Adelaide - Day Two

On Friday morning, Sept. 26th, I went to work with Sarah at the University of Adelaide. She works for the National Wine Centre as an events coordinator. We took the city tram (little commuter train on tracks) to the northern portion of the city where the university is. Adelaide has three universities, The University of Adelaide (UA), the University of South Australia (UniSA), and Flinders University. UA and UniSA are intertwined and you can't tell which one starts where. But the campuses are awesome with beautiful buildings and architecture. Once we got off the tram we had to walk through Rundle Mall, a huge outdoor mall. Stores I ain't never heard of. But they did have a Target. No Wal-Mart.

So as Sarah went to work, I got to visit several of the museums which are free! All museums are free in Australia. So, the first one I went to was the South Australian Museum which houses several natural history exhibits and an awesome Aboriginal exhibit. The Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery has one of the most extensive collections of Aboriginal artifacts in really good condition and the displays are so remarkable. They've organized the artifacts by function so you have displays by hunting, fire, water, string, food, play, medicine, and so forth. Norman Tindale at the age of 20 in the 1930s traveled the whole continent to visit with every Aboriginal Tribe he could and was sometimes the first white man to be seen by the tribes. He took pictures and collected artifacts. I really enjoyed the exhibit and pretty much spent as much time in this section of the museum and forgot about the other stuff in it. I had to make may way down to the Art Gallery of South Australia before meeting Sarah and Lucretia (her office mate) for lunch.




The Art Gallery of South Australia was fantastic but I must admit I breezed through it. One wing was entirely Australian work from settlement to modern times. The other wing contained collections from around the world. I had some favorite pieces but I really wasn't allowed to take photos.








I met up with the girls for lunch and we went down to this fantastic cafe called Aroma. I ate a delicious combo platter of spinich ravioli and sweet potatoe salad. Yum! After lunch, Sarah recommended I go to the Botanical Gardens to take a nap.











That sounded like a fabulous idea so I did. The Botanical Gardens were fantastic and it seems to be a favorite spot for students and city dwellers to hang out, have a picnic, have a nap, and relax. The grounds are very spacious and the vegetation was beautiful. So I took Sarah's advice and had a lovely nap. Once I woke up I roamed around the gardens for a few more minutes and went to explore this city a bit more.

Now, you know that everybody drives on the "wrong" side of the road here, but it's more of a hassle as a pedestrian for me. I kept looking at the wrong side before crossing the street. Luckily, I followed the age old rule we learned since we were all two and always looked both ways...even though I mistakenly looked to my left first instead of my right. So I walked around the city a bit before heading back to the museum. Sarah said I had to go back to the SAM to look at the fossils. And I'm glad I did. They had, which I think might be the only one in the world, an opalized dinosaur.

Yes, opalized. It was the coolest thing ever. The museum also had some of the oldest fossils in the world! I'm also glad I went back to check out their minerals and meteorites exhibit. And in between there the fossils and the minerals was a fantastic exhibit paying tribute to one of Australia's great explorers, Sir Douglas Mawson. This dude is hard core. He pretty much trekked across Antarctica alone after his team died to try to find the south magnetic pole. Which he did, and in the process published a great deal of data on the biology and geology of Antarctica.

So once I got to do all that I went over to pick up Sarah so we could go meet her friend and Boone for dinner at Central Market. THE Central Market. Central Market back home doesn't hold a candle to this one. It's the biggest one in the world. It's on one whole city block. And its beautiful. So many food vendors. We ate at the Asian food hall and I really can't tell you what I had, because I really didn't know what it was. Fish with some sauce and it was fantastic. Once we were done we went to a function that the Roller Derby girls were helping out with. It was the kick-off to Feast 2008 a Gay and Lesbian festival that starts in November and the girls were there to pass out programs. It didn't take long which was good because I was sooo exhausted. I had one beer and I was ready to pass out. We have a big day tomorrow. It's gonna be a great one...can't wait to fill you guys in!!

P.S. You can view all my photos for this day here:

Sept. 26th-Day Two