We have been surprised by how much Australia feels, well, familiar. This is our 6th continent visited and it is really interesting on how similar it is to North America. We have spent a lot of time in Italy, France and Spain and we have gotten very comfortable living in Europe. We know how to get around on transit, drive the roads when needed, shop for food, and order in restaurants… But it never really feels like America. It isn’t just the language. We also have been to English speaking countries like England and Ireland. They still seem very foreign to us.
Australia doesn’t give us that vibe. Yes, there are still cultural differences, but the similarities seem to be much greater. We seem to know what is going on here more than when we are in other countries. That doesn’t mean we want to live here forever… We could live in many many countries that are not as familiar and easy. We still like traveling and enjoy being in places that feel like home…. and places that feel exotic. We aren’t really looking for a new home (Meg says: maybe we are? US is kinda f’d up right now, not the most pleasant place to claim as home)…. we are fine continuing on as nomads.
One day, we took the tram line out to the beach. We walked around the seaside town of Glenelg, had lunch and checked out the Southern Ocean. It reminded us a lot of some of the beach towns of Southern California. As usual, there were paths along the coastline and I really wish I had my bicycle.
We also of course checked out the attractions in Adelaide. Lots of free stuff including the botanical gardens, art museums, and history museums. The art we have seen in all the Australian museums is top notch. They have some European artists but we were mostly impressed by the quality of the Australian art, both Aboriginal and western influenced. Near the botanical garden, we checked out the Australian wine exhibits at the Wine Center and paid for a wine flight. That got us thinking about getting out of town to see the Australian wine country. We decided we needed to rent a car for a couple of days even though gas is getting expensive because of Trump’s (stupid as F) war in Iran.
We drove to a couple of different regions and the wine varieties were varied because of the differences in micro-climates and terroir. It gets hot here but they also had some colder weather varieties. I was mostly interested in the Shiraz and was not disappointed. We also drove to the lookout on the top of Mt. Lofty. Only 710 meters high but we could see over the entire city and see the coastline. We also checked out some small towns including the German town of Hahndorf for lunch one day and the wine town of Tanunda the other day. Sometimes it is really nice to get out of the city and it is worth renting a car.
Australian food isn’t vastly different than American food. We have been finding international food (like Korean, Italian, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, etc…) everywhere and the quality has been similar to what we have seen in Europe. One thing that we have been enjoying is Australian Pub food – including chicken parmigiana. These seems to be on every Australian Pub menu, although they usually call it Chicken Parmi (and they are usually huuuuge!). It isn’t quite the same as Italian chicken parm, but we still have eaten a lot of it. The other things we’ve seen on a lot of pub menus since we have been in New Zealand and Australia is fish and chips, schnitzel (schnitty), spag bol (spaghetti with meat sauce) steak and chips (fries), and meat pies. We have had a lot of good pies…. and some that weren’t so good. The specialty in Adelaide is called a “pie floater”. A layer thick pea soup under the pie. It was OK, but I am going to stick with my pie not floating.
In Adelaide, we stayed in the North Adelaide neighborhood. It had enough grocery stores and restaurants in the hood but it was also close to downtown. I recommend our Airbnb.
We are now on our way to our 5th Australian state- Queensland. Adelaide has been fun but we need some time to slow down and hopefully get rid of Meg’s crutches. We are going to stay in Brisbane for a whole month to get a much better idea of what it is really like to live in Australia. Yep, we typically travel much faster than that but we keep talking about slowing down and this is a great place to give long stays another try. I don’t think we will be bored in Brisbane.