Now it is the middle of November I thought I’d do a quick little update!
The past few weeks have been full of end-of-semester assignments which means I haven’t been able to get out and do too much. I managed to get them all done and submitted on time and now it is the exam period so I am busy revising. I had one exam last Tuesday and have another one tomorrow. This will be my last one and tomorrow evening I’m setting off for New Zealand which I’m very excited about! After New Zealand I’m coming back to Australia and traveling up the East Coast. Today the temperature reached almost 40 degrees which has made it a bit hard to revise – fortunately I have air-conditioning in my room! I went outside briefly and even the wind felt like fire. The exams are all held at a site called Wayville Stadium which takes about twenty minutes to get to on the tram and then a short five-minute walk.
As my time in Adelaide is drawing to an end, I decided to explore some of the other beaches and little areas that I hadn’t been to yet. I got the bus to Henley beach one Saturday evening to check it out. That was all well and good and then two days later, on Monday evening, I was at a place called Union Hotel (top tip – they offer very nice pizzas for only $6 on Mondays) when my friend and I saw the news on the television. A brown snake had been spotted on Henley beach. We didn’t think too much of it but then discovered that it had been seen that same day we went, just a few hours earlier. AND IT HADN’T BEEN CAUGHT. A quick Google search later and I discovered that the brown snake is the second most venomous land snake in the world…Sometimes, it’s so easy to forget that these deadly animals are here in Australia because living in the city means you hardly see them. I did think that it was rather odd for a snake to be spotted on a beach and apparently this is unusual behavior – instead they like to lurk around down in the bushes and grass by the River Torrens (and I am only discovering this now months after living here…).
On a better note, I also visited the Japanese Gardens which is a short tram ride away. Adelaide has some really pretty gardens and this one did not disappoint. It felt very tranquil. All over the city at the moment there are these really pretty trees called jacarandas which are in full bloom now that summer is approaching.
As I set off on my travels tomorrow after my final exam, I won’t have much time to do a proper blog post in December, but I do intend on doing an extra-detailed one in January, after I return home to the UK. Trying to plan for almost two months of traveling takes a lot of time and effort. I can’t quite believe how quickly my semester has gone; it only feels like yesterday that I started. To anyone thinking of doing study abroad, I highly recommend that you do because you will learn so much and I can’t describe how much it will open up your mind to new possibilities.