adelaide was fun

on friday morning i got up FAR TOO EARLY and got ready to catch a plane to adelaide, where mum lives, from sydney, where i live. ive been to brisbane and canberra, and lived in melbourne and darwin, but ive never before set foot in SA, WA, or TAS, so a trip to adelaide to visit mum was exciting for 2 reasons - i get to see my mummy, AND i get to see a new place.

and boy was it different.

mum lives about 20min from the airport. we drove through THE HEART OF ADELAIDE to get to her apartment (she lives IN the city. who actually lives IN sydney-city?), and it looks like the suburbs of sydney. there are no tall buildings. there are no people frantically rushing to get places. the streets are a hundred miles wide. and THE WHOLE CITY is only about a mile across. the mind boggles.


friday consisted mostly of me trying to wrap my head around a city that really isnt a city. i slept a lot, the kid watched a movie, and hubby went for a walk. when mum got home we went around the corner to a pub for dinner - a first for my man. he's been in australia for over 4 years and it was the first time he's eaten pub food. he DIDNT have steak and chips, so i wasnt sure if it really counted, but chicken schnitzel and chips is the next best thing i guess.


saturday was a big day. we walked to the central markets, which were, again, mind boggling. there are markets in sydney, but not like that. flemington and paddington are NOT like the central markets. ive never seen so many green-grocer stalls in one place! and all of them had different prices. broccoli ranged from 1.99-4.50/kg, and everything else was similarly different.

from the central markets we went to the tram stop, where we waited for a tram (a first for me. never been on one before.. sydney light-rail doesnt really count), and hopped over to rundle mall (similar to sydney's pitt st mall) FOR FREE. travel terrace to terrace (one end of the city to the other), by tram, IS FREE. FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT. as in not paying any money. to catch public transport.

rundle mall was, as i said, much like pitt st mall, for those who know sydney. one block of the street, paved and closed off, with shops on either side, stalls in the middle. it was fun. the fact that spotlight and lincraft are RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER made me twitch a little. (i cant even get to one by myself. its either 40minutes on public transport and buy food out, or find someone to take me. and i cant go to both. theres none near each other.) the two storey target (admittedly not QUITE in the mall proper) caught me off guard. (two storeys? what is it - myer? and ARGH! they have different clothes in different states! i only saw about 4 things they have in the target here!!!!) and harris scarfe.. ive never seen anything like it. (i want to live there. all the kitchen things.... mum bought me some stainless steel measuring cups and spoons, because the plastic ones we have keep breaking.)

we stopped at hungry jacks (burger king) for lunch, then continued our walk round to mum's work, at uniSA. which is right next to adelaide uni. the two universities, presumably rivals, are so close you cant tell where one stops and the next begins. i still cant quite comprehend that. after a quick look at her office, we went back outside and continued down the road, past the unis on one side and the hospital on the other, and walked down to the river. where we saw a duck crossing sign, which made me giggle, and then 4 ducks crossing the road in a line, which made my eyes fall out of my head. they reached the road, stopped, looked around for a second in unison, then jumped out into the street as the cars stopped for them.

we went all the way down to the river, and sat for a while in the shade, watching the ducks, and the swans, and the pelicans, and trying to avoid the seagulls. the ducks also watched me. it was a bit creepy. critterbug ran around a bit and came FAR too close to the waters edge for my liking a few times, but he had a great time trying to catch daddy by surprise and push him over. didnt work. daddy ended up catching the bug by surprise and tossing him in the air. many many times. he just didnt learn. there was MUCH delighted screaming and laughter. the ducks watched it all.

when my butt started to go numb from sitting still for too long, and my legs started itching, reminding me of my grass allergy (not grass seeds, GRASS. if it touches me i itch like mad), i enlisted my mum and husband to pull me upright, and we started to walk along the river towards king william street, taking more pictures of the interesting ducks along the way. one of which followed me for a while before hubby scared it off for me. at one point hubby ran up ahead for me, to catch up with the pelicans and take pictures, since they had been too far away to get clear shots, and spaceghost is making me very very slow and i couldnt catch up to them.

we also got to see a bunch of ducklings, and a couple of signets: there were two ducks with about 9 or so little fluffballs following them around, up on the banks; and trying to sleep in the shade of a boat, a few feet away from the two beautiful black swans who were presumably the parents, were two fuzzy grey signets. i love baby animals.

when we reached king william, the plan was to walk to the nearest tram stop, catch the tram back to rundle, and walk back to mums apartment, but after being out and about for nearly 5 hours, by the time we reached the street the tram was on, i was so exhausted (stopped to rest about a zillion times on the slight uphill walk from the river to the tram) that my pleas of "ill be fine in a minute, after all its 15 minutes of sitting before the tram gets here" were over-ridden, and we got a taxi back to mum's. where she showed me how to do silverside, and i promptly fell asleep until dinner time.


sunday was a lazier day. we were going to go church, but mum wasnt sure where the nearest one was, or what time services were on. she walked up to the nearest anglican while i got the kid and myself ready, but it had started by the time she got there and didnt have a second service, and it was further away than it looked. so she backtracked and checked out the two lutherans nearer to her place. both had services at 9 and 11. the 9 had already started, and if we went to the 11, we wouldnt have time to do much else for the rest of the day, before we had to leave. but now she knows where they are, and what time the services are, so hopefully she'll be going to church soon.

so after hubby got back from his walk around adelaide, we all headed out again. we went to tandanya, which was wonderful, and walked around the street market up by rundle mall for a little while, then we went to a cafe/restaurant for lunch. the food was good, when it came, but the waiter got two of our orders wrong. hubby was given fish instead of chicken (which he said was fine and ate anyway), and i was given pasta with some sort of tomato sauce (which normally would have been fine, but the pregnancy, it does weird things to me, and merely looking at it made me feel ill) instead of the bacon/mushroom/cream i'd ordered, so he had to go get it all over again. i dont think mum will be going back there. she was not impressed. like i said, the food was good, but the service.. not so much of the brilliant.

by this time it was about 3ish, so we headed back to mum's and after an icecream, predictably, i had a nap while the kid watched a movie. at about 5 we called a cab, and headed to the airport, where our flight was delayed by half an hour, because the plane we would be leaving on was delayed coming INTO adelaide from sydney. not to worry, it gave us time to eat at the airport, since virgin blue dont give you food unless you pay extra. mum looked close to tears by the time we boarded, but we'll be seeing her on 2 weeks when she comes up to sydney for a conference.


i liked adelaide.. the whole place FEELS different to sydney. there wasnt the constant rush, and it was nice to be able to see the sky. im not really a big city kind of person. i look forward to hubby getting a position somewhere a bit further out. and he doesnt want to live in sydney either. he's lived in a slow desert town in california most of his life, and i think working in LA didnt help much. i could do adelaide. where the city isnt a city. and theres green everywhere. definitely want to go back and visit mum again, though that wont be any time soon, i fear. not with the ever expanding sprog stopping me from flying.

ah well. the weekend was good.

and now i have a ton of washing to do, as soon as it stops looking drizzly.