final thoughts on adelaide

                                                                                    I have yet to meet another American since arriving 

new bike

the barossa valley

in Australia. Surprising? A little, however I had prepared myself to run into someone group of tools from god knows where doing a victory lap partying their way through Australia. Luck was on my side as that group did not exist within my small sample.  I’ve been staying in Adelaide for the last 3 days nights at a hostel called Annie’s Place.  Adelaide is Australia’s fifth biggest city of just over a million people. It’s a brilliantly designed grid city one mile by one mile surrounded on all sides by parks, creating a very clear strip of green separating expansive suburbia from and city. Adelaide’s real claim to fame is being the festival capital of Australia. There is some sort of festival always going on.  The start of the Tour down under and a lesser version of Oktoberfest known as (insert German word starting with sch, a few more letters and ending with fest) were both cause for celebration. I went to the tour fest, the German booze fest charged admission only to then charged for beer, blasphemy.  The hostel, my first to have stayed at, was something else. The only way to describe this place is if an equally diverse but much lesser athletic version of Olympic village (ie: coaches, trainers, rifleman, cooks, and shot putters) all lived in a Berkeley coop.  It was an awesome old building from the late 1800’s, high ceilings, a courtyard out back and was the only dinning room (no complaints).  Centrally located, I walked around Adelaide a lot. My favorite place was as you could expect, the Central market.  Lots of local produce, and because it’s truly summer here, everything is ripe. The other part of the market that interested me was all the local fish and local meats. You want some pheasant, lamb, the best bacon I’ve ever had (sorry whole foods) you can find it here.  A short list of the people I’ve hung out with in the hostel: 2 Welsh, 3 Germans, 2 Swiss, 2 Dutch, 1 from Belgium, 1 English, and a handful of aussies. Take a guess who was the hardest to understand.  If you guessed the two Welsh boys then you were right. Its like a faster slurred version on proper England English.  The other Europeans like talking to Americans because of our slow drawn out version of English.  My last night in Adelaide (1/14/12- Im a few days behind due to internet access) I did an organized pub crawl set up by a few of the local hostels. You paid 13 dollars for them to take you around to 4 pubs throughout the night with a free drink at each pub.  Nothing like rolling from bar to bar with around 75 people representing at least 15 countries.  Our pub-going-experience is exactly how every session of the U.N. (and congress) should end, international diplomacy would greatly benefit. The Pub-crawl focused around a street called hindley street, where every stop along the 3 or 4 blocks is either a nightclub, pub, pokies (sort of like slots), or a grease pit.  Having never stumbled down Bourbon Street closer to dawn than dusk I can only imagine this was akin.  The drinking age is 18 (when enforced), no last call, and a heavy dose of English and Irish internationals ready to fight, 2 am on Hindley street lies somewhere between a shit show and anarchy. No complaints there. I had a great time hanging out with the English man and Two Dutch girls from my hostel.   Don’t come to Australia if you want to just drink.  The average beer has an alcohol content of coors with twice the cost (however you don’t tip here) and a standard drink is about 2/3 the size it is stateside.  That means 2/3 of what we count is a shot is a shot here.   I have yet to wrap my head around paying about 10 times for a beer that is worse than my Ipa.  165 lbs here I come.  I finally found a bike. I wanted an older road bike with gears to really be able to cover some ground out here in wine country without the drawbacks of shocks and big tires.  This task turned out to be harder than I thought.  Single speed conversions and shitty plastic mountain bikes seemed all the rage on gumtree (craigslist). I eventually found a hipster sled for the right price and will fulfill my needs, those being rolling hills and commuting to work.  A gold Super Elliot (Australian made) single-speed rebuild.  The beauty of it is I will be able to sell it for the same price if not more when I’m done, Old bikes like that do not loose there value nearly as quick.  I purchased the bike from a Guy named Guy who has two young kids.  He helped me fix something that broke on the bike within the first km and we hung out for a while, he has offered me a place to stay if im ever back in Adelaide and his help if I ever really need it. So breath easy mom. I’m now out in the town of tanunda, a German influenced version of Calistoga right in the heart of the Barossa valley (Australia’s Napa valley).  4000 people, 3 pubs, 4.5 km from St Halletts, 30 cellar doors within 5 km, a market, a farmers market, and a branch of my bank.  What more do I need aside from a few friends and surf (I will surf Bells).  I just got into this town, spent the day relaxing and sleeping, tomorrow some wine tasting with a guy from Sweden working his first vintage and two aussies who know the area.  Also meet a Japanese guy who is studying to get his 4th sommelier level.  Ideally I’ll do some tasting with him.  Internet at this hostel is primitive in that it costs money, perhaps after 3 weeks of living here I’ll be able to talk my way into getting it always.  Unfortunately only 3 of the St halletts interns are going to be living here out of 11 (two unfortunately didn’t get visas). The verdict is still out on how that will all play out.  The hostel on the other hand is beautiful and about as close to mainstream as you would want to be.   I’ll post another post in two days or especially upon finding cheap internet.