holy adelaide!

adelaide claims to be the proper city of australia. it was, after all, the first city to NOT be organized by convicts. australia was in fact settled predominately by prisoners that were shipped over from europe. the island of australia was seen as a very remote location to drop the criminals and just leave them there-- a lot of germans, irish, etc. naturally, they began to settle certain areas. adelaide, however, was not one of them. so naturally, the city carries this emblem of purity on its sleeve.

and with this purity.. it kind of gets the rap for being the bible belt of australia. and yes, there are a few more churches than most other parts of australia... but lets be fair: religion isnt the most popular thing in australia, so it kind of makes this city stick out a bit and give it the unfair label.

now at first glance when you walk in to this place at about 7 pm, the first thought that crosses your mind is "not another brisbane!" the streets are empty, store fronts are closed and well, there aren't really many people out.

but hold on there cowboy, this place is something else. i feel like it has grabbed me in a few ways, and i find adelaide to be one of the more delightful places i have come across..

1) it has the most accessible and plentiful music scene for a city of its size that i think i have ever seen. they have this place called "the grace emily" which just pumps out solid music every night.

2) i like the european flair. the cafe lifestyle. the variety.

3) coopers (a favorite beer of mine) is a south australian beer so every pub, club, hideout, music venue, restaurant or otherwise has it on tap.

4) the people tend to be of a million different varieties. and when i say variety, like the rest of australia, it is predominately white--- but, you see all "types" of people: the punks, students, professionals, families, the emos... everything! and that is nice -- something you dont see everywhere in australia (this country can get real homogenous at times).

so yeah, i like the place.

over the past 3 days of being here i have seen a good concert every night... all of which priced at $10 or lower for a solid show. the first, nuala honan... the second, a contemporary string quartet.... the third, a guy by the name of loren. very very solid stuff. i will share the tunes when i can.

bryan and i were having a midday beer at "the austral" which is a bigger pub on the main drag here in the city, and out pops a few familiar faces! christ, this place isnt that small. but sure enough, it was the two swiss guys fredi and thomas who had helped get us out of the CHUG conundrum. what a small world!

and adelaide even has a beach! adelaide itself is set a ways inland so it takes about 20 or 30 minutes by tram to get there but its a lovely place when you arrive. bryan and i managed to chum with some 13 year olds and they showed us the local "cool spot" to jump off the pier. it was actually pretty fun. its really nothing to secretive, but we thought it was great jumping off this 30 to 40 drop off the pier in to the ocean.

bryan jetted for melbourne to get a tour of the great ocean road for a few days. i am sticking around for another day or two. i havent really decided. theres another show on thursday i really want to see. its actually an america guy playing. he is from san francisco, fella by the name of kellie stoltz.

anyway, lots of cool things about this place. i am real glad we actually made it here and i was able to stick around for a while. initially i thought about just calling it good after CHUG and catching a plane to sydney.

more to come when i get to melbourne-- thanks for reading.