After dinner, I hopped on the train and took it to Sydney where I spent the night, so that I wouldn't have to take a 3:30am train by myself to the airport the next morning. A few hours of sleep later, I woke up to head to the airport to go to Adelaide! It was a very smooth flight and before I knew it, I was there. Adelaide is a really neat city, as it is a decent size and has some big buildings and a good amount going on, but it's not massive like Sydney. It is also surrounded by parks on all sides, which gives it a nice, fresh feel, and allows you to escape the chaotic-ness of city life whenever you like. I got semi lost going to find Jaci's place, but finally got in the right direction. While walking there, a bird swooped down from behind me and clawed me in the eye!! Needless to say, I wasn't overly happy, and I spent half of the day looking like I was crying. Luckily, I found Jaci soon after, and was so excited to see her that it didn't even matter.
Though it did a good amount of raining on Friday, it wasn't bad, and I spent some time shopping at Rundle Mall (this outdoor mall in Adelaide that is apparently always SUPER busy no matter what time of day) and most of the day just catching up with Jaci and meeting her friends. In the afternoon, we went to Central Market, which has the largest market in Australia (and maybe the southern hemisphere, though we're not positive). It was really cool and there was tons of fresh fruit, veggies, meat, nuts, and little shops throughout. I bought some strawberries and grapes and was quite thrilled. I really wish that we had a cool market like that close to us.. I think I would probably go there ALL the time. Since it was quite rainy, we went back to St. Mark's (where she lives) and hung out there. It's a residential college and it's really neat because it's this tight knit community where everyone knows each other and does everything together.. I also was very appreciative of the fact that they can get as much fresh fruit as they want with no cost whereas we have to pay $0.90 for each tiny, gross piece of fruit from our cafeteria.
After a chill night where we just hung around and talked, I got up and went for a run in the morning along the Torrens River which is right by where Jaci lives in North Adelaide. There was a nice trail that went alongside it, and it was a shady path that had tons of people running, walking, and biking on it. I would have loved to have had more time to explore it. I got back and showered, and then us and her three roommates went out to breakfast at this great cafe nearby. Afterwards, Jaci and I caught a bus to the Adelaide Hills, where we hiked up Mt. Lofty. At the summit of Mt. Lofty you get great views of Adelaide and the surrounding area. It was an awesome view, and we had a beautiful day. We decided to try hiking some trails in the area, and somehow got lost and ended up doing something completely different. Tired from the crazy hills and hour and a half later, we decided to retreat, and even though we didn't find the trail we wanted, it was still a nice afternoon. We went back to North Adelaide where we had dinner and spent some more time relaxing.
Sunday, I went to Kangaroo Island!! Though it was the one day that I wasn't with Jaci, it was definitely the coolest day of my trip, as Kangaroo Island is a very unique place. It took about 2.5 hours to get there via bus and ferry, and I was pretty tired from the early start to the day, but I definitely woke up as soon as I got there. KI is really neat because it is so isolated compared to most of Australia (minus the Outback of course), and there is only 1 person per square kilometer on the island. It is kind of like being in a natural zoo, as we saw many kangaroos hopping alongside (and across) the road, a few echidnas, lots of sheep, horses, and cows, many birds, and tons of seals. And they were all in the wild (and not brought over there or confined to an area... strictly them in their natural state)! It was great :)
Our first stop was Seal Bay, where we got to walk on the beach and see tons of seals. Apparently we were really lucky because a bunch of them just had babies, so we were able to see a few mothers with their pups too. On the boardwalk to the beach, there was a mom and baby on the side.. The mom yelled at us because I think we were too close for comfort. It was definitely interesting to see how protective they are. The beach was beautiful and it was neat to see a ton of seals just playing around. After Seal Bay we went to lunch, where I met this kid Ed from England, and we became buddies for the day. He's on a gap year (taking a year off between high school and college to travel), so he was by himself and was looking for some company as well. Lunch was good and we got some soup, bread, salads, and meat. Yummy.
After lunch, we had a 30 second (literally) drive to our next stop, which was a bird of prey show. There we were shown all sorts of birds of prey including owls, eagles, and kookaburras, which I got to hold! It was actually really cool and I learned a lot. We even saw the owl eat a fully mouse, and the eagle chomp on a wallaby leg... Delicious. After that show, we went to our next stop which was exploring in Flinders Chase National Park. While there, we went to the Remarkable Rocks, which were really beautiful and the same orange color as Uluru, and then Admirals Arch, which is huge and its this arch carved out by the water over time. There we saw many more seals, this time they were jumping around on rocks and playing in water. They were very entertaining to watch.
Finishing up Flinders Chase National Park, we were basically done with our journey. We got back to Penneshaw (which is the town that the ferry comes into), and I bought some hawaiian pizza. I was very excited because the only pizza in all of Wollongong is Dominos, and it just doesn't cut it. Ed and I hung out on the ferry and bus ride back to Adelaide and just chatted about life. I really enjoyed his company and was so glad that I found someone to spend time with on the trip. I got back into Adelaide pretty late, which concluded my trip there. It was a really good weekend and great to see Jaci again. I don't have anything too exciting planned this week, so it should be interesting to see where it takes me.
Random Sidenotes:
1. Computer paper is sized differently here.. I came with folders from home and all of the paper that I've printed out and gotten in classes are too tall and hang out over the tops
2. There are switches on all outlets (called 'power points'), so even after you plug something in, you need to remember to turn the outlet on
3. The fire alarm goes off in our building ALL the time and is quite deafening. I learned last week that their fire department is called the fire brigade
4. Everyone associates Fosters with Australia, but it isn't on the menu pretty much anywhere here
5. If you're going to call someone you say that you're going to phone them, and cell phones are just referred to as mobiles
the rest of the WORLD calls the fire department the fire brigade... learned that from watching that show on the osbourne family...
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