ANZAC Day, Botanical Gardens, Mount Lofty and Barossa Vally

Justin smelling his wine!

Me attempting to drink the wine...I am not a wine drinker at all

The big rocking horse on the way to the wine tour...crazy isn't it! We could have climbed to the top, but it cost $2 a person.

Mt. Lofty Summit

Mt. Lofty Summit

Kangaroo Crossing up to Mt. Lofty

Justin by a Bay Fig tree...those roots are massive!

Me at the Botanical Gardens by the Glass House

The U.S. Marchers

ANZAC March

Friday was ANZAC Day here in Australia. Justin and I went the the parade to celebrate the holiday. It was pretty neat to see all of the veterans marching along the streets. Everyone was was waving Australian flags, bands were playing, and there was a lot of patriotism going around. I really enjoyed how much the Australians honor their service men and women.

After the parade, we headed on down the road to the botanical gardens. We had been there before, but this time we brought our camera, so we took a few pictures of the gardens.

After the gardens, Justin had grand idea of going to Mt. Lofty Summit which is the highest point in the Adelaide Hills. So we jumped on a bus which brought us to the bottom of the road to the summit. Lucky us, there were no buses going to the summits, so we had to walk along side the road for 3K up to the top of the summit. Eventually we made it to the top! It was quite a walk dodging cars along the way! We did find a watch out for kangaroos sign! The summit was nice and we could see most of Adelaide and out to the ocean.

On Saturday we went on a tour of the Barossa Valley wine region. It was a lot of fun and I don't even like wine! The tour bus took us on a scenic tour through the hills to get there and it was beautiful!! I was surprised how much it looked like Colorado (the foot hills). We were able to go to four wine tastings and we had a three course lunch in which I had kangaroo! It tasted a lot like roast beef. In general it was a great tour and I had a lot of fun!

Sunday we went to go look at our apartment which turned out to be a bit disappointing. We thought we were going to be the only ones looking at it and a guy and one other couple also came along. We pretty much just went in and took a quick look and the lady gave us an application and told us to fax it into her. So this morning we faxed it and we will just wait and see what happens. Today at noon I am going to go look at another apartment. I am not sure if it will be the same process or not, but this whole apartment finding is getting a little stressful. Hopefully by the end of this week or the beginning of next week we will have our permanent place.

On Sunday night we went to a church called Unley Park Baptist Church and it was a evening contemporary service, you wouldn't even know it was a Baptist church. It was the church that we went bowling with last week. Everyone was very welcoming and friendly and we are going to a bible study on Tuesday night. It meets every fortnight (I learned that means every other week!). So we have been blessed to find such a welcoming and friendly church. We are very excited to see if we can make this our church home while in Australia!

We will keep you all posted on the apartment situation and as soon as we get an address we will post it! We miss you all!

Adelaide Life

Two nights ago Justin and I were invited to go bowling with a guy from his work. It was funny because as soon as you walked in it was like you were in any bowling alley in the U.S. It was even an AMF bowling alley! The main difference was that they had footy jersey's hanging all over the place. They were even playing American music, serving hot dogs and fries (not even calling them chips!), and the balls were all in pounds not kilogram. I felt a little bit at home there, except for some reason here I became a better bowler! I had never broken 100 before and I scored 125! I think it has to do with being on the other side of the world.

Yesterday I met Justin up at work for a going away party for Daniel (he is the one coming to Dallas). We went to a local pub and ate snitzchel (I have no idea how to spell it!). Anyway what snitzchel is basically a heart attack on a plate. The take either chicken or beef and pound it out really thin until it is the size of like two dinner plates, then they bread it and fry it up. You can choose whatever topping you would like including, mozzarella (what we had), mushrooms, gravy, pepperoni, and the list goes on and on. Justin and I split one and we could even eat the whole thing. It is quite an experience. Also on this outing we learned that lemonade in Australia is actually Sprite in the U.S. If you want U.S. lemonade you have to order lemon squash. Everyday we are learning new things!

Tomorrow is ANZAC day. It is like Australia Veterans Day or Memorial Day. We are told the whole city shuts down. There is a parade in the morning where all the military people march and they end up at a World War II memorial and there are speeches and music to honor all the military. We read in a book that this is the most celebrated and honored holiday in Australia. We are planning on going to some of the festivities.

Also tomorrow we are looking at an apartment! We hope this is the one will be be staying in! It has been much more difficult that we realized trying to find a place to stay. So keep your fingers crossed that this place works out!

Grocery Shopping in Australia

Day Two alone in the big city with Justin at work. I am again at the library. It will be nice once we get our new apartment and I won't have to come into the library everyday.

We went grocery shopping last night for the first time and it sure was different that I expected. Things here are generally 1-1.5 times higher in price. Going through the dairy and meat sections was crazy! Milk, cheese, yogurt, OJ, and most dairy is expensive. And everything comes in liters. Yogurt was the most surprising on how expensive it was. For two small cartons it was like $3.00. We ended up buying a 1 kg tub and we are going to dish it out as needed. Also, the cheap meat was veal, lamb, and kangaroo! So we are going to be eating lamb brats and veal this week! We haven't bought kangaroo yet but I am sure we will next week since it is so cheap! After our excursion, we had to lug 3 bags of groceries home which honestly wasn't too bad. Here everyone brings their own bags for shopping by the way which is better for the environment, so we have our reusable bags too!

Last thing for today is that we are going on Holiday this weekend. We are going to do a day tour of the Barossa Wine region! So keep a look out for pictures. Our camera is up an running again which is a good thing. We miss you all!

Finally in Adelaide

I sent out a mass email a few days ago, so most of you following our journey have heard about our crazy travels that ensued en route to Adelaide. Just a quick overview: Canceled flight to Sydney, day of touring L.A., 14 hour flight next day to Sydney, missed flight to Adelaide, finally arrived in Adelaide. That is our journey in a nut shell.

Justin has started work today so I am on my own in the big city. Adelaide actually isn't that big. It is only 1.4 million people. I am at the library right now because they have free Internet! Woo Hoo! Nothing in this town is free. We are in a temporary apartment right now, until we find a new apartment. We plan in living in the city and our hope is that we don't have to buy a car. Public transportation isn't bad at all and most everything is within walking distance. I feel like a real city dweller. No car, walking to the grocery store, walking to the library, walking to Woolworths (there version of Wal-Mart). It is hard to get fat here with all the walking. We have been running a few times and there are TONS of running trails and they are all beautiful and go by the river Torrens.

The main differences between here and there are pretty small. Mostly just phrasing of words and things. We did enjoy our footy match! The Crows won! The players are good athletes. The have to run, dribble, throw, kick all at the same time almost! Our camera ran out of batteries, so no pictures sadly, but we plan on going again! I think that is about it for now. I will be probably coming to the library fairly often to get me out of the house while I wait for my licensing to go through so I can work! I will try to update as I can! We miss you all and can't wait for visitors!! I added some pictures from our journey down under. Sorry, I haven't figured out how to format things nicely yet, but I will work on it.

A week of "lasts"

This has been a hard week. It has been a week of "lasts". I had my last day of work. Justin and I had our last bible study. We are saying our last good-byes to all of our Dallas friends. It is kinda sad.

It was hard for me to leave work on Tuesday. I can honestly say I love my job and every single person I work with. I couldn't ask for better co-workers. I love all the OTs, PTs, and speech therapists. The kind of teamwork our department has is hard to come by! I will truly miss BUMC, but I will be back!

The tears started when we left our bible study Tuesday night. We have been meeting with 5 other couples since September and it was hard leaving all of them. It was such a blessing to be in a group with them even if it was short period of time. It is nice to know our spot in the group will be waiting for us when we arrive back to Texas!

Packing is almost done! Woo Hoo! I think we might even have some extra room in our luggage. The apartment is clean top to bottom and ready for Daniel to move in. Tomorrow morning at 7:00 am our journey begins. We are heading off to KC and will eventually be leaving Monday for Australia at 5:40 pm. We will arrive in Adelaide Wednesday at 10:00 am. Then the real fun can start!! I added some pictures of our packing process. We have about one more piece of luggage and we are done!

Packing Has Begun

Last night Justin and I began the process of packing up the apartment. It was kinda sad packing everything up, but exciting all at the same time because we are going to Australia! I am glad we started now because there is a lot to do, a lot to clean and a lot get rid of during this process. All of our walls are bare and there are boxes and luggage strewn all over the place.

It is wild to think that one week from tomorrow we are going to be heading back up to KC. What is even crazier to me is that by the time I return from Australia, I will have lived there longer than I have in Texas. I have only been in Texas for 10 months, and I will be in Australia 12! These next 5 or 6 days will be filled with packing and cleaning! I hope that it isn't too overwhelming!

Getting Ready to Go Down Under

I am home sick from work today and I think that it is because I am stressing myself out with this whole 'move to Australia for a year' thing. I don't recommend moving to Australia with 3 weeks notice. There are a whole lot of things to do that you don't even think about. Justin and I are almost done I think with all of the logistics. Packing is our next item of business to take care of. Thankfully, Daniel (the guy from Australia Justin is exchanging with) will be living in our apartment so we don't have to move all of our furniture and big things. We are pretty much just bringing our clothes. The plan is to just buy everything we need there. Meinhardt is very nice and have found us a furnished aparment to live in. Our big purchase will be a car. It is going to be wierd buying a car we will be driving just for a year. And we are going to have to learn how to drive on the wrong side of the road! No more manual transmission cars for us! I am not that coordinated. Soon we will be on our way to Australia. April 14th is going to come very soon! I am just not looking forward to the LONG flight over there!