A Cool Park and a (Potentially) Cool School!

We continue to get settled in to life in Adelaide. Our jet lag has been "OK" -with a 14 1/2 hour time change, I think we are probably doing pretty well considering we've only been here 6 days! I felt mildly dizzy for several days, but that has finally stopped. We are pushing ourselves to stay awake later and later every day (last night I made it to 10pm!), but our bodies are still wanting to wake up around 4-5am. That's what naps are for :)

Yesterday we found a cool park called Boynthon Park. Unfortunately it is very hard to get to, but the long walk didn't disappoint! It had features that were different from regular Iowa playgrounds, including this cool rope climb thing:

This thing spun around and around:

A swing similar to our favorite ones in Indianola:

And the best part: a zipline!!

We would have liked to stay longer at this park, and will make plans to bring a picnic lunch next time. There were also several walking trails and a beautiful river nearby! But we had to cut our trip short to get to school!

We have had issues even before arriving in Adelaide getting the boys enrolled in school here. We were informed weeks ago that our neighborhood public school is full and not accepting new students (don't ask me how a public school can be full - clearly the concept of public school is defined differently here). Long story short, we've had a hard time finding a school who wants our boys! The exception to this is Brompton Primary School, which we visited yesterday afternoon.

This school is not in our suburb, so we'll have to take a city bus to get there. It will probably be a 20-25 minute commute one way, which of course is more than our 6 minute car ride at home, but in the grand scheme of things, not that bad. We had some reservations about the neighborhood and clientele of this school, as it does not have the greatest reputation (compared to our upper scale neighborhood, anyway). However, after touring the school with the principal, we are very confident that this school will be a good fit for our boys.

One of the biggest differences from our Iowa school is that the school is composed of several buildings. Students are in and out of them throughout the day. We visited on the last day of school before their July term break, so the kids were a bit out of their routine, but they seemed excited to meet our American boys with their American accents! The principal was very open and honest about the past challenges of the school and how she has addressed them in her 4 years as principal. We were impressed with her candor. She seems to run a tight ship! 

The school has a STEM focus and a small building specifically for STEM activities. Basically this means that each class visits this building twice a week for extra STEM activities (think of it as an extra 'special,' like PE or art, added to the students' week). I was also impressed that their STEM space is NOT a computer lab - it had very little technology, but tons of building materials and hands-on activities. 

Their playground (they refer to it as their "yard") was big (this pic was taken from a distance so it doesn't look that big from here). It also had some unconventional features: trees for climbing, and trampolines! Micah was super excited about that; he has been missing our trampoline at home. 

So - we very much liked the school and think our boys will be treated very well there. It is a diverse student population, which is something we don't exactly have at home! We only wish the commute was more convenient, but we will learn to live with it. If all goes as planned, the boys will be starting school at the beginning of the 3rd term, which starts on July 23. They will be ready; Micah especially is ready to make new friends!

Random Pics from our Random First Days

Turns out there is lots to do when you move to a new country! We've spent the past couple of days just getting settled and shopping for groceries and random household needs. Our apartment is furnished, but very sparsely, and we're still discovering random things that we need (like trash cans, blankets, towels, etc). Without a car, we've been limited in what we can carry home, but I think we've done pretty well so far!

Here is our apartment:

We'll try to do a 'video tour' of the inside at some point, but we're not quite ready for that! The apartment is larger than we thought it would be. We have 3 bedrooms and 2 baths upstairs, and the living room, kitchen/dining room (which is so big we're also using it as an office), and half bath are on the 1st floor. We also have 2 private outside areas, but no lawn furniture, so that makes them not quite as useable as they could be. 

We are a fairly close bus ride to Rundle Mall, which is the central hub of Adelaide. There is a lot of shopping, restaurants, etc. We've been there twice in the past two days collecting groceries and housewares.

One of the main landmarks of Rundle Mall are the "Mall's Balls" (official name is 'The Spheres' apparently, but it sounds like no one actually calls it that when you can call it Malls Balls!), seen here:

 Here is a higher-up view of Rundle Mall, taken on a rogue elevator that we weren't supposed to ride:

Adelaide is preparing for Umbrella Winter City Sounds, which (I believe) is a series of outdoor concerts. I'm assuming this is why the Adelaide Arcade in Rundle Mall was decorated this way.

I'd already been thinking of my good friend Tara, who was in Adelaide 4 years ago with her family, and then we saw this. . .

We found a nearby park this afternoon ("in the arvo" as they would say here) which gave the boys an opportunity to burn off some energy! We're staying awake a little bit later every day, and the time change has not been as terrible as I thought. Now if we can just stop waking up at 4am. . .

Travel questions from our cousins

We've arrived!  We are still getting settled in (and will be for the next week or two, at least), but all is well so far. Our nieces Lauren and Meredith sent us some of their questions about our flight, so I thought I'd share the answers here! If any of you have questions for us, please comment and we'll do our best to answer them.

Since it stormed a lot here (Ankeny got 10 inches of rain in 2-3 hours, Adel got around 3) they wondered if it stormed for you on the plane. Any bad weather?

No, we didn't have any bad weather on the plane. We left before it started raining in DSM. I think we flew around some storms in the Kansas City area. There was some mild turbulence at times on the flight, which made Eli a little bit motion-sick. But after a couple good burps he felt better :)​

Was it a double decker plane?

​Yes!​ It was the biggest plane we've ever been on.

If so, were you on the top or bottom?

​Bottom. There was a spiral staircase at the back of the plane, so we walked up to look into the top deck, but it was pretty much the same as the bottom deck. The plane was huge!!

Did the seat recline so you could sleep?

The seats reclined a little bit more than the ones on American planes. There was a part of the headrest that you could bend to kind of cradle your head, so you could sleep without your head flopping to the side. They also gave each person a small pillow, blanket, sleep mask, and earplugs. We each slept a few hours here and there on the plane. They kept the lights low for most of our flight.

Have you eaten any different food there?

​On our flight from Sydney to Adelaide, they offered us 'brekkie' - which is breakfast. They our choices were a ham and egg toastie (ham, egg, and cheese sandwich on toasted bread) or some spiced apple museli (which was like cold oatmeal with the flavor of apple cider). We ate out for lunch yesterday at a Vietnamese restaurant a couple blocks away. There are lots of Asian restaurants and Asian people here. It is kind of funny to hear their Asian/Australian accents! We had bahn mi (sandwiches on crunchy hoagie bread, with different types of meat, shredded carrots, and cilantro). There is a grocery store about a 15 minute walk from our place, so we walked there last night to pick up just a few things until we can make a bigger trip to the store. They had lots of the same types of food we have here, though the prices aren't always the same. Micah picked out a box of Fruit Loops, and, while they taste the same as it does here, Micah noted that the cereal "is the color of every kind of puke." So that's fun :)

One week to go...

... And we have one suitcase completely packed, weighing in at around 49 lbs. Wish us luck!!

Twenty Days Out Q & A

We leave in exactly 20 days. ..  but who's counting?? We've been getting lots of questions about the basics of our trip, so here are some answers for those who might be interested!

Why are we going to Australia?
Kedron is teaching a semester abroad. He's taking a group of Simpson students and will be teaching this group; plus doing some research through the University of Adelaide.

Is the whole family going?
Umm. . .yes. Do you think we'd let just Kedron go on this awesome adventure and leave the rest of us behind?

How long will you be gone?
Five months. We leave the end of June and return the end of November.

Where exactly are you going?


 We will be in Adelaide, South Australia. Adelaide has about 1 million people and is located on the southern coast of Australia.

What will the weather be like in Adelaide?
Because we'll be in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are reversed. It will be winter when we arrive, but their weather is not like an Iowa winter. Temps will be mid 50's, meaning we will see rain and wind, but no snow. By the time we leave in November, average daytime temps will be in the mid 70s or higher.

Where are you staying?
We will live in an apartment owned by the University of Adelaide (think grad student-type housing). The apartment is furnished; we believe it has 3 bedrooms. We haven't seen the inside of it, so it will be a surprise for all of us! There is on-site laundry and the kitchen will be stocked with the basics (we hope!). We are lucky to have an oven, as that is not typical in all housing in Australia (some homes have a cooktop only).

Will you have a car?
No! Adelaide has a good public transportation system that we will get to learn very well! We plan to purchase bikes for all 4 of us when we arrive, but will mostly use the buses to get around.



What are you doing with your house here?
We are working on finding a renter/cat sitter in our absence. We believe we have a renter for most of the time we'll be gone, but are still working out details. If you are local and want to help with cat sitting, please let us know!

What will the boys do for school?
Good question. . . there has been some uncertainty recently about this. The plan is for them to attend public school there; but it has yet to be determined which public school they'll go to. Once we arrive in the country, we believe we can enroll them either into the local public school or maybe into a charter-type STEM school. We are limited in what we can do to get them enrolled until we're actually living in Adelaide (and actually, they spell it 'enroled').

Since the seasons are reversed, so is their school year (they also start school at the end of summer, but this is in Jan/Feb). The boys will start school at the beginning of the local 3rd quarter, which is at the end of July.

Is Rachel quitting her job?
NO! My employer has been very gracious in allowing me to continue to work. I will do certain parts of the job remotely, and other staff will pick up some of my tasks in my absence. We are all part time employees so are still figuring out how to shuffle around my duties so I won't be missed. Much.

Will you get to see the whole country while you're there?
Unfortunately, no. Many people don't realize how big this country is! Australia is roughly the size of the contiguous United States. We have plans to visit a few places, but given the fact that Kedron will be working full time, and that we won't have a car, and that we're not millionnaires, we'll do the best with the time and resources we have.



Is there any chance you'll end up staying in Australia permanently?
No - Simpson would eventually stop paying my husband if we don't return :)


Anything else you'd like to know? Comment below and we'll add that question to this post. If you'd like to follow us on our trip, type your email in to the "Follow By Email" bar above, and you'll get an email notification every time I add a new blog post. We're excited to share our travels with all of you!