortunately we didn't see any koalas in the trees as the signs along the road warned us of. We also didn't encounter any roos - which other signs warned of us as well. Crazy! Too bad I didn't have my camera....

Hanging with the Locals

I've been finding more ways to hang out with the locals of Adelaide lately so that's been pretty exciting! Wednesday night I went to my first running club run. I walked into this room at a little elementary school about 2 km from Tyler's and there were like 40 people in there! It was crazy! A few of them were walkers and then some people were doing a 14 k run and some were doing an 8 k run. I just wanted to do the 8k so they pointed me in the direction of people doing that and then we all started running. People were super friendly. Somehow I eventually ended up running with some older folks who definitely still gave me a really good workout. Rose was like 60 and Dave was like 75 - haha! They were quick though. And then Dave invited me to come back on Thursday night for more of a track workout type run with a different group that he belongs to. I told him I would so I met back up again last night and he directed me to the younger person's room (being from like teenagers - 40ish). The 5 girls started with a 5 k "warmup" - haha! After that - I could have stopped. It was the fastest warmup I've done in awhile. We were probably going faster than 8 min miles for the whole distance. Then we met up with the guys (about 10-15 guys) and started doing a track workout of repeat 200s with about a 30 sec break between each. The coach reminded me of Mr. Collyard in high school. He was super friendly but you could tell he was also a bit strict too. He only wanted me to do 10 200s because otherwise I might hurt something - haha - and he wanted to make sure I would come back next time too. After all that - I was totally DEAD. THEN we did another 3k-ish cooldown at about an 8 min mile pace - THEN - I still had to run home. It was 7 pm and that's about the time that Tyler gets home so I didn't want to keep him waiting so I had to RUN the whole way home - I was practically crawling by the time I got to the door - haha! It was really fun though and everyone was super friendly, coming up and introducing themselves to me and telling me to come back next week (They meet Tues and Thurs) - so that was awesome!!!
Then then - this morning, Sandra and I went for a 32 k bike ride along the local river bike trail which was really cool and very pretty too! It was fun! :)

Valpo World

How bout I was just walking through the Rundle Mall downtown area when some guy came up to me and asked if I really went to Valpo (I was wearing a Valpo sweatshirt). He had an Australian accent but I guess he's been living in Columbus, Ohio for the last 5 years and was just here for a 5 week holiday. He has a son starting at Valpo next year - crazy! I guess he used to be a pastor at a Lutheran church down the street from Tyler's place in Adelaide. So yeah. Small world :)

Great Barrier Reef Videos

Here are some of my videos while snorkeling the reef. They are no where near able to capture the amazing colors visible underwater and they are a bit shaky and sometimes not focused when floating around and being pulled by the currents. They'll give you a brief idea though - it was amazing!
General - lots of colors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im9STCBUw-g
My favorite yellow fish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZYfbV-ebFQ
The nemo fish in the sea anemone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsrqbmcGzg4
Giant turtle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efwxKUPLCKo
Sharks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpuIsNrsWDw
General - lots of colors and me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxHRV4fF-bw
General - lots of colors and lots of fish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rue80kURJg

[Cans]

Great Barrier Reef, check! Yay! Tyler and I just got back from an amazing weekend up in Cairns - pronounced "Cans" in Australian. I can't even begin to figure out where to start! It was such an exciting and amazing trip!
We left for Cairns which is in the northeast corner of Australia on Thursday afternoon, arriving there late Thursday night. Tyler's coworker Claudio and Claudio's girlfriend Sandra came with us too. We stayed that first night at a hostel in Cairns and wandered around the city a bit.
The next day we got on the ProDive live aboard boat for our scuba diving and snorkeling adventure in the Great Barrier Reef. We spent 3 days and 2 nights snorkeling and scuba diving with a group of about 30 other people on the boat. There were 3 other snorkelers besides me and 2 were a couple that was pretty seasick so they didn't snorkel every time. (I definitely understand the seasickness cuz I was a little queasy most of the time that we were on the boat - and I was even taking constant motion sickness medicine - Eek). I mostly snorkeled with a girl from Germany named Sandra who was super nice. We snorkeled about 3 times each day for about an hour each time and I took tons and tons of pictures. We saw with very colorful fish, huge turtles, and even saw the Nemo fish. I hadn't done too much snorkeling before so it took a little getting used to but by the end I was pretty comfortable. I took tons and tons of pictures because I didn't know how many would actually turn out. The reefs that we were swimming in were super shallow - we could go right and touch them if we really wanted to. On our very last snorkel, we saw 3 sharks! They swam near us and circled a group of fish that seemed pretty unphased by the sharks being right by them. I was a bit more freaked out and tried to get a video but ended up swimming away too fast to catch much of them. I'll post the video online.
Besides just snorkeling, after much deliberation, I decided to do the scuba dive trial on board. Tyler and all the other people on the boat had been doing scuba dives instead of snorkeling and it seemed like we were seeing pretty similar things (although he did see a few more unique fish and eels than I did). I was super scared to do it - especially with the sky diving pressure change experience. Before going down - I had to watch a 30 min video and then Tanner suited me up with a tank and all that stuff. We went down only about 2 meters and I had to be able to perform 2 skills at that depth before we could go any deeper. The 2 skills were to fill my mask with water and then empty it while underwater and then to pull my regulator out of my mouth, drop it, and then retrieve it calmly. It definitely took quite a few panic-ed tries and swims back to the top before I could do these. Eventually though I was "good enough" to go. Tanner controlled my bouyancy so I didn't really have to think about too much - except clearing my ears - which was super stressful. I was probably being over sensitive to clearing my ears and was doing it constantly - maybe even too hard than I was supposed to. I couldn't tell if my ears were pulled or if there was just water in my ears. We ended up going down to about 7.5 meters and swam with a turtle and stuff like that so it was pretty neat. I think it would take quite a few more times though before I am anywhere near comfortable scuba diving.... I am still deliberating about doing the open water training... It really only takes one bad pressure change to possibly mess up my other ear. Eek. I would also want to be super careful about getting a super strict dive instructor cuz mine seemed a bit more careless and carefree than I would have liked...
It's hard to figure out how to summarize all the events from the weekend. It was so exciting and so fun - I can't describe it all without writing a long blog. After returning back to Cairns and readjusting to the stability of land, we continued our adventures. We met up with a bunch of the people on the boat for a fun night. We ended up dancing at a bar called the Woolshed (should have been called the Toolshed)- haha! Sunday we took a train to the city of Kanunda where I held a koala! It clung to my shoulder so tightly - it was adorable! I want a pet koala! We also got to feed kangaroos and wallabyes. Then we took ATV 4-wheelers through the jungle. We got to do jumps and were on a pretty narrow track most of the time. We went through some huge puddles and Tyler COVERED himself with mud! We were all pretty muddy by the end though. We ended by doing loops around a motorcross track. We then took a skyrail (like a gondola) over the jungle - back to Cairns.
Monday we whitewater rafted down a class 3/4 river called Russell River. It was my first time in just a 2 person raft. The person in the back controls the steering so Tyler drove the first 2/3 of the trip and I got to navigate down the last few rapids. It was pretty exciting. We didn't tip over - although we were probably close for a bit - haha! The water was a bit more shallow than it is sometimes though so we had to do a good bit of scooting over rocks when we would get stuck. We had to do a hike through the jungle for about an hour to get to the put-in for the rafts. Along the way - the guides picked up a toad that secreted toxins out of its back. I guess they're as prevelant as rats down there and its actually a law in Queensland (the state we were in) that if you pick one up - it is illegal to put it back down alive - so they had to kill it. I guess only one animal has figured out how to kill it and that's the kukkaburra - it kills it by picking it up and dropping it consistently on rocks until it dies.
Besides all these adventures - we did spend a few evenings and then the morning on Tuesday in the city of Cairns. Its a very international touristy type city that was really fun. We heard so many different languages. It seems to cater to the adventure types too - with the diving, ATVs, white water rafting, skydiving, bungee jumping, hot air balloons, etc - all readily available. There was a night market that sold very cheap massages - like $20 for 45 minutes total for both Tyler and me. There was a huge lagoon pool right next to the ocean that was really pretty. We had beautiful weather the entire time - like 70s and 80s degrees - and it was winter there! It was hard to leave our weekend vacation for sure!

Wines Galore!

Tyler and I spent the weekend exploring the Barossa Valley - which is literally the Napa Valley of all of Australia. It is a good bit different from Napa though because all the wineries have FREE tastes of anywhere from 10-20 different wines. Crazy. We headed up on Saturday morning to the town of Tanunda which is kinda in the heart of the Barossa Valley. It's about 90 km from Adelaide. We checked into our little cabin and took out the bikes that they offered us. I had my first experience riding a tandum bike - it was super exciting! Unfortunately we weren't able to get the tires pumped up enough to spend the day riding those around. We biked with them to the first winery which was only like 1/4 mile away and then after doing the tastings there - we biked back to exchange the tandem bike for 2 individual bikes...sad.

We then went to 2 more wineries in the area of our cottage - basically next door to the first one we had gone to. After that - biking wasn't so easy so we walked the bikes back to the cottage before dinner. We headed out to downtown Tanunda (which is just a really tiny little town with probably about 5 restaurants in it) for dinner. It was delicious!
Sunday we continued our wine exploration - but this time I took over the driving - and Tyler handled most of the tasting. We went to 6 different wineries - and each had from 10-20 tastes. The tastes aren't really THAT small either - usually doing all the tastes would amount to 2-3 glasses of wine! Crazy! Some of the wineries were really cool. Rockford had a cool atmosphere being in old remodeled buildings like a stable and blacksmith shop. Charles Melton Winery had a neat atmosphere of sitting down at a long table for the tastes instead of the less personable standing at the bar idea that all other wineries do. We even had a cheese plate to go with our wine there! It was delicious! I think overall our top 3 wineries from the weekend were: Longmeil Winery, Rockford Winery, and Charles Melton Winery. All very tasty - especially the reds since its more the climate for those grapes around here.... Too bad I can only bring 2 bottles back in to the US - otherwise I could have a wine party :)

All the Small Things

So I was thinking - what do you all want to hear about? It's really hard to come up with what exactly are the important things that I should write about. Tyler read the blog the other day and was like "why didn't you tell them about this?" or "what about that" and I just don't want to bore you with all the little details of my life. But really - what do you want to read about? Do you want to read about the big events like our exploring of the outback and my driving of a car on the left side of the road? Or should I talk about the little things like how I hung out with Sandra all day today and she showed me some hidden secrets of Adelaide that I hadn't discovered before? And how we're going to a wine bar to watch a slide guitar show tonight? Or how I ran around the 4 terraces surrounding the perimeter of the city yesterday? Should I talk about the accomplishments I'm making with the Wii Fit game? haha! Or the book club book that I just started for the Borders book club down here? You tell me. What should I write about? :)

Hot Arse

Yesterday I continued to try to find a volunteer organization I could work with while I'm down here. I'm not allowed to work while I'm on a leave from Boeing but I am able to do unpaid volunteer work. I've contacted quite a few organizations but many of them have application processes and minimum assignment lengths and things like that. I'm really only here a month yet so I was hoping someone could give me something to do during that time.... BUT I did successfully get an interview with the SA Volunteers organization so that's something.... We'll see what comes of that next week.
Besides that - I took on attending a Bikram (Hot Yoga) class yesterday. I thought it would be interesting to go to one where they speak in Aussie slang - haha! She did mention our "arses" a few times - haha!
Then last night Tyler and I went to see the movie, Samson and Delilah. The lady at the winery in Adelaide Hills recommended it as a sort of documentary and not very happy film that is really good. It's an Australian film and I guess its kinda a big deal for those to be good so we went to see it. We just went to a normal theater but they were selling bottles of wine (and glasses and beer, etc) to bring in to the theater. All that stuff about the Aussies knowing how to drink is definitely true! haha! Anyways the film was definitely a bit harsh to watch. It was about 2 Aborigine teenagers who were basically living in poverty and became homeless and all this stuff. So yeah - pretty depressing. It was practically a silent film though - there were hardly any lines of dialouge - definitely no conversations! But yeah - pretty interesting.
To end this on a happy note - Tyler and I are heading to the Barossa Valley this weekend and doing some biking around there. Barossa Valley is basically the Napa Valley of Australia - haha! Yay - wining and hot tubbing! :)

Roos and Emus

We survived the outback! I took the train over to Elizabeth to meet Tyler after work on Friday and we headed out to Mount Remarkable. He was pretty tired after waking up at like 530 AM for work so he let me drive - my first time on the other side of the road! Eek! It was definitely interesting. The turnabouts were a bit tricky going around counterclockwise and the passing on the right was certainly something different. My placement on the road was also like relearning all over again. I was always veering too far to the left since I was used to being more on the left side of the road.

Eventually we made it to the group campground we were staying at in Mount Remarkable National Park. We camped underneath red gum trees where kukaburras above us laughed - literally - at like 5 am in the morning! Then as Tyler was making breakfast, an emu circled us at about a 5 meter radius. Crazy! I attached a pic.

From there, we drove to the parking lot where we started our trek around the Flinders Ranges. It was a total of 18km and we did about 11 km the first day, camped overnight, and then did the last of the 7km the next day. We hiked along a ridge for about a 1/3 of the hike and then among the rocky cliffs below for another 1/3 and then along a creek for another 1/3. Emus hiked along with us too!

After several nights on the edge of the outback, we felt like pros at "bushwalking" (aka backpacking in the "bush" - aka outback) so we headed further deep into the outback. Along the way, we stopped for lunch at the Old Willows Brewery in Quorn. It was a cute little old homestead that even had lambs brains on the menu. Unfortunately neither Tyler or I wanted a full order of the mind of a sheep so neither of us were even able to try a bite. :( After lunch, we continued on down the road to Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges. A "pound" is a formation of a mountain range in the form of the circle or oval. Wilpena Pound specifically surrounds about a 20 square mile area. We camped in a campground right outside the pound and did a hike in to the pound on Monday (the Queen's birthday so Tyler had the day off). We were hoping to go up St. Mary's Peak which is the highest point in the Flinders Ranges but unfortunately the lady at the ranger center advised us to take a shorter path to a lookout instead - saying that we were too late for St. Mary's Peak and that it was too cloudy anyways and wasn't going to clear up all day. We did the little 7 mile hike she suggested instead but as we did it, the clouds blew out and it eventually became a super clear day. We were bummed that we listened to this older ranger who didn't even know how fast of hikers we were. BUT we did get to see lots of roos throughout our hike so that was pretty exciting! They were all over - just munching on the grass, kinda looking up when we passed but that's about all. We think we even saw a rock wallabye - which looks mostly like a roo but a little different. I was happy that we saw all these guys while hiking instead of while we were driving - that wouldn't have been fun for sure. After the 3 days of hiking, it was a 5 hour drive to get back to Adelaide for the 'fun' post-camping clean-up. (Again for all the pics - check out my picasa sight: http://picasaweb.google.com.au/annielb2000/20096FlindersRangesInSouthAustralia#)

No Dramas

Life in Adelaide goes on. I've been busy exploring the city while Tyler is at work. Yesterday I took on finding us a team to join or group to participate in. I found information about the beach volleyball park and talked to someone on the phone about it. It's right next store to Tyler's place which is pretty convenient. Then I talked to a Running Company who organizes runs in Adelaide so I might join in one of those too. Then I talked to a Soccer Club that gave me a phone number to call to find out about local soccer teams in the area. When I said "Thank you" on my out, the kid there responded "No dramas" - which I found out after talking to Tyler is a pretty common phrase around here - basically meaning "no problem".
I finished captioning my Sydney pictures and Adelaide pictures from last weekend. You can check them out on: http://picasaweb.google.com.au/annielb2000
And in other news - it seems the Australians LOVE American Idol - its all over the news here!
And in other other news - they seem to have a lot of American type derivatives. They have a store similar to Forever 21 that is called Forever Young. And they have a store similar to Icing and Claire's called Frostings. Random.
Well I'm off to do more delving in to what it takes to go backpacking in the outback. Tyler and I are heading to Flinders Ranges this weekend and Mount Remarkable. I hope it loves up to its name! haha!

Tasty Cheese

So I've been busy exploring Adelaide and the surrounding areas - yesterday with Tyler and today so far on my own. Yesterday we had breakfast at a restaurant called "Scenic Restaurant" - creative obviously. It was pretty tasty and was up in the Adelaide Hills so had a pretty view of the city and stuff like that. Then we did some wine tasting. The state that Adelaide is in is South Australia (SA) (BTW - there are 7 states down here, not including Canberra - which is their capital - like DC isn't included as a state for us). SA has most of the wines that come from Australia - although there are a few from other regions as well - but SA definitely has the majority. Adelaide Hills is then one wine region around here. Barossa Valley is the most famous so we'll probably head there another day. Anyways - we popped over in to one winery not far from the restaurant. It was a tiny little place called Ashton Hills and only has 7 acres of vines. It's the oldest and highest winery in the region and the lady inside was super nice and super talkative. We were the only ones there the whole time and she gave us tastings of 12 different wines - no charge - so we ended up buying a bottle cuz it was tasty and she was so friendly and all. I guess most of the wineries in the region though don't charge a tasting fee so that was pretty nice. She recommended another one for us to go to where we also had a cheese plate and got to sit on a little patio area and stuff like that. It was pretty nice.
By the time we were done there - it was nearly 3 pm so we headed down the Hills and over to Ikea cuz Tyler only has one dresser in his entire place so I needed a place to put some of my stuff. We picked up a cheap hanging closet dealy.
Then we headed down to GlenElg which is a little beach community about 20 min from downtown. Tyler had considered living there but it would have made his commute a good bit more. We wandered around the little downtown area down there - and then found a cool place for dinner.
Today I've been busy exploring the city on my own. I did a 5 mile run so was able to see some of North Adelaide which was pretty cool. Then I grabbed some lunch downtown and hung out in a coffee shop for a bit before taking on the next adventure - grocery shopping. I needed to stock up because all Tyler has in his fridge is some moldy cheese, bacon, eggs, and beer. Literally. It was pretty interesting. They had some different food down here - or at least names for it. It seems their cheddar is called "tasty cheese". They make a special lettuce bag called "Aussie Salad" - "featuring beetroot shred for an Aussie influence". And my personal favorite which I definitely couldn't resist buying - "Rice Bubbles" - aka Rice Krispies - haha! The box is even exactly the same as home! Now I just have to figure out how to cook with grams and kilograms - etc....

Radilaide Adelaide

I made it to Adelaide! After 3 days of exploring Sydney, a night of dancing in King's Cross, and hanging out with Jill and Ruben, I hopped on a plane to Adelaide. For an understanding of the location - basically compare Australia to the contiginous 48 states. Sydney would be where Myrtle Beach area is and Adelaide would be like Houston.
I landed around 1 PM on Saturday. We went to Tyler's place - which is amazing btw. It has 3 stories. You walk in on the main level (after taking the elevator up to floor 8) and there's a kitchen, dining room, living room, laundry room, 1/2 bath, and balcony. Then you can either go upstairs to the rooftop deck which is HUGE and his own private deck. Or you can go downstairs to where he has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. One of the bedrooms is actually set up as an office right now though. So yeah - its a pretty nice place. It's also within only a few blocks of downtown so we spent the day wandering around the city - eating lunch and dinner at two restaurants that Tyler knew already. As a side note - I ordered an "entree" for dinner which at home means "main course". Here - entree is taken more at its literal meaning - probably something like "entrance" - and is more just a starter course.
Adelaide is a cool city of about 300,000 people. It has a main downtown area with a bunch of restaurants and bars and shops. It even has a Target. The main grocery store down here seems to be Woolworths. Isn't that a grocery store from like the olden times? Like Breakfast at Tiffany's style or It's a Wonderful Life or something like that??? Anyways - it also has a nice river with a cool riverwalk that should be fun to run on. It has a beach area too about 30 min away by train from downtown but I have yet to explore that. It is also filled with lots of churches and parks and is a pretty pretty city...
Right now its Sunday morning at about 8:30 am - I already talked to the fam a bit - and once Tyler wakes up - I think we're going to go have breakfast at this cool place in the hills outside of the city. Exciting!

At the top of the world!

Thanks so much for the comments, people! You're the best! It definitely helps me in the blog writing so I don't feel like I'm just rambling to myself. haha!

So Day 2 of Australia was pretty busy. I started out by hiking down to the Opera House from Jill and Ruben's place. Being up close to it is definitely pretty cool. It's huge! And actually split up in to like 3 different bldgs. The surface is a sort of tiling that's all shiny and sparkly. I went inside to try to get a tour but the cheapest tour was $35 and included one or two of the concert halls...they weren't able to tell me which. So yeah - I decided not to do that. I mean a concert hall is a concert hall, right? I did learn later in the day though that the guy who designed the exterior of the opera house (some dutch guy i think?) had cost Australia so much money that they were giving him a really hard time at the completion of the exterior. So much so that he decided to leave the country and never come back. he never even actually saw it done supposedly. the interior supposedly doesn't match the exterior at all and is really ugly. or so i hear.

Anyways - after that I wandered around the harbor a bit and ate lunch in The Rocks neighborhood at a little pub type place. I had nachos but they were a bit weird with a very creamy nearly white guac on top and only white cheese instead of mexican style. from there i hiked up to the Harbor Bridge - the big bridge that you see in all the pics of Sydney (don't worry - I'll post some pics when I get to Tyler's). i started to walk across and at the first tower - there are towers at both ends - you could go up to the top. it gave the history of the bridge and stuff like that. it was pretty interesting - completed around 1932 during the depression in Australia but it helped create jobs when Sydney was at 33% unemployment. Yay - pretty crazy high! After going to the top of this tower which had really cool views of the city and the bridge and the opera house - i continued to walk across the bridge. they actually also sell these "bridge climb" tours which are actually walking across the TOP of the bridge arch connected to a harness. It sounded pretty exciting but cost around $180 so I decided against it. Oh well.

From the bridge - I walked over to Darling Harbor. This had sort of a Navy Pier-ish type feeling - with restaurants and gardens and a ferris wheel and stuff like that. I hung out in a coffee shop there for awhile and then went over to meet Jill and Ruben at the Shangri-La Hotel which had a bar on the top - floor 36. It had AMAZING views of the city and we even got a seat right on the Opera House side so we got to see the lights of the Opera House changing all night. Remember - its nearly winter here so when I went to meet them around 5 - it was already starting to get dark. Good thing I have a full day of light - haha!

After our drinks there - we headed back to the apt and Jill made some delicious Thai food and we hung out and it was tons of fun!

So yeah - basically in my 2 days of exploring Sydney - I've pretty much decided that it feels just like any US city. It feels about the size of San Fran and has lots of different neighborhoods and stuff like that. There's definitely not any culture shock here - not like Japan - haha!

So I'm headed out to explore now - possibly down to Bondi Beach to do some exploring....

In the beginning...

Yay - I made in to Australia! I figured that if I'm ever going to blog - this is probably the time to do it. So yeah - here I am - blogging.

I got here on Wednesday morning (Syndey time) after a flight from San Fran with Tyler. Being a Qantas imporant person, he got us free upgraded to "premium economy" which we figured would basically be like an exit row in coach. Nope. It was actually more like first class on a domestic flight so that was pretty exciting. We got our own little tvs, champagne while we were still on the runway, socks, big comfy blankets, pillows 3/4 of the normal size of pillows as opposed to the normal 1/4 size flight pillows, and eye covers for while we're sleeping. Plus we had a good bit of room! It was pretty exciting!

So then we landed around 6 am on Wednesday (yesterday), found Jill and Ruben's apt, and then started our exploring of Sydney! We hiked the 2 miles down to Central Quey (pronounced KEY). Walking through downtown was pretty neat - but it really felt like just about any city - except they drive on the other side of the road. We took a 30 minute ferry over from Pier 3 to the city of Manly. It was a little beach surfing type town. Jill had recommended a brewery called 4 Pines that we went to for lunch and then we did a bit of hiking around some of their nature preserves along cliffs and stuff like that. It was really pretty!

BTW - while I'm writing this - the Good Morning America type show of Australia is on and their interviewing a guy from Seattle about Men's Secrets on Dating... Random....

Anyways - back to yesterday - after exploring Manly for a few hours and seeing several very LARGE spiders along our path in webs (eek!) - we took the ferry back to Sydney. It was starting to get a bit chilly too - probably around 60 degrees and rainy. We did the walk back to Jill and Ruben's apt - wandering through some botanical gardens along the way. Ruben then met us for dinner and we went out for Thai food and a drink. It really felt like it could be back home. From the surface - there's really no difference... yet... We ended the night by dropping Tyler off at the airport and hanging out until Jill landed and then hanging out some more....

Today - I'm just getting ready to head out for my next adventure - Opera House? The Rocks neighborhood? The big bridge???