Monday, May 3, 2010

and so it goes ...

in two days time we will have been in australia for two weeks.

two weeks away from home. two weeks away from friends and two weeks away from family. two weeks of not really knowing at all what is coming when we wake up in the morning.

and it's going to turn into nine months!

at the moment i am sitting on a great friend's couch after a day of wondering the city of adelaide. i've developed a routine here-- get up, pack away my sleeping bag, wonder down to the library to check email and keep connected, jump on the free 99c bus down to the central market to grab whatever looks good, fresh and cheap! the central market is an awesome gathering of produce, bread, cheese and food stalls from around adelaide. when the market isn't open (sundays and mondays) we resort to mediocre grocery stores and asian markets. i'm writing this on a monday night and am so excited for the market to be open again tomorrow after a weekend of eating mi-gorengs (a slightly better version of top ramen) and random grains (which we acquired earlier in the week from the market) with the only vegetable that ever seems to look appetizing, bok choy.

right now we are kind of in a state of flux. by now we should have definitely been off of conor's couch, happily picking fruit and raking in cash in the countryside. unfortunately, it didn't happen. we ventured 3 hours out into the country to find the farmers are having a horrible season and work is slim. we could stick it out at the hostel and wait around for possible jobs, but no one knows when they'll come, and we don't really have the money to afford that. so, long story short we are back on conor's floor. (thank goodness for him!)

this week is planned to be spent looking for any type of job we may be able to find back in the city, in the hopes of saving up some cash to get to france. in any case, this evening we've decided we're buying our one way tickets to france soon and then figuring it out from there. if work doesn't present itself this week, we plan on catching a ride to perth (western australia) and escaping to live more cheaply in thailand until france comes along in june. such an adventure, eh??

even with all the uncertainty the trip has been great. we've already petted koalas and kangaroos, surfed in australian waters, seen plentiful beaches and rivers, eaten vegemite and fish and chips on the beach, learned some about local culture (bogans), and like the rest of the country have become wrapped up in a little reality tv cooking show called masterchef.

i knew starting out that the actual trip that happened would be drastically different than what we had planned. seeing it actually beginning to happen (and so soon!) is exiciting but also a bit scary. here goes to seeing where we'll be nine months from now.

cheers!