Adelaide

I remember being asked at the beginning of the first year of my degree 'does anyone here fancy going on exchange to Australia or Canada for their second year?' . I was one of relatively few people who raised their hands whilst looking nervously around to count just how many others were my 'competition' as well. It amazed me how few people wanted to go. Here was a course of some 200 or so budding geographers who studied the world, or at least some parts of it, and there was barely a dozen people who were up for the challenge. Wondering whether their was some catch or maybe I had just imagined the whole thing, I went along to the meeting which was held in a little corner box office room to meet the others. The department (for those of you who don't know I was at the University of Leeds in England) had eight places at two Universities in Canada (Waterloo and McGill I think) and four places in Australia at the University of Adelaide. The Department had arranged for previous exchange students to come in and discuss their experiences to add some depth to it all and scare the pants out of us with their stories I think.

Now I don't remember a great deal about what the exchange students said about Canada aside from the fact that it got a wee bit cold and they had to use tunnels to go outside! Now don't get me wrong, I can handle cold, say 5 degrees or if I am feeling really bold 0 degrees but minus 25 is asking a lot of a little bald Englishman! I remember shruddering at this thought and waited eagerly to hear what the Australian exchange students had to say. Well they said that Adelaide was a quiet place but had lots of do, and I vaguely remember one of the boys saying the beers was really quiet good whichgot me more interested to apply as I do consider that to be a key criteria to any permanent move or at least semi-permanent. So despite the hesitations about the warmth, which I also can't handle well, I decided Australia was the place to be and Adelaide was the place inparticular where I would go for a year.

So I first arrived into Adelaide during the second year of my degree in the early hours of the morning accompanied by three English girls who were also on exchange with me. Now the first thing one realises when you fly into Adelaide is just home small the airport it. The locals like to call it either 'the shed' or when they are being really affectionate 'the cow-shed'. For a city of over a million people the tin plated roof, cracked walls and retro 50's architecture make it a pretty hidous airport to see. Fortunately the government of South Australia realised that this really wasn't doing Adelaide any good as people like me would get all confused and think we been conned into going to some third rate city rather than the 'capital of South Australia'. So they took it upon themselves to build a plush new airport which is finally becomming operational. Well actually thats no quite true. When I arrived into Adelaide this time round I found myself back in 'the shed' collecting my luggage in the same place where people would met me! This was because apparently the airport had found corrosion on the fuel takes which serve the domestic part of the new airport and had to postone the opening date. Now how this happened is beyond me as it seems like a rather simple thing to have taken into account but then again I guess I am not a airport builder, or any other form of builder for that matter, so who am I to know.

Now one of the interesting things about Adelaide is that there are one or two things which you will hear, no I mean be told repeatedly. Every stranger you met, whether they are young, old, male or female will take great pride in asking you 'you want to hear something about Adelaide' and then proceed to tell you 'its a free settlement which wasn't founded by convicts' before you get the chance to say yes or no! If I had a dollar for everytime I had been told that over the years I would surely be a millionaire, or at least have a few thousand dollars to spend. I have never quite understood exactly why that is so important but I guess it serpates them from the other capital cities which are nearly all bigger and more well known internationally, if you excuse poor old Hobart of course.

The other thing is that everyone takes great pride in telling you is that its a festival state, so much so that every carplate has 'South Australia - The Festival State' written on it. Over the two or so years that I lived in Adelaide I have grown to appreciate just exactly why its known as this. The city has a spectrum of festivals from the arts and music festivals of WOMADelaide and the Frinch Festival through to sports and motor racing activities. A few years back Adelaide used to host the Australian F1 grand-prix before those 'nasty Victorians stol itt from uss' I learnt soon after arriving. You see Melbourne in the State of Victoria basically out-bid Adelaide to host the event and Formula 1 seeing the apparent increase this would bring into their coffers decided that it was a rather good idea to move the event. Now I am sure to them it made perfect sense to them. Unfortunately for every tourist coming to South Australia since then has had to endure South Australians frustration at losing the event and how many are 'gonna get one back' on them, being the Victorians, for what they did! Take into account that this was ten years ago and you see how big a deal it meant to them. As to how they are 'gonna get one back' is also a bit of a mystery to me. I do occasionally have pictures in my head of a few thousand South Australians running over the border wearing the South Australian colours with black hoods and sabotaging some event the Victorians had coming up, perhaps a motor racing event.

Now Adelaide really is a fascinating city. Nationally, even internationally, its known as being two things - 'the City of churches' and 'the murder capital of Australia'. Now I admit, I have always tried to get my head round how it can have a reputation for being two things so different in nature, unless of course the murderors like to go to Church after committing their deeds. Fortunatelty over time I havn't seen any murders, or even heard of many for that matter, and have never seen that many churches to see why its called 'the city of churches'.

It is a very interesting city to visit and an even more interesting city to live in. When you tell other Australians that you are visiting Adelaide it tends to get a look on the the persons face of bewilderment followed within a few seconds by the words 'why on earth are you doing that?' I think the rest of Australia has this misconception about South Australia and Adelaide in particular. I think they see it as a sleepy town with noting to do which tends to be very very boring. Now I often wonder how many of these people have actually visited the place and given it half a chance before they proceded to brand it. Over the years I have learnt to agree with them that it doesn't have many or possibly even any clubs, but it makes up with that by an over-abundance of pubs and superb eating establishments. Chinatown in Adelaide is one of the largest Chinatowns I have visited with a truly superb range of food at very cheap prices.

The good food coupled together with the the last independent family owned brewery in Australia called Coopers really made Adelaide an great place for me to live. Coopers produces a great range of beers, especially its main beer known as Coopers Pale Ale. This is a most interesting beer as when you slowly turn it upside down you can see the sediment/sludge fall through the bottle. Yet over the years of drinking it I have never been able to figure out where this sludge goes as I never tasted it.

The interesting thing is that if you were to place Adelaide in the UK it would be the second, yes I did write that, second largest city in the country after only London. It has over one million people living in its boundaries but it really doesn't feel like that. Instead it feels like a village or town of a million people as its extremely laid back and quiet in many ways. The really unusual thing you learn when you move to Adelaide is that everyone really does seem to know everyone with perhaps only two or three degress of seperation needed to connect everyone in this city!

Adelaide also happens to be the liberal bastion of the country. Until just recently you could legally grow 3 plants of marijuina in your garden for your own 'consumption'. Furthermore, you could smoke and if you got caught you would merely get an on-the-spot fine as its decriminalised. I have heard that you know when you are entering South Australia by train as everyone on the train immediately starts smoking when they cross over the border! In other states, especially Queensland, if you got caught smoking you would be thrown in jail and the key thrown out the door. It's almost like South Australia does things its own way and is proud to continue to do so despite what everyone else thinks of it.