First week in Adelaide

We have had a lot of experiences in our first week. We have gotten lost and found new things.  We have searched for wildlife and found them.  We have wondered about animals, building names, road rules, and slang native to Australia (thanks Google!). We have watched sunsets at the beach and watched a rainbow stretch into the South Ocean during a rainy squall.  We have struggled to understand Australian English and struggled to be understood as well.  We have come to agree that coffee culture here lives up to the hype.  We have found the wrong and now the right grocery stores for our needs.  We have experienced several things we haven't done without masks since the pandemic, including watching a film in the movie theater and walking in the packed mall on a weekend day.  We have tasted (and loved) the local wines.  We have discovered that this Mediterranean climate works well for most of us, but requires a lot more layered clothing than we are used to.  We have learned about stereotypes of Americans and Australians, finding truths in both of them.  We have kept busy and learned a lot. We aim to continue to catch the sunset at the beach as much as we can, even if the water is frigid.  The boys don't seem to mind.

On this rainy Saturday we drove down to McLaren Vale wine region to try to outrun the rain.  We drove to the beach, played at a playground until the rain drove us inland to the d'Arenberg winery to visit the well regarded wines and beautiful "rubics cube" style building.

Today (Sunday) I met up with my running connection, Annaliis.  She came to Columbus a few years ago to run the marathon, and met up with one of my running buddies, Emma.  Emma connected us, and now Annaliis has adopted me into her trail running ultra community!  (So far I'm resisting her efforts to get me to run an ultra).  Today we did a lovely 5 miler in the hills with a few friends, and I had total flashbacks to living in the SF Bay area!  We had a great run, and they answered all my random questions about Australian traffic rules and health care issues!  We have a family brunch planned next weekend so I feel 100% adopted :)

In the afternoon we were hosted by my collaborator, Sharon, to explore the botanic garden near downtown.  We enjoyed chatting with Sharon about politics, history, wildlife, and more.  Despite having 14k+ steps, the boys had more energy to run around the gardens.  We saw a pelican, various ducks, cockatoos, and more lorikeets, plus several species we couldn't identify.  It was a full afternoon, and the end of a very full week.