I have been in Adelaide for twelve days, relaxing, catching up with friends, making new ones, getting lost, zooming around on pushbikes, and, most of all, spending Christmas 2010 with my new Australian family. Twelve days is too much to cover individually right now, and there were a few spent in total laziness, so let me just cover a few of the more memorable moments.
I have stayed here with Leigh Goldsworthy, a guy my family and I met in Mexico. He was sailing with his dad and brother, Colin and Josh, aboard their sailboat. Leigh was 21 at the time, his brother 16. We met up with Leigh again by chance in Guatemala and traveled with him for a little while. This solidified our friendship and is what prompted him to call my family up when he was traveling through Victoria, BC this last summer. He came over for dinner and learned of my plans to travel Australia. With an open invitation to visit, I made plans to spend Christmas in Adelaide with him and his family. So, here I am, housesitting with Leigh for friends of his who are on holiday.
I arrived on the 17th and spent my first few days following Leigh and Josh to their numerous sports engagements around the hills. They were all the season finals so we inevitably went to the pub afterwards to celebrate a season well-played. I spent too much money.
Leigh's Dad lives in a beautiful house up in the hills and spends his days building small planes and flying around the country. Leigh is also learning to fly, as is the Canadian woman, Anna, staying with Colin for the time. When I called up Anna one day to see if she wanted to show me around town, she countered with a better offer. Colin wanted to take me flying! I lost no time accepting his generous offer and was very excited to hop into Anna's car early one morning to make the beautiful hour's drive through the hills to the hangers. We saw wild kangaroos, pointed out lovely little towns throughout the hills, and kept our eyes peeled for any other wild animals.
Once at the hangers, we got the planes ready, saw a deadly redback spider nest, eased ourselves into the two-seater (labelled Experimental for the passenger's discretion) and took off. Colin is relatively new to the skies but he's already an expert pilot and I felt totally at ease in the seat next to him. Well, almost totally. I've never been one for extreme motion and the swoops of the plane had my stomach begging for solid ground. Nevertheless, I had a blast dive-bombing clouds, doing barrel rolls, and even flying the plane myself! I had total control of the plane on the way home and swooped a small cloud of my own. After landing - and nearly kissing the ground - Anna and I drove to the small seaside town nearby and had lunch at a cute cafe.
With access to one of Leigh's bikes, I had total freedom to pedal around Adelaide and discover its charm on my own time. I loved a crossroad that had a word each from "A FOREST OF DREAMS" on the corners. There was no forest to be seen, but Australians call any few standing trees a forest : )
Leigh, Josh, and I cycled along the river one evening to arrive at the beach by sunset and order fish 'n chips from a wonderful local cafe. Their pace was breakneck and had me huffing to keep up, but the end of the trip was well worth the sweat. We cycled home in the dark at a slightly slower pace, to keep me from bailing and hurting the bike. Yes, just the bike was worth Leigh's concern.
Speaking of breakneck speeds! Let me tell you about my first night in Adelaide. Sorry about the lack of calendar uniformity, but I'm just writing as it comes back to me. So, read on and forget timing. My first night in Adelaide. Leigh, Josh, and I went up to the hills to play (them) and watch (me) their final soccer match. It was great, freezing, and Leigh let in every goal. Well, not quite : ) He did make a great save that involved the ball bouncing off his face. Anyways, this has nothing to do with breakneck speeds.
When the sun went down and the sky turned to a dusky blue; when the street lights came on and you could no longer see your feet outside the pools of light they shed; when cars raced up and down the hill to reach their nighttime destination we decided to bike home. There is no bike path along the highway. The cars drive on the wrong side of the road. I had no lights on my allotted bike. Regardless, we rode. Down the old freeway. The bumpy, cracked, swerving, snaking freeway. The freeway with lights every 100 metres.
Leigh on his pro road bike and me on the commuter, we jumped on our bikes and started riding. There wasn't much pedaling involved, it was all downhill, but that didn't matter to Leigh. He clipped his riding shoes in and took off like a bullet, leaving me scrambling to get going after him. (ps. Leigh wasn't really that thoughtless, it just sounds better in a story... he did a good job of pretending to be patient with me). Honestly, however, I spent the entire 45-minute journey nearly hyperventilating from fear. I love biking, but that love encompasses daytime leisure biking. Not nighttime suicide rides. When I finally wobbled off the bike and onto the couch, it was all I could do to let Leigh know that it was fun and I was definitely alright, thanks for asking.
What else did I do in Adelaide? Keep in mind that I just left three jobs in Cairns and a back-breaking fever in Sydney. I didn't do much. When left to my own devices, I computed and watched movies. I biked around town a little bit and did some shopping, but I also just enjoyed down-time in the house.
Leigh's mum, Louise, was a total sweetheart and I will always wish to return to her house. She went out of her way to make sure I did not want for anything. I knew I was always welcome to walk into her house and sit down for some good coffee and conversation. The pull-out bed was always mine for nights out (I did go to her house one late night and discovered some funny scenes, but that's a story one individual *coughJosh* may not want publicized). Most importantly, this was the house I spent Boxing Day at. But perhaps I'll write about Christmas Day first.
Christmas Day was a Goldsworthy day. Josh, Leigh, and I drove up to Colin and Anna's place with our salad and beer contributions. I had stayed up until midnight the previous night painstakingly making fresh ginger cookies with icing and decorations. It was the closest I could come to gingerbread men in a house with no cookie cutters. That plate of cookies was my contribution.
We started the night with champagne, continued the night with wine, moved onto beer, had some gins, then went back to champagne. But that's not really the focus of the evening. I just wanted to make sure everyone knows that the vibe was loose, friendly, and certainly full of laughter. We set the table with our five salads, and the masterpiece maple ham that Colin had done on the bbq to blend Canadian and Australian Christmas traditions. It was delicious. Five salads kept us healthy and Colin's relatives made a fantastic Pineapple Fluff for dessert. Needless to say, we were stuffed.
After dinner, we listened to music, saw some kookaburras and a koala in the nearby trees, and mostly just sat and chatted. It was not a normal Christmas, but it was full of fun and friends.
Boxing Day was spent at Louise's house. The table sat Louise, her mum, Rob, Colin, Anna, Leigh, Josh, and I. It was full and comfortable. We had a stuffed turkey, mashed sweet potatoes (my cookery), roast potatoes, and salad. Again, this wonderful family went out of their way to make sure I had a wonderful Christmas that lacked nothing. I was blown away.
Adelaide is the wine region of Australia and Louise did us proud with unending bottles of 10-year-old red wines. This was not for getting tipsy on. This was for examining, inhaling, slowly sipping and letting the flavours reveal themselves over your tongue. It was an art. Well, it should have been. I am sadly lacking in wine experience and therefore just honestly enjoyed the wine as well as I could. They were quite strong and dry.
Our dessert was Louise's piece de resistance. A beautiful Christmas pudding with drunken ice cream and brandy cream. With one whiff, our stuffed stomachs miraculously growled and wanted not just one serving, but two. That had me nearly asleep on the couch afterwards as my body devoted all its energy towards digesting. It was spectacular.
Four days after Christmas and twelve days after arriving, I jumped on a bus heading towards Melbourne. I said sad farewells to my new family and strongly hoped to make it back to their corner of the world someday. I felt more at-home than I had in several months and it was wonderful to spend Christmas in a foreign country with people as inviting and loving as these. I wish I could have stayed longer.
Well, now I'm in Melbourne and that is for a later blog. For now, my battery is almost dead. See ya later, friends. Maybe sooner than you think ; )
xoxo - Katrina
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