HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM & DAD!!!

LOVE

semaphore at sunset

Here are some of the pictures from our journey to the beach at sunset yesterday. It was kind of a last minute trip and it was beautiful! 

Alison on the jetty, Semaphore in the background

Steve on the jetty

rundle street mall

Okay, so it's about time that I am honest about one of our favourite activities in Adelaide. We love  have been shopping a few times. There is this street, Rundle Street, that is only for pedestrians and that is lined with stores and cafes and restaurants and art. Behind the main line of shops, there is a five story indoor mall. In the most basic definition of the word, it is awesome. It takes up a whole block of the city and is just one block away from Adelaide Uni.. so it is very accessible to us. It is also where we take money out for rent and where we sometimes do our groceries. It is where we have booked some local tours. It is a very active street filled with shoppers, business people, kids, coffee, fruit smoothies, and didgeridoo players. It works very well as a pedestrian street and there are always crowds of people here. I'm 95% sure of it, I walked by Usher on Rundle Street. 

gilles street market

One of the nice things about travelling is seeing a lot of new things in different places. Alison and I are here in Adelaide for the semester and so we are travelling a lot in one place. I admit that I haven't travelled a lot of places like I have seen Adelaide. We have the opportunity to see and experience a lot of smaller local characteristics, quirks, and events that we otherwise might not be able to.. things such as the Gilles Street Market. We walked through Victoria Square, which is one of Adelaide's first planned city centres, and found Gilles Street Primary School, where the market is held. There were a lot of people on the streets, but if Alison and I hadn't walked right by the school grounds we definitely wouldn't have found it! The sign was there, but you couldn't see it before you actually arrived. Once we found it, we realized that it was a very popular event, especially for girls, as there was a wide variety of stalls with jewellery, clothing, bathing suits, and hand bags, both cheap and expensive. I think the venue has a large part in the success of the event. One, because it is at a primary school that we later found out a lot of locals know about. Two, because the school grounds allow for relatively small personal space, it seems very busy and very social. If this same market was spread over a football field, it would likely feel impersonal and awkward for the shoppers. Third, there was food grilling in the far back corner so if you wanted some, you had to go through everything else (slowly because of the amount of people) before you could reach it. 


Alison and I didn't end up buying anything because of our serious lack of cash, but it was a fun time anyway because we got to see and experience something new in our city.

museum of south australia

Being students, Alison and I have taken a liking to all of the free attractions that Adelaide has to offer. We've spent a day at the museum, familiarizing ourselves with some of the aboriginal culture and art, as well as the local flora and fauna.

marty

As some of you may know, Alison and I have another new friend here in Adelaide. His name is Marty and he is a lot of fun. We play fetch and footy and when we can't play with Marty, he amuses himself by putting all of toys into the pool and trying to get them out. He will do this for hours in the sun, and by the end of the day all he wants to do is come inside and watch movies with us. He will steal all the couch space - there is a strict two Marty cushions to one Emily cushion ratio. He is quite cuddly at times, which makes me think of Sandy and Molly at home, but others he just wants to play outside. Alison and I figured out a pretty funny trick.. If you take his toy and hold it and say Marty, talk to me, he will. He doesn't do the conventional 'speak', it is more of a quite grumbly-howl. It's funny and it will likely never get old! Anyway, here are a few pictures of our new friend Marty!

One of Marty's favourite balls .. and him waiting for me to throw it!

Marty and I on the couch

semaphore

Since the beginning of our stay in Adelaide, Alison and I have taken a real interest in Semaphore. There is a main street in Semaphore that goes down to the water of Gulf St. Vincent. The beach is very popular on Saturdays when dogs are allowed off their leads and are free to roam the sand and water. Steve (our homestay guy) took us to witness the dogs in action first Saturday that we were in Adelaide and I have to say that it was exciting for me, a human. The first time we went to Semaphore, we went in the warm and salty water for a swim. Since we've been back though, I haven't been in because I am a little paranoid of getting stung by a jellyfish or something. It's also getting a little cooler during the days and pretty 'cold' at night, so the water isn't refreshing anymore, it's kind of a cold shock with just my feet in! So, Alison and I come to the beach to lay in the sun and get ice cream, because let's be honest, no trip to the beach is the same without ice cream! My personal favourite is between boysenberry or cappuccino.

The beach itself has (mostly) white sand with spots of intense shell deposit. There is seaweed stuff everywhere and it sometimes looks like still tumbleweeds in a dessert. Semaphore is also very tidal, so we see the sand in varying amounts. The sand dunes on the beach are all protected with fences and there are signs warning about deteriorating dune conditions. Even though the fences are pretty ugly, the idea is wise and they have helped to keep the sand from eroding and to preserve some very important habitats for animals including snakes.. Yay, Semaphore! There is a nice boardwalk that has been populated with fishers every time we have been to the beach. The water is a nice blue colour - or you could get all technical and tell me that the sand is white so it reflects the colour of the sky very clearly. Either way, it is very pretty and I love it here. I think one time soon we are going to have to make a trip down for the sunset and get some nice pictures to share with everyone. Hopefully these give you a nice visual for now!

oh, back to the books

So I guess this means that I am back in school now, now that we have almost reached week six. It has been almost too hot to study so far, so now that the weather is cooling down, I am willing to talk about school. Alison and I are both taking two courses - Urban Futures and Designing Sustainable Communities. Both are very interesting and related to the other. 

So far for Designing Sustainable Communities we have had four lectures, five seminars, and a self-guided field trip to Mount Barker. Mount Barker is a small town of 18,000 outside Adelaide where a lot of families live and then commute to Adelaide for work. It has been predicted that there will be two times the amount people living in Mount Barker in 20 years as there are now. Our job was to go to Mount Barker and experience the current character of the 'country town' and see where the predicted growth boundary is. So, Alison and I walked around with our cameras and took pictures of Mount Barker. We weren't overly impressed with a lot of it, but there was definitely some potential! The project that we are doing over the semester is interesting though, and I am also excited to be doing one design project per semester here instead of two. At home we would generally do two, which is great practice, but I am looking forward to spending more time getting to know Mount Barker and focus on one design in more detail. The whole project is broken up into different sections or road marks - analysis, design framework, and master planning - which we have to complete over our stay here in Adelaide. The lectures in this class are given by guest lecturers and have generally been very good. However, every once in a while I come out of class with a lot of bottled emotions because I have felt that both sides of the storey aren't always taught (and it is something that I have a lot of passion about). This is okay, it just means that I have realized which topics I would like to stand up for.

Urban Futures is a geography course that explores the future of urban areas. It has so far talked about housing diversity and spatial (in)equalities, transport oriented design (a huge thing down here!), and the history and theory behind some of Australia's cities. I have done the My City slideshow and tutorial readings so far for this class, which have all opened my eyes to how much location and spatial organization have to do with the future of urban areas. 

I like school here. At first I thought it was very similar to at home, but the more I go to class, the more I realize that it is actually quite different. I feel that at Guelph we are all a part of the same family in SEDRD, but here there is no real space that feels like I belong to. It is not a depressing thing, it is just how the school is set up. There are Architecture and Landscape Architecture students, and students who are not sure which they prefer yet all in the same building. The classes are taken by a mix of students, so there really isn't a constant in the sense of seeing familiar faces. I don't feel like anybody other than those in my classes know who we are and that we aren't from here. I guess we just kind of blend in. Fine, let us blend! The point is, I like school at home and I like the way we have our own studio with critiques from our own professors who are always willing to help us grow as people and designers. Thank you everybody at home - you even make me miss your lectures and school work!