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.