Fringe Fest and Wildlife

It’s been a week since I arrived in Adelaide. Sometimes it’s almost hard to remember that I’m half way around the world because things are really similar here. The landscape could be somewhere possibly out West (never been so I can’t be too sure), everyone speaks English (except for my roommates), the food is pretty much the same (different brands and the shopping cards have strange wheels and are really hard to steer around corners).

The other day we went grocery shopping and we noticed that they don’t always refrigerate the eggs at the stores and most of the eggs are brown. The people seem to be pretty big on ‘going green.’ Currently a ban on plastic grocery bags is going to be starting soon and Katie’s roommates told us not to buy Australian made rice because the industry is drying up the already low river.

There is this bird that I think sounds a little like Count Dracula from Sesame Street. I think it’s a mocking bird. It sounds like he’s laughing at you and at the end of the day they sound Dracula-esq.

On Friday we went into the downtown city of Adelaide. Katie’s Australian roommate, Cameron, has a car so he drove and gave us the tour. We went to the Central Market, which is basically a farmers market with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Katie and I got some ice cream at a place called Wendy’s which is a chain ice cream shop in Australia. And then we ate lunch at one of the food courts in Chinatown.

Similar to the bean in Chicago. They called it the balls of Rundle Mall.

The streets were getting pretty crowded because it was the opening night of the Adelaide Fringe Festival. People were doing previews for the various shows that are happening during the next month or so. We walked through an open air mall and then watched a street performer at the Garden of Unearthly Delights. He was funny but his tricks weren’t very impressive (he kept dropping things and he mostly did a lot of fluff before doing the actual trick).

At 8:00 the Fringe Parade started. We were at the very end and it was so crowded we couldn’t see that well. The parade was pretty spectacular. I tried to take some pictures but it was getting dark and people were in my way. (I’m kind of short) The costumes and bikes they rode around on were amazing. People were on stilts and unicycles and rolling around on huge hamster wheels. There was a woman in a huge lift singing opera. They had a bunch of people dressed up like characters from Alice in Wonderland, there was Latin dancers and musicians, people wearing huge baby heads and girls on roller skates. It was one of the best parades I’ve ever seen. The crowds were enormous. I was exhausted by the time we finally got home.

Performers in the Adelaide Fringe Parade

Saturday was fairly lazy. Katie and I braved the bus system on our own and went grocery shopping. We didn’t really think our purchases through very well because we had trouble getting home with so many groceries.

On Sunday we has signed up to go on a trip planned through the International Students Office on campus. Our first stop was the Cleland Wildlife Park and is probably my favorite experience so far. The park was like a petting zoo but with Kangaroos and Wallabies. Once you entered the park, you walked into a gated field where kangaroos roamed free. Katie and I bought a bag of pellets and the roos bounded up to us and ate from our hands!! I couldn’t believe that we were allowed to get so close to them. They were adorable and extremely soft. They had a bunch of different kinds in different gated areas; It was crazy how many there were. My favorite was a little wallaby. He hopped over to us and hung out with us for a long time. He kept putting his paws in my hand. We took a zillion pictures.

I love the look on both their faces.

We also got our pictures taken holding a koala bear. Katie and I got lucky because the koala’s were only out for about an hour. They have to keep switching the koala’s because they sleep something like 19 hours a day and they would get fussy if they were out too long. Apparently they can’t see very well during the day and see mostly in shadows so their hearing is extremely acute.

We saw a Tasmanian devil, who was running around in a huge circle. We saw these little guys that looked like huge mice. One of Katie’s favorite animals was the emu who was walking around freely.

After the wildlife park we went to Mt. Lofty, which is the highest point near Adelaide. Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy so we didn’t get very many good pictures. Our final stop was at one of the beaches in Adelaide. It was too cold and windy to go swimming so Katie and I got some fish and chips for lunch and walked along these rock cliffs.

We had a really fantastic time on the trip. I’m glad we decided to go. Hopefully we’ll get to go back some time before our trip is over. I also heard about an open range zoo where you drive around in tour buses in the animal enclosures. So we might go there some time.

Today was our first day of classes. I only had one class today: Film Form and Analysis. I originally thought this class was going to teach me out to shoot film and edit together movies, but it turns out it’s more of a discussion based class. I think I’m still going to like it a lot though. I think this class will provide me with some interesting vocabulary and knowledge that will be helpful for not only film production but theatre as well.

I don’t have any class until Friday this week because Drama Center doesn’t start until next week. I don’t know what my performance classes are going to be yet, but I’m excited to find out.

Hope everyone is doing well at home. I know spring break is coming up soon! You guys are going to be done with school before I’ve hardly even started. Thanks everyone for the messages and picture comments and skyping.

Check out these pictures from our trip: Here and Here.