Monday 21st February - Wednesday 23rd February

After an early start in Perth we were thoroughly annoyed when our flight was delayed by a couple of hours as this was precious time that we could have spent sleeping rather than in a crappy domestic airport! It was an interesting experience though as the airport was full of men and women in their mining and construction uniforms that must have been flying off to work in the mines or on construction sites for the week - not something you see in England on a Monday morning!

We eventually arrived in Adelaide and took the bus to our hostel. On this journey we got chatting to a lovely local woman who told us exactly where to get off the bus and also gave us local information on what we should do whilst in town. We didn't know what to expect with Adelaide as most of our friends had told us that it wasn't a nice place and there wasn't much to do. Asides from our hostel (which we'll get to later) we actually found ourselves really liking Adelaide and having a good time.

The city itself is laid out in a very American style grid pattern, but has a very arty feel about it with lots of cute cafes, boutique shops, the National Wine Centre and lots of beautiful parkland. The Fringe Festival was also in town and this was the second biggest in the world after Edinburgh! Good timing! We spent the remainder of our first afternoon wandering around the city centre and following advice from the lady we met on the bus we sat and watched some free snippets of the Fringe Festival live and outdoors. This cheered us up after an early start to the day and it was also a good way to see if we were interested in seeing any of the shows. One comedian stood out to us - 'The Hermitude of Angus, Ecstatic' so we snapped up $10 tickets for the following night.

On arrival back at the hostel we walked into our room to find a girl laying naked face down on the bed receiving a massage from a Swedish girl who was straddled on top of her (fully clothed)! Needless to say this was an awkward moment so we left the room to sit in the social area! We tried to get an early night, but in the early hours of the morning the guy in our room came home pretty wasted, fell asleep and began to snore loudly. Great! To make matters worse, his drunken Irish friend that was a complete idiot (for various reasons) decided to start banging on our door and walking in at 5am all because he wanted to speak to his mate about a girl. We were not happy bunnies!

The following day we wandered into town again, watched some crazy magician busker, went to the wine centre only to be disappointed when we found out you had to pay for the wine tasting (on another note I did manage to concoct a Gold Star Level Wine on the computer). On further advice from the bus lady we went to the Art Gallery of South Australia to see a crazy modern art exhibition which consisted of a huge screen which used still and moving images to make a video.

"The Feast of Trimalchio by the Russian art group AES+F is a series of large scale panoramic digital 'paintings' set in an exotic hotel, where dark undertones lurk below the excessive indulgence of this apparent paradise.

The Feast of Trimalchio is an interpretation of the best-preserved part of the witty but melancholy fiction 'Satyricon' by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, the great Roman poet of Nero's reign."

As neither of us know that much about art this was very strange to us but you couldn't help but stay and watch it for 15mins! If you're interesting in seeing what we mean then take a look at this: http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s3058298.htm We followed this by walking through the parks and along the river back to the hostel.

That evening we treated ourselves to a McDonalds before going to see 'The Hermitude of Angus, Ecstatic'. As we entered the small room we were told to sit on the front row - we can only assume that this is because we looked like we were up for a good time and had no shame! What were we letting ourselves in for?! The comedian came out and performed his hour long show which is really hard to describe. It's a one man, award winning, physical comedy where he plays a number of characters. We laughed from beginning to end and as we expected were included in the show - Sean was given a wooly hat to wear (who knows how many other heads it had been on), I ended up with a can of tuna and chocolate cake spat in my face and at the end we were dragged up on stage and made to dance. Very strange but amusing!

We headed back for our second night in the hostel only to find out we were sharing with an older guy with a beer belly - this was a sign to us that he would probably be a snorer. Oh dear - we were right. Never in my life have I heard someone snore that loud - I didn't even know i was possible. I didn't have any ear plugs at this point, but even if I did, I don't think they would have worked as I could still hear him at the other end of the corridor. Unfortunately no other beds were free so there was no other option but to take our duvets and sleep in the lounge. This itself was a nightmare as some other backpackers were sitting on the balcony adjoining the lounge getting wasted! To add to this there was an Irish guy out there slagging off the English and filling some Europeans with the biggest amount of rubbish ever!

Overall, we really liked Adelaide, it was just a shame things were spoilt by snorers and ignorant people!