First 100 Days Down Under

We have spent our first 100 days down under. It feels just like yesterday that we walked off of the plane here. We have comprised a list of 100 things we have learned or what may best describe our first 100 days in Australia by 10 categories. Just as a disclaimer, we have only explored the Adelaide and Melbourne regions at this point. We have yet to make it out to places like Sydney, Queensland, etc. We cannot wait until we have our breaks later in the year to travel more! Just to let you know, I (Erin) typed up this entire blog one day and realized it didn't save when I finished. You cannot believe the temper tantrum I threw afterward. Anyway, here we go...

PEOPLE
1. God bless America!
2. Not every man looks like Simon Baker (The Mentalist) or Russell Crowe (Gladiator days only).
3. Not every woman looks like Nicole Kidman or Olivia Newton John.
4. Australia is an immigration nation so not everyone has an English ancestry.
5. South Australia was settled by ordinary English and German immigrants, not convicts like in New South Wales and Victoria, namely Sydney and Melbourne.
6. Most Aussies are laid back and are willing to help the lost little Americans.
7. Aussies drink coffee and hot tea all day long even when it's 100+ degrees outside.
8. Australia is the most overweight country in the world per capita. Mind you, the country only consists of roughly 30 million people.
9. The Aboriginal people were the original settlers of the continent and have endured much oppression up until the mid 20th century and relationship mending is a slow progression.
10. The dress here mimicks European style and is sometimes too bizarre for us to comprehend.

AUSSIE SLANGUAGE (words we actually here often and just to scratch the surface)
11. "Bloke" or "Mate" meaning "Dude" or "Friend/Buddy," respectively
12. "How are you going?" meaning "How are you doing?"
13. "Cheers!" and "Ta!" meaning "Bye" and "Thank you," respectively
14. "Chook" meaning "Chicken"
15. "Morning or Afternoon Tea" meaning "Morning or Afternoon Snack" - just another excuse for these people to drink coffee or tea and not be productive at work.
16. "Breaky" meaning "Breakfast"
17. "Footy" meaning "Football" referring to Aussie Rules Football
18. "Brelly" meaning "Umbrella"
19. "Toilets" meaning "Restroom" and we refuse to call them toilets, eeww.
20. Apparently, we have the weird accent but when the Chinese immigrants say that they can understand us better than the Aussies, who has the weird accent now?!

FOOD
21. God bless America & definitely Louisiana in this category!
22. Eating food with a lick of seasoning is a highly valuable commodity here.
23. Adelaide has the largest food market in the Southern Hemisphere.
24. Asian food has been the best we've had here.
25. The food at the grocery store and at the restaurants is very pricey...ridiculously pricey.
26. The restaurant servers typically make at least $20 per hour in wages so there is no need to tip and that's very strange for us.
27. The price you see on the menu is exactly what you pay for...taxes are included in menu price.
28. Most restaurants are very clean.
29. Most restaurants are not open Sundays and holidays...like no holidays.
30. We have had our best meals at home. Sorry Aussies!

HOUSING/LIVING COSTS (WORSE THING ABOUT AUSSIE LAND - don't worry, there are many other great qualities)
31. The housing prices are crazy expensive here.
32. Little dumpy apartments can cost a bundle.
33. The closer you live the city center, the more expensive.
34. There is still a lot of construction here because the economy has not been hit as hard as the rest of the world.
35. Families are being paid $5,000 per new child born because the Baby Boomers are far outweighing the young tax payers.
36. Most people live along the country's coastlines in cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth.
37. 99.9% of the time, the goods and services are more expensive than the US here.
38. Just because goods and services are more expensive here does not mean you're getting better quality...in fact, almost not ever.
39. The cars are generally much smaller and more economical here, but like everything else, are more expensive.
40. Don't move here and plan to live comfortably unless you have a lot of money saved. Great place to visit though!

WORK (or lack thereof)
41. The average working week consists of 37.5 hours (8 hours a day minus a half hour lunch).
42. Employers offer much longer leave policies - someone fresh out of college entering his or her first full time job can easily have 4 weeks of vacation in the first year of employment right away!
43. People get 18 paid weeks for maternity/paternity leave...18 weeks and paid!
44. It is very common for employers to hire contract workers, like Erin, while an employee takes leave for a year or two.
45. Most employers are closed about a month during the Christmas/New Year break...that was really hard for us to understand.
46. There are lots of holidays during the year and all Adelaide employers are shut...seriously shut.
47. Most retailers do not operate on Sundays in Adelaide (Melbourne does operate on Sundays as Victoria state govt is different from South Australia govt).
48. The work environment is similar to the US but there is more talking/joking around in Aussie land.
49. When it's five, you can only see the tumbleweeds roll by.
50. Overall, Aussies value time off and don't like to work too hard - they work to live.

ENVIRONMENT/TERRAIN
51. The continent is roughly the same size as the US.
52. You can see many of the major different terrain types: beach, mountain, dessert, forest.
53. The center of the continent is mostly desert and very dry.
54. The coastlines are typically more wet and more comfortable to live.
55. It is opposite from the US in that the northern regions are hot, wet and humid and the southern regions are dry and cooler but not Alaska cold.
56. South Australia is the driest state on the driest continent of the world...if we had a nickel for every time we heard that one.
57. Water restrictions have been prevalent for the last 10 years but we came in the year with sufficient rainfall.
58. The recycling system is almost too complicated for us to figure out...or maybe we're a little shamefully lazy.
59. The grocery store does NOT give out plastic bags and charges you to buy their mesh bags...we learned to go to any events handing out free mesh bags.
60. Double-check no one is looking before you throw a plastic bottle away.

SPORTS
61. They have the AFL (Australia Football League) or Aussie Rules Football and appeared to be a strange cross between rugby and hot potato.
62. These AFL men wear no padding but are not as big as our guys...if we had our football players with no padding then we would have fatalities.
63. The AFL guys wear very tight shirts and short shorts...hmm.
64. AFL guys make good American football punters and kickers. Hope that's not an insult.
65. Food at the sporting events may cost less than food outside of the stadium...isn't that suppose to be the other way around?
66. Then there's cricket...enough said there.
67. Women play netball here which is close to basketball and they wear skirts. Are we in A League of Their Own, people?
68. Lawn bowling is quite popular and if you've been reading our blog, you know how we feel about lawn Bowling.
69. Ok, we'll give the Aussies that they're alright in swimming, surfing and basketball.
70. Let's just put it this way, if we had a baby here (we're not pregnant so don't get excited), our kid would have a better chance getting on the Australia Olympics squad than the American Olympics squad, ok?

TRAVEL (BEST THING ABOUT AUSSIE LAND!)
71. Australia is a truly beautiful and unique place so here is a list of places to travel:
72. Great Barrier Reef
73. Sydney
74. Melbourne - pretty cool (Check)
75. Adelaide - wine and beach regions (Check)
76. Great Ocean Road - awesome! (Check)
77. Perth
78. Brisbane
79. Gold Coast
80. Ayers Rock

MISCELLANEOUS
81. If a building has FREE air conditioning/heating, wi-fi and water all in one...that is golden.
82. The Aboriginal nation has its own flag.
83. Why do these people have to drive on the wrong side of the road?!
84. We've almost been run over a few times checking for cars the wrong direction.
85. We've seen strange and colorful birds and insects daily.
86. People tend to look twice when they hear our American accents which is an odd feeling.
87. It's easier to keep up with US news than we originally thought. Obama is on the news every day here.
88. Most people have heard of New Orleans and want to come visit if they haven't already been. The ones who have been say that they loved it.
89. Hope we appear skinnier to everyone when we come home because we walk a lot here!
90. The pace of life is much slower here...even slower than New Orleans.

THANKS TO SPECIAL PEOPLE
91. Above all things learned in Australia thus far, we've learned to appreciate special people in our lives.
92. First of all, thanks be to Christ, our Lord and Saviour.
93. We cannot begin to thank our families enough for their love and support.
94. Thanks to our friends back home thinking about us.
95. Thanks to our former co-workers who are always excited to know about our time here.
96. Thanks to our church family back home in NOLA for prayers.
97. Thanks to our church family here in Adelaide who were kind enough to pick us up from the airport on New Year's Day, let us stay with them until we found our own housing and provide us with some free meals and items to borrow while living here.
98. Thanks to the Rotary Clubs in Louisiana/Mississippi and Adelaide for funding much of Shawn's schooling while here and providing items to borrow while here.
99. We are so glad to be here but miss everyone back home terribly. So come visit us...anyone, serisouly!
100. God bless America and Australia!

Lameroo Part II

As it turns out farming is a pretty big deal out in Lameroo.  Our host Ron owns 10,000 acres.  Just to put it in perspective, that's probably about the size of Delaware.  It was interesting to learn that much of his land was classified as low class land, but as technology has improved, they are now able to grow billions of potatoes, onions and carrots on white sand.  Another interesting note is that there are millions of miniature wild melons that grow everywhere out there.  These melons are not edible and can be a nuisance for farm equipment.










Although Ron no longer lives on his farm, he showed us his pride and joy:  a restored railcar that used to transport Australians across the county in luxury for its time.  The car now hosts family parties and was   even the site of Ron's daughter's wedding.

Our weekend ended with a BBQ on a small recreational lake.  Although a standard Aussie BBQ can leave much to be desired from the traditional American feast, the weather and friendliness of the people made up for the hotdog looking sausages, white bread and tomato sauce that Aussies enjoy.  All in all, it was a nice break from school and the big city life of Adelaide!

Barossa Valley

We rented a car with a group of friends and went out to the Napa Valley of Australia...Barossa Valley. Shawn got to drive on the wrong side of the road...we started heading straight into oncoming traffic only once so we will consider this day a victory.



Barossa Valley was founded by British and German immigrants in the 1840s and is considered to be one of the world's greatest wine production regions alongside Napa, Bordeaux and Tuscany.


It is a picturesque region and is popular for weddings because we saw around 5 bridal parties taking pictures and wineries being set up for receptions.



A picture of our group front left to right: Sarah, Armando, Scott, Erin and Shawn. All of us are American except for Armando who is Mexican. He's pretty close though!












We visited around 7 wineries including 1 that has significant international reach, Jacob's Creek, and a winery that has been around for many years, Peter Lehmann. We even got to pick at some grapes.







Then we ended the day at the beach...

Lameroo Part I

We went on a weekend excursion to Lameroo, South Australia organized by Study Adelaide. For this particular trip, the Rotary Club of Lameroo volunteered to host up to 20 students free of charge in their homes and provide meals. Lameroo is out in "the country" where farming is the way of life. It has traditionally been an area raising sheep, cattle and goats but has recently boomed as a potato production region. Other vegetables are grown out there too but potatoes are huge right now. Our host family was Ron and Zona. Ron was a retired farmer and recently sold pieces of his property or handed property down to his sons. They both recently lost their spouses and after knowing each other for 60 years have finally join together as a couple...how sweet. Ron was a talker. You asked him 1 question and got a novel. Zona was very sweet but gave Ron a run for his money. Let's just say we knew who was truly in charge over there. Ron took us on a tour of the farms showing us all of the crops grown in their region. We even went to an "onion shed" where onions were packaged and sold. As you can see below, I worked really hard to pull all of the carrots and Shawn gets all of the glory! Ron had a sweet little ride too. It was a 1955 Mercedes Benz. After spending the morning with Ron, we met the rest of the students to visit one of the sheep shearing farms. We watched the sheep dogs work their magic keeping the sheep in line despite the one sheep that hopped the fence and almost took out one of our new Chinese friends. Other than that, the dogs got an A+. Then we met who was claimed to be the best sheep shearer in South Australia. He had a dry sense of humor and smoked like nobody's business. He let each of us have a turn shearing pieces of the sheep's wool. My heart did go out to the sheep but they really didn't fight at all. I think they knew once their wool got long enough that it would be their turn soon.

Lawn Bowling and the Surprising Special Treat

One of the Rotarians we've met here participates in a sport called lawn bowling. It is exactly what it sounds like. You bowl this miniature bowling ball toward a "target white ball" amongst other players' balls on this flat green lawn. At least that's what I got out of it. I'm sure there is a lot more complication and technique that I have not accounted for. At least we were entertained by some old school Lauryn Hill and some really weird foreign hip hop music in the background while watching these Aussie men of all ages and sizes concentrate on hitting the white ball. When it was over, we were happy to learn that our Rotarian friend's team won and have advanced to the next round...yay!



Ok, now for the good part. Because we were such good sports in watching this lawn bowling event, we stumbled upon a chocolate place and decided to treat ourselves at 10:00 at night. We indulged in a dessert called Chocolate Filth. Sounds good already, right? The centerpiece was a dark, rich chocolate cake with a chocolate covered strawberry on top. Then there were several drinking glasses surrounding the plate: glasses with dark, milk, and white chocolate and glasses with mousse and cream. Dangerous. When the menu read that we would get "some" strawberries rather than just this one strawberry, we were both a little puzzled. So we did the American thing and demanded more strawberries even with all of this chocolate filth around us. Hey, this was an expensive dessert and the Australian dollar is still on parity with the US dollar. Anyway, so more chocolate covered strawberries came out and we smiled. Good thing we walk a lot in this town. Now isn't that sad I was able to tell you more about this chocolate dessert than the lawn bowling match? Go figure!
http://www.chocolatebean.com/

Symphony Under the Stars

Adelaide puts on the Fringe Festival which lasts throughout the month of March each year. There is entertainment provided all of types: art, parades, music, dance, comedians, etc. Shawn and I went to one of the free shows which was a "Symphony Under the Stars" event. There were a lot of people out there! Our friends were good in getting there early and setting a blanket down for us to all sit on. The symphony was pretty good and there was a fireworks display following. Unfortunately, we did not get our camera out in time to take pictures of the fireworks.