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| The garden out back at Bliss Organic Garden Cafe |
Day 1: Wednesday, October 14
No signs of luggage all day. Qantas tells me bags are sitting in customs somewhere in Oz, perhaps Brisbane?
Activities:
Activities:
- Borrow Maddie's clothes while mine go for a wash
- Wake early (round 6?) and head outside her family home to the rubgy park next door. Day begins very cool, so I layer on a hoodie, too. Run easy around the park for 30 minutes or so in my Tom's, which are the only shoes I currently have. Realize that apart from the upper, they actually feel very similar to my racing inov-8s... maybe this could work?
- Maddie goes in to Uni today, so I borrow Wendy's train pass and catch the local train into CBD. It stops right downtown below the Intercontinental Hotel, which is the main event site for the race. I disembark and go inside to register and do my packet pickup for the race, then spend the remainder of the day on foot roaming the CBD and exploring the neighborhoods in Adelaide.
Discoveries:
- Enjoyed the shopping square at Rundle Mall, but had even more fun poking my head down the side streets alongside it. They were filled with much more interesting, local, and sometimes kitshy stores and beautiful eateries.
- Aussie's LOVE their Asian food, beets, and vegetarian food. These are my kind of people.
- Their "Chinatown" consists of a couple of blocks on Gouger street, but it was quite nice. Stopped in and had some terrific Indian style tofu and eggplant curry, yellow rice, a chocolate covered coconut ball for dessert at Bliss Organic Garden Cafe
- Loved, loved, loved the Central Market there. Such produce! Wonderful local cheeses, fish, nuts, eateries, and other goods. The Yoghurt Shop is my new bff with their skinny lemon curd and cheesecake yoghurt, which tastes more like dessert than like we think of yoghurt. I could eat boatloads of this stuff and never tire of it.
- The National Wine Center is a bust. Not worth the excursion. No tours. No info on local wine growing in Oz (which is quite a dismay), and the exhibits they do have are broken.
- Legs feeling hurty and tired from long day of walking in nothing but my Tom's. Maybe the ultra flat footbed is not going to be doing me any favors before this race after all... Catch a ride back home with Maddie.
End-of-day:
- After a shower, Maddie lets me borrow more clothing so we can dress up and head downtown for drinks and pizza with friends at Bank Street Social. I enjoy feeling pretty again, and we even find some makeup that suits me! Bar is underground, serves local brews, has nice pizza, and even local music (it's no Wedge, but it's good). I enjoy spending evening chatting with local residents (one even an ex-pat from Texas!) about the particularities of living in Oz.
- Still wondering when the hell my luggage will arrive. Qantas now says they don't know, but that it's stuck in customs in Brisbane.
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