Good Ole Adelaide!

Things have been pretty quiet with this blog in the last 3 weeks but not with our lives. Returning home is always a time of business to attend to, health appointments and a lot of socializing. Doing so in the busy Xmas and New Year period was even more frantic than usual with the added complication of so many of the businesses and restaurants closed.

Nonetheless we have spread ourselves around and enjoyed the company of friends and family and marveled at the massive changes we seem to have undergone while so little has improved for so many Aussies.

We always arrive with ‘a to do’ list and a ‘to see’ list but this time we added a ‘to eat’ list, despite our expanding waistlines and the incredible food we consumed in Asia in the last few months. We know that the wide variety of cuisines available in Australia will not be part of our everyday life in the very near future.

There is evidence of building and development and more new and interesting structures have been completed or are about to be in Adelaide CBD and beyond. The climate is also dramatically different despite what the climate change naysayers would like us to believe. There is no place on earth I know better than good ole Adelaide in terms of weather and climate but it has been a challenge to adapt to the swings of weather from cool and windy to blistering heat and bright sunshine, which is what we were expecting.

The parklands, the Botanical Gardens, the beaches, the Art Gallery and Museum and the Central Market and an ever increasing number of bike tracks, lead me to believe that there is still a very economically and ecologically viable life style to be had in this picturesque capital city but I can also see more of our dear friends struggling to find a work life balance. Generally there is more hardship, social dysfunction and poverty resulting from a political environment of cutting services and demanding more self-management for society as a whole. It seems to me that our status of being “The Lucky Country” is slipping between our fingers, with funding cut backs, and belt tightening in those already severely depleted essential service. Simultaneously so many of us Aussies seem too preoccupied with our own person dilemmas to see the big picture. Perhaps it is just because the change is more obvious to us, who arrive after months or years of absence, that it is also more alarming. 

Nonetheless the time at home will be well remembered for an abundance of people, who have made the time to share their love, laughter and ideas with us over coffee and meals, excesses of delicious local wine, lashings of incredibly diverse and scrumptious food and spectacular vistas and urban landscapes.

Having said all that it is still totally true that we are glad to be returning to Bhutan and the next adventure in 2014! We have acquired a new mindset and a better appreciation for what is really important in our months of travel and are optimistic and inspired to once again join the workforce.

Happy New Year everyone and may this be the year where we all get to be “the change we wish to see in the world.”