Friday, January 11, 2013

Another couple of days in Adelaide

I left off telling you that I was going to go to the Central Market yesterday.  I enjoyed it very much.   It reminded me of Pike's Place in Seattle.  I bought some fruit and had it for lunch in Victoria Square.  I didn't quite make it to Chinatown, I think it's on the far side of the market.  After my lunch I needed some apartment supplies.  At the supermarket I was able to get a cheap saucepan and fry pan as well as some $1 utensils and cheap plates.  They're definitely a sad lot of cooking supplies but at least I have something.

In the afternoon I had a meeting with Colin who is the Director of Heinz in Australia.  He's a nice guy and was telling me all about Adelaide and about the school down there.  It seems much more relaxed than Pittsburgh so I'm excited for school to start and to meet everyone.

After my meeting with Colin, I decided to go back to the market to buy dinner.  Since it was the end of the day, a lot of the vegetables were on sale.  I spent $1.50 on a couple of handfuls of green beans and a red pepper which they call capsicums or something like that here.  I also got some fresh pasta, sauce, and sausage.  I came home and cooked them all up, it made for a nice dinner.

At 7:30 there was an urbanest outing to the Rhino Room which is a comedy club here in Adelaide.  Normally Thursday nights are new material nights and there's an urbanest discount, but last night was the first heat of an Australia-wide comedy competition called Raw.  There were 9 hopeful comedians who each did 5 minute stand-up routines.  I went with Jon (whose role at urbanest is like an RA), Jess who is from Darwin, and Becky from New Zealand.  I had a Breezer at the bar which is the rum equivalent to a Smirnoff Ice and is called an alcopop here in Australia.  Some of the comedians were good, some of the jokes were too Australian for me, I didn't really understand the context.  A Bogan is like a redneck though.  The girl who won did a pretty good job and the MC was great so we had a good time.  It's really nice that urbanest has nightly events because it gives us a chance to get to know some of the people in the building.

This morning I woke up a little bit late, I guess that means my jetlag is completely gone.  I spent a good chunk of the day at the South Australian Museum.  It's nice, but small.  It reminded my of the Field Museum, which is my least favorite museum in Chicago.  Too many artifacts and not enough interaction.  I spent a really long time in the Aboriginals exhibit though, it was really neat to learn about the native Australian cultures.  After the museum, I stopped at home to get my passport so I could withdraw money from the bank and it turned out my new (pink) debit card had arrived!  So I went to the bank and got my PIN set up and took out some cash for my trip tomorrow.  I also stopped at Cheap as Chips (a dollar store kind of place but nothing is $1) and got a pillow, a bath mat, a laundry basket, and rubbish bin bags for the apartment.  I came home and did a load of laundry.  Cricket was on TV while my laundry was in so I watched the Australia vs Sri Lanka game although I had no clue what was going on.

This evening's activity was a free barbie (barbeque) hosted by the urbanest staff.  There were sausages and they used sliced white bread instead of buns.  I got to meet Rick, Wei, and Gunawan.  Rick is from Adelaide and getting his PhD in Aerospace engineering.  Wei is from Malaysia and Gunawan is from Indonesia.  They're a couple and are both at Le Cordon Bleu, he's studying patisserie and she is studying restaurant management.  We had a great time hanging out on the balcony.

Now I'm all packed for my two week adventure and ready to head out in the morning!
Good Night Mates!

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