Adelaide
I’ve spent the day wandering around Adelaide, which is very cute. Although lots of things seem to be closed on saturdays, which is a bit weird. This may also be the only city I’ve been to that has more indie cinemas than regular multiplexes. The city has lots of open green spaces, although I have yet to go to any of the larger ones that surround the outside of the city. It also has some lovely preserved architecture, particularly in the east end section of town. Got brunch at a ‘New York’ coffee-house. At least I had a (sort-of) bagel, which I haven’t had in ages. Then I burned my latest batch of photos, although no computers here seem to have disk drives, so I don’t know when I’ll get those posted. I also decided to look around for a winter coat, since buying one would be about the same as shipping my coat from the US. Anyways, I walked into Target and found a black wool, lined pea coat on the first rack on sale. I rock. It fits well, and even if it isn’t quite as long (or hooded) like my other one, it’ll still help keep me warm here. And I don’t think it is too fancy to take hiking.
Went to the South Australia art museum, which was surprisingly lovely. It was arranged in a chronological timeline, so – Colonial Tasmania, Victoria in the 1890s, Australia in the 1950s, modern art, etc. The modern art room had a giant neon green rhino sticking out of the wall. It was awesome. Anyways – it was lovely to see lots of colonial/victorian paintings of the Aussie landscape. And at the end, they had about a dozen works by Rodin (my favorite)! And then the special exhibition was egyptian stuff from the louvre, but it was expensive, and I’ve seen the stuff from the British museum, so I skipped it.
Next I went to the South Australia museum, which I seem to remember Bill Bryson writing about a special thing there called spriggina – but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Anyhoo – it had the requisite dead animals, a room on the opals from coober-pedy, the second largest surviving gold nugget, a room on the 1967 aboriginal referendum (getting rid of the racist language in the constitution), some aboriginal artifacts, and an exhibit on Mawson’s antarctic explorations.
Anyways – I came into this internet cafe, hoping to upload photos, but no luck here. Oceans 13 doesn’t come out till next week, and the post office is closed, so… I think I might head home and do some reading. Oh – I’m in a new time zone now – 1.5 hours ahead of where I was. I think I’m going into Port Adelaide tomorrow for the markets, and the maritime museum. There’s a big cabaret festival going on here, but I don’t think I can afford to go. After that; the zoo, monarto wildlife park and Warrawong sanctuary (there are about 5 wildlife parks around here – so I’m trying to choose a couple).
Tags: Travel
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