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| Erin's South Australia Journals - 12-04-02 Today we got up around 9 (another late night), and found that our host had already left. We made a few more phone calls before we left, signed her guest book, and paid for the phone use before leaving her key on the counter and heading out. We'd really appreciated staying with our host, but were definitely ready to get out of her hair! We drove into downtown Adelaide, which I'd only seen briefly from Andrew's car on our first day here. Glenn had been through town on his car search day, but for me this was the city-seeing day. We stopped in at the STA travel agency in town, as this was the same agency we'd used to book all our flights in the states. The agent there was very nice and helped do a little research on Fiji, as we're needing to pin down where and when we'll go there so our friends & family back home can book their flights and hopefully find a package deal to the same hotel we pick. The prices she quoted us from Australia were just as expensive as flying from the US! We took some brochures and her card, but we think we can find a better deal by booking ourselves. After this we checked out the pedestrian shopping district along Rindle Street. There are at least 12 separate 'arcades' or malls along this tiny stretch of road, and we barely browsed a tiny percentage of them. We saw some local schoolkids performing some swing dancing and Christmas carols in the square, for the amusement of the elderly apparently. They looked bored in their exuberance...in a way only early teens can. We stopped in a food court nearby for lunch, as the kids' exertions made us hungry. And it was almost 2pm. We had an invitation from our friend Andrew to join him and Kylie at his house for a BBQ this afternoon, and to spend the night as well. We picked up some coolers along the way at a bottle shop (they have drive-thru booze barns all over here, yet the drunk driving penalties are just as severe as at home!), and stopped off briefly for a panoramic view of the city at Windy Point. Arriving at the house around 2:30, we were greeted by Andrew, Kylie and Andrew's parents. They have a huge beautiful home up in the hills near Adelaide, and we were delighted with all the birds darting around the several feeders off the deck. We even fed some of the local kookaburras by hand (the laughing birds associated with Australia). After a couple of hours of socializing over munchies (and a quick booking on the internet for our ferry ride to Kangaroo Island on Friday), dinner was served - quite a formal affair, making us almost uncomfortable! Andrew had BBQ'd some wonderful steaks and Kylie's Asian chicken rolls, while Andrew's mom had prepared a delicious potato bake and salad. Then we had fruit and cheese for dessert, leaving us totally stuffed. While we rolled our bellies out of the chairs debating what to do next, Andrew's parents took off to see a house their daughter is thinking of buying. We couldn't agree on an activity, so we decided to please both men and women by doing both. The jigsaw puzzle we girls picked out was a tough one of several English pub and shop fronts, while the men took out 20 Questions and we exercised our brains with the embarrassingly Americanized questions. We finally looked at our watches when the puzzle was getting to a difficult stage, and realized that it was after 1am! Time really DOES fly when you're having fun! So we retired quickly to the gracious guest room we'd been given, after saying goodbye to Kylie in case we missed her in the morning. |
| We got to hold a variety of Australian wildlife at Paul's Place on Kangaroo Island |