Some homey feels - Adelaide / 10.01.2019

This morning I got up early to be at Alice Springs Airport at 9 o'clock for my flight to Adelaide. 

When I finally arrived in the city after a relatively uneventful flight, the first thing I noticed through the windows was a large dark blue and yellow building (also known as Ikea). I immediately knew I had to go there. 

So I picked up my luggage, my little backpack friend was fortunately undamaged, and happily walked the 7-minute walk down the street, while internally pondering how I would carry my heavy backpack the whole time. But when I walked through the sliding door, a friendly lady immediately looked at me and suggested I simply take a shopping cart. So that's what I did, and I pushed my luggage in front of me, absorbing the familiar smell, looking at all the furniture, with other people giving me strange looks because I looked sweaty and backpacker-like and certainly didn't have a house in Australia, but I didn't care because it was just nice to be in Ikea. 

And of course, Ikea wouldn't be Ikea without Ikea food in the Ikea cafeteria, so I quickly got myself a schnitzel with fries, a slice of apple cake, and a refillable glass of lemonade. So I relaxed for a while, until Henrik suddenly wrote to me and asked if Bee, him and I wanted to meet up tonight, since we were all in Adelaide. That sounded like a very good idea to me as well, and I quickly found the bus I had to take to get to Henrik's and Bee's hostel. I could leave my backpack there for a while and the bus stop for my evening bus to Melbourne was just around the corner. 

So at about 1 o'clock we all met up and I was really excited to see everyone again. We walked around the streets a bit, talking, listening to the street musicians, eventually buying something at Woolworths, finding a strange silver egg-shaped sculpture, looking at the campus of the university in Adelaide, and finally chilling in a really nice park by a river.

Some beautiful black swans swam by here, which only exist here in Australia, and a quite cheeky seagull kept causing trouble among other birds and ducks. But it was quite funny to watch and we had a really nice time together. 

But unfortunately, I had to go to the bus stop relatively early, so as a final stop, we went to a really cool bowl shop where you could have different vegetables, fish and meat put in a bowl. I ordered a chicken bowl and even ate the strange peas that were in it. The other people's orders also looked really colorful and of course I had to take some pictures of them, which Henrik laughed at. u

Just before 8 o'clock I picked up my luggage and Henrik showed me the way to the bus station, where we said goodbye and I was assigned my seat. It was right up front, directly behind the bus driver, so I had a premium view and even 2 seats to myself.

And so I embarked on the 9-hour, sleepless journey to Melbourne.

Song of the day: I'd go with You Anywhere by Birds of Tokyo, because the song (and especially the lyrics) is super beautiful and we heard it in the park today.