Guest blog by Sarah Bown – Signed By Sez
I moved away from Adelaide about 18 months ago. In that time I’ve lived for stints in Mongolia, Mt Gambier and finally settled in Canberra. They’re all pretty diverse places. Weather wise they’re all exactly the same. Effing freezing.
But in the midst of icy Canberra mornings where I try to figure out how to get changed without actually getting out of bed, I find my thoughts turning fondly to Adelaide. To the memories of warm mornings and warm nights. Ok the warmth in general.
But that’s not all. Aside from the weather, here are 8 other things this adopted Bush Capital resident has a hankering for from the great city of Rads.
1. Farmers Union. The next time I come back there will be a paramedic team on standby ready to meet me at the airport gate to mainline that stuff straight through an IV. No imitation is equal. This is not a drill people. I repeat this is not a drill.
Image credit: Shutterstock
2. Being able to park out of the front of my house. Being able to park at the supermarket. Being able to park anywhere really. Also, having a driveway/a garden/a laundry that is not in a cupboard #pureluxury
3. Having been a Crow eater since I was old enough to sing the song, not being able to go to the games is hard. What is even harder is in my desperate attempt to get my footy fix I paid $40.00 to go to a GWS game. Oh the shame. At least their song is kinda catchy #soundofthemightygiants
4. Public transport options. Mongolia has buses which don’t actually stop and you just take a well-timed leap out of the open door and hope you don’t die. Mt Gambier has like one bus. Canberra has buses that all go from the same interchange in the city where at 5:30 you’ll find a crowd of people huddled together for warmth, looking at each other suspiciously and making bets on whose fingers will go blue first.
5. Two words. Mad March. March in Canberra is the start of probably the country’s most beautiful Autumn. It is also the beginning of the long road through winter to Spring where every year sadly many Canberrans do not make it. SA’s mad March is SO bloody good!
6. The Beach. You know that magical place with white sand and softly lapping waves. The beach near Canberra, although beautiful, is 3 hours away. In Mt Gambier, the beach is about as balmy as the Artic and Mongolia is landlocked and many Mongolians don’t actually know what a beach looks like. Radelaideans leave work now and go and frolic at the beach.
Appreciate the shiz out of it.
7. This may be a little known secret but right near where I used to live in Netley is the Arnott’s biscuit factory. Oh yes you read that correctly. My route home from work used to be a gastronomic nose dance.
“Monte Carlo?”
“Chocolate creams?”
“TINY TEDDY DAY??”
Now my route home is past questionable housing estates is not quite the same.
And finally at number 8:
The fried eggplant dish from Tongue Thai’d. The first time a friend suggested it to me I thought: “A whole dish of just eggplant? Isn’t that kind of weird?” What I should have been thinking: “Shut your weird face and order more delicious eggplant!” Do you think eggplant keeps well being sent interstate by post?
Of course there are many more things I could add to this list but Adelady has to print something other than my homesick ramblings. I have revelled in all of my new adventures over the past 18 months but a part of my heart is still on the jetty at Grange, in the Garden of Unearthly Delights and most likely at The Woolshed on Hindley.
And considering how many food related items I have listed, I definitely left part of my stomach behind at Haighs.
Mmmm Haighs.
Sarah Bown x
Sarah is fresh off the plane to Canberra and quickly realising she’s not in Glenelg anymore. She’s a writer and marketing professional by day and spends her free time reading way too much self-help literature followed up by too much Pinot Gris. Sarah spent 2015 working in Mongolia sharing her marketing and communications skills with local organisations. Yes it was her choice, yes they have internet and no it’s not next to Syria. She’s in Canberra to write more, exercise more, meditate more and then proceed to do Option D: none of the above. Follow her on FACEBOOK.
And then there is a Mongolian who lives in Adelaide reading through the article like… ?…
I left Adelaide in 1999 to experience life in the land of heat and dust…..Saudi Arabia. What I miss most: the friendly people, the sound of magpies, the central market, the abundance of fresh nutritious food, cherry plum blossom, the smell of eucalyptus trees after a good rain, the fact that it’s so quick and easy to get from point A. to point B. (well it used to be anyhow), the pie cart and pie floaters….the list goes on. I go home to visit every year and without doubt leave feeling inspired and renewed.