green tea latte, glenelg, boxer shorts, brighton, clara's bday.

slept in on sunday morning and then headed out for breakfast by the beach. had a "lighter" breakfast and then went into to a starbucks to warm up and to sit & chat. we sat on the balcony that overlooked the ocean and the main square of glenelg. it was quite nice.

note to self. never get the green tea latte.

we then walked around glenelg...

look! it's a palindrome!
G-L-E-N-E-L-G... G-L-E-N-E-L-G.

while in search of a toilet, we stumbled across the town museum.

i'm not sure who this is but my guess is he found glenelg and pointed to everyone: "look! it's glenelg!" ok, so maybe that not EXACTLY how it went...

we then walked along the jetty and took some pictures.

...

...

yea. about that. justin had sent me boxer shorts that look like a canadian hockey jersey. to the horror of clara and stella, i showed my appreciation by wearing it around in public. can't possibly imagine what they'd be so embarrassed about.

we had had enough of glenelg so we headed to brighton.

another little beach. another jetty. and another meal. lunch was at primo's, an italian/seafood restaurant. it was good. i had the seafood risotto and felt like i was going to burst at the seams.

i'm pretty sure pat's full too.

after lunch, the girls' did the some shopping and pat & i snuck off to buy a cake for clara's birthday. on our way home we went up to windy point for a view of the city...

at least one silly jumping photo is mandatory on all trips.

funny thing.

in classic bogen fashion, there were several of these drive-thru liquor stores in adelaide.

of course there was one last meal left. dinner was at a restaurant/pub called the dublin. another great meal. i had a seared kingfish.
(sorry camera was out of batteries by this point).
it was some great tasting fish. we rarely have fish in brissy - beef is king at "home". so it was nice.

we capped off the trip with a song and some cake.

happy (early) birthday clara!

another early flight out and i was home in bris by noon on monday. cleaned up, showered and headed to lectures. i'm glad i didn't blow them off cause they were actually pretty good.

*****
when i first flew into adelaide i wasn't expecting a whole lot out of the city - especially considering stella refers to adelaide as a "cultural wasteland" and the in-flight magazine referred to it as "dullsville". but i gotta say i had a lot of fun. and i can definitely see why it'd be a tourist-worthy place in the summer time.
but maybe our next reunion will be somewhere else? melbourne? or even new zealand perhaps?

i think this picture sums up this trip.

noice!!!

marilyn, CBD, UofA, bratwursts, wine tasting.

saturday started off with a big breakfast at a place called "a cafe etc..."
food was pretty good - and they had marilyn monroe EVERYWHERE. it was like a shrine. the walls of the restaurant were completely plastered with pictures, posters and news articles about marilyn. they had plates with pictures of MM hanging from the walls, porcelain dolls of MM, even a elvis-like bust of MM. it was cool. sort of. all that really matters was that it was only 10:30 and i was completely stuffed.


we then drove into the city and walked around the downtown core. it wasn't very big. hm... the entire downtown seemed about the size of the UofT st.george campus.
we took some pictures by the state library, the art gallery and museum and eventually wandered onto the university of adelaide campus. now, the UofA campus was actually quite nice.


it was very harvard-esque. it even had a little river in the back - like harvard!


it reminded me so much of boston that i got a little carried away. i don't think this boot is as lucky though.


all that walking was making us hungry. we weren't really hungry but felt obliged to eat. afterall, it was past noon. so we drove up to hahndorf a little town with good german food. we stopped in a little place for some tea and coffee and then settled on a german restaurant. i proceeded to stuff my face with a bratwurst with lots of sauerkraut.

it was good.

after lunch we went for some wine tasting.

stella opted not to drink as she was driving so i dutifully had her share of wine.


clara - happy with the view.


me - happy with my purchase.

after the wine we went up to mount lofty but it was much too foggy and cloudy to see anything.


after mount lofty we were pooped. so we headed home. we recharged our batteries and then decided it was time for dinner. yes we were still full but the clock said it was 6:30. time for dinner. we ended up picking up some take out from a thai place nearby. pat made a very valiant effort to finish all 4 servings (the rest of us weren't very hungry) but was unsuccessful. i think there is enough leftovers from that dinner to last stella for another couple of weeks.

adelaide wrap up.

man. where to start. i can't believe my break is over already and pat is somewhere over the pacific ocean on his way back home. it's true. time flies when you're having fun.

so we flew into adelaide on friday morning, caught a cab and made our way to stella's townhouse. after dropping off our bags and catching our breaths, we started getting hungry so we decided to go exploring around the campus. no offense stella but flinders has got nothing on UQ. it reminds me of the UTSC campus back in the day. lots of green grass and trees but also lots and LOTS of CONCRETE.

pat with the bust of captain matthew flinders.

fortunately stella finished earlier than expected so we headed out for some fluids (at cibo) and dinner (at simply sushi). after dinner we drove into the city and did a quick tour by car. we then headed to the airport to pick up clara who was flying in from sydney. for some reason stella thought it'd be funny to embarrass clara by wearing party hats as we waited for her at her gate.

in case you don't know clara, she gets embarrassed very easily and is generally ashamed of all her male cousins. well, except for pat. and in this case, without justin and harri, i guess that just leaves, well... me.

case in point:

adelaide is home to coopers beer. it's probably one of the better beers of australia but still doesn't compare to canadian beer. the funny thing is that coopers is a family brewery and one of the CEOs - Tim Cooper is actually an MD, well, i guess an MBBS.

after picking up clara, we picked up some pizza (yes, more food) and went home to watch some scrubs and fraser DVDs.