The Torrens

Saturday February 11, 2012

After a couple days in Adelaide, we FINALLY got power. It was this whole confusing battle between us, the building coordinator, and the power company, but yesterday night the lights finally went on.

We met up with Justin, Nadia, and some of their ID friends for drinks at Ed Castle, that reminded me so much of Heart & Crown in the Byward Market back in Ottawa. It had a very unassuming front, but seemed to be huge inside, with a big enclosed patio out back.

Apparently cider is a big thing here. You won’t see me complaining, I love cider, but every single person at the table was drinking cider. And you can order it by the “jug”, which is the exact same as ordering beer by the pitcher in Canada. His friends were a hoot. We had the obligatory “you say tomato, I say tomato” debate, while actually talking about tomatoes, as well as ketchup vs. tomato sauce, fries vs. crisps, and the importance of sweet chili sauce.

Everyone down here is also apparently fluent in sarcasm. Not like back home. This is full on “I-don’t-know-whether-to-believe-you-and-be-scared-out-of-my-mind-about-Australian-wildlife-or-not.” They kept on telling us about drop bears and land sharks and jellyfish. They were almost all half truths and they were scaring Ali silly. Luckily I’m usually pretty good with detecting sarcasm, so while it was quite difficult with them, I seemed to have a general sense of what it was they were making up. I still laughed my ass off though.

Today we went for a walk by the Torrens, the river running through Adelaide. It’s so

close to our apartment I can’t believe we didn’t do it sooner. First of all, the University of Adelaide campus is gorgeous. It’s all old, carved, stone and brick buildings, with columns and all that jazz. It’s not like Canada where you have to worry about crazy weather fluctuations and then design for that. Right beyond that campus, you find yourself at the prettiest little river getaway with so many different kinds of birds wandering around. Magpies, black swans, parrots, seagulls, birds with mohawks, birds that couldn’t stop clucking their heads, pelicans, birds with feathers sticking up the top of their heads, and what we believe to be kiwi birds. From the rivers, you can barely tell that you’re literally a block away from the city.

Courtyard at University of Adelaide

The Torrens

Black Swan

I think we’re going to try and go for a run on the Torrens tomorrow morning. We just need to remember to keep left. I’ve been running into people all over the place just because I’m used to passing them on the right, and they’re used to passing people on the left, so when we start walking straight into each other, neither of us knows what to do because we both believe that the other person is the one that should be moving aside. It's a bit of a problem...