Arrival in Adelaide!

After eighteen hours of flight time and three days (or two days, as time zones queer my perception of the flow of time) of continuous travel, I finally made it to the beautiful city of Adelaide! Right now everything from my mid back through my neck is stiff and in horrible pain (on account of essentially sleeping in a tin can—er, I mean airplane), and I am suffering from a killer case of jet lag (is today Thursday, Friday or Saturday, and why am I about to pass out from exhaustion at 6pm? And is it 6pm or is it more like 2 am?) Thus is the price of traveling across oceans, continents, and hemispheres, from the land up north and east to the upside-down world of the south and the west. And so far, Adelaide is a bit of a mixture of different experiences—good and bad.

Adelaide, I’m finding, is difficult to describe. It has vibes of Paris, Tucson, and Portland, all while maintaining it’s own unique style. On my first day here (yesterday) I took a trip to the Rundle Mall for some shopping—this mall is intense. It takes up the space of a few blocks and has shops on the street as well as covered in a multi-leveled building. Here I found all sorts of fashion stores (including some banal, yet recognizable shops like Target), and all around there were people of every walk of life: punky teenagers, emo kids, chic looking professionals, school girls (and boys), etc. As far as pricing is concerned I cannot tell if things are expensive or not, mostly due to my lack of familiarity with the conversion between US and Australian. I know things like soda are major rip offs, and even a lot of the food seems over-priced. I’m also noticing that I’ve taken simple pleasures such as free café internet or even unlimited internet for granted. Here, everything seems to cost you: internet is $39/month for 10GB—I have no frigging clue what, exactly, this means. How many Youtube video views is that? How much time on Skype? How many emails is this? It’s all rubbish to me.

Good news is there are some cheaper places for food. The Central Market—just a 5 minute walk from my townhouse—has an extensive plethora of foods from across the world! And it’s all relatively inexpensive (from what I can tell). I just had a banana from the market and it was probably the best phallic fruit I’ve ever tasted. Thing about Aussie markets is that they essentially require you to buy a reusable shopping bag (easily purchased for $1)—this is enforced via a 15 cent charge on all plastic bags. I think it’s pretty brilliant; the folks here in Adelaide are very concerned about being green. There are free busses and trams, both of which I’ve taken and are exceedingly convenient.

So far, I’ve only been to Rundle Mall, the Central Market, and Victoria Square. The Rundle Mall, famous for the silver balls (google it) I’ve already discussed. Both the mall and the market remind me a lot of downtown Portland and the Paris street markets respectively. Both are THE places to go for shopping and both are within a mile of my house (easily in walking distance, but given the rain and chilly winds Adelaide has been having, I’ve been taking the tram to get to the mall). Victoria Square features an amazing fountain along with several statues (the only one I’ve made out featured Queen Victoria…she’s a fascinating sheila, no doubt about that).
All is not entirely wonderful in Adelaide—everything is a bit pricier than I had hoped it would be, and my room in the townhouse isn’t as wonderful/comfortable as I’d like. The shower sucks, the laundry fees are a fortune, I’m lonely, etc. But focusing more on the positive, I’m finding that what people I have run into here are all very friendly. For instance one of my housemates today made me a cup of amazing coffee and helped set me up on the internet—he just offered to do these things without any prompting. I’m blown away by people’s kindness here. I haven’t even thought about being queer or trans here—it hasn’t come up, either in my mind or in conversation. It’s a strangely liberating feeling. And how perfect is it that I finally feel this terrifying sense of freedom on the 4th of July?

Random Aussie Awesomeness:

1)The first Harry Potter is titled “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” here

2)Rugby and Bacci Ball are on the tele right now

3)People have gorgeous accents

4)It is winter right now and the temps are around 16 degrees (that’s about 50 for you American folks!)

5)American shows are strangely prevalent here

6)There are shows here devoted entirely to mocking the US

7)I cannot tell which way the toilets flush because instead of a circular flush all the water just seems to get sucked straight on out. Sorry.

8)The currency is gorgeous—lots of pretty coinage in all sorts of sizes and weights. The bills are colorful and crisp, feel like a thick rice paper, and have clear plastic windows in their corners. Each bill also has different people on it. The $50 has Edith Cowar on one side and David Unaipon on the other. I have no clue who these people are. The 20 cent coin has Elizabeth II on one side and a platypus on the other.