Well, after an awesome three months I finally parted ways with my old buddy Australia. It was a shock to find myself in LAX, surrounded by people with American accents. I flew a lot in Australia, where security is pretty easy going, so I was also a little unprepared from the ‘warm’ welcome I got from TSA.
Aside from nicer airport security personnel, some things I think the US should adopt from Australia are:
- All water fountains also have spouts for filling up water bottles.
- Plastic bags cost 15 cents at grocery stores.
- Incorporation of pumpkin into almost every dish - pumpkin soup, salads and pizza are widely available.
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| Some opalized pliosaur bone pics I got from the internets. Looks way cooler and shinier in person, especially when seeing an entire articulated skeleton of this stuff. |
Adelaide really grew on me, and I’ll miss the city but especially all the friends I made there. It’s the kind of big city where you only know 30 people, but you keep on running into them around town. In my last visit to the Museum of South Australia, I found a really awesome exhibit I had somehow missed on my previous trips. It contained a pliosaur skeleton – but get this, it’s opalized! So not only is it a kick ass swimming dinosaur bones, but it’s all colorful and shiny! I was very sad to say goodbye to the Central Market as well. So much yummy food, cheese and bread. And unlike some farmer’s markets in the US, it’s much, much cheaper than the grocery store.
My last week in Adelaide was marked by even more delicious food and more liberal consumption of local beers and wines than usual. Some friends won the weekly Thursday Meat Raffle at the Uni pub, so we grilled up all the food the following weekend. That’s right, I said Meat Raffle. Once a week, everyone at the bar buys raffle tickets in the hope of taking home a giant Styrofoam tray of assorted (and sometimes unidentifiable) meat. Of particular interest to me, though, was the presence at this BBQ of large chunks of grilled haloumi, which my faithful blog followers will know as my most recent obsession. The chunks were at least one inch cubes, and were accompanied on a skewer with a delightful combination of cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and basil. That weekend, I also managed to fit into my busy schedule a short yet thorough inspection of several new Adelaide pubs.
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| The bruschetta |
Early in the week, Amy managed to bake me a surprise apple pie. The real feat was not baking the delicious pie, as she is a very accomplished baker/cook, but that I was literally sitting ten feet away the whole time and that it was still a surprise. I don’t know if this is a testament to her sneakiness or my general state of obliviousness. Thursday night, my supervisor Mick took a bunch of us out to a really nice dinner in Glenelg. Of course, I had to sample the restaurant’s grilled halloumi selection, as well as an assortment of wine and pizza. Friday was a delightful day. Mick and I worked on our CMT paper for most of the day. We actually managed to get a fair amount done, despite my best efforts to distract both him and myself with random comments and observations. We then retired to the Uni pub so I could bid a fond farewell over a couple pints to the oft-frequented establishment. Amy then really outdid herself with a super yummy last supper of bruschetta and grilled haloumi. The next morning, I woke up really early, and Amy dropped me off at the airport. And that's the end of that story.
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| Haloumi - yum yum |
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| The pie was as delicious as it was cute. |
