(Written while watching the Superbowl on Monday morning at the hostel-the internet connection was really bad, so I'm only posting it now, a couple of days later.)
So you take the current time in Adelaide, add 5 and a half, then subtract 24... That's how I figure out the time in LA. Right now it's 6pm in LA on Sunday night, and 12:30pm Monday for us here! So we're watching the Superbowl at the hostel- unfortunately they've not included the commercials :-( Come on Steelers!
So yesterday was fun, we borrowed bikes from the hostel and used them as our primary vehicle to visit places for rent. Luckily Adelaide is a small town, and daylight lasts until 8pm, because we cycled around the entire town and were out all day. I think there's no better way to get to know a city than to house-hunt in it. We even had to take the train at one point.
It was like Goldielocks- the first place was horrible, the second place was really nice, and the third place was just right. Then we cycled around to a couple of other places just for kicks and comparison. So all in all, albeit stressful due to the uncertainty of not knowing the street names or suburb names, it didn't go too badly. Weather was great and the city is very bike friendly.
The weirdest part was an apt that seemed to good to be true. We got an email back from an ad we posted. The price was unbelievable for a fully furnished 2 bedroom apt, utilities included and even maid service. The pictures looked dreamy. But upon inquiry, the owner reveals that he is overseas, in London, so we won't meet him, and we wouldn't be able to inspect the place before paying the $$$. Hmmm, suspicious, no? But the place looked so dreamy! And so close to campus, right on the main drag. We tried phoning him and after a couple of seconds "the phone went dead." He wanted a $1000 deposit + 2 weeks rent before we could even get the keys to enter the place. No building manager to let us check it out ahead of time. And he didn't seem to need any personal details from us, as in, are we students, professionals, or unemployed party people? Too good to be true. Then we got the bright idea to look up apartment rental scams online and realized we were almost fooled. OMG what a scam!
Anyways, we're going to stay with Barry, a mechanical engineer from Malaysia who came here to study a few years ago and stayed. His house is clean and basic, with all the amenities, and close enough to campus, supermarket and bank. Plus he seemed like a cool guy. So we're settled, and I start school Wednesday. It's gonna be nice to have a couple of days to relax before gettin' back to the grind.