November [week 3]
Laura & Mark - 14th November 1999
At 10.30ish in the morning this morning we could hear varying bursts of loud music which seemed to be coming from the flat opposite our door. Being too lazy to get out of bed at this point we just lay there and got quietly annoyed until it eventually stopped for good. Or so we thought.
When the music came back again at around 11.30, accompanied by the occasional "one-two" and "testing" we decided it was time to give up on the long-awaited lie-in and get up. If not because we wanted to get up, then at least to find out what was the cause of all the racket.
Once we'd showered and dressed (during which time the music and testing sounds came and went) we stuck our heads round the front door to the music of "Rock around the clock". What we found was not the idiot neighbour with his speakers in the garden as we had expected, but was in fact a Rock 'n Roll festival in full swing.
We had a quick breakfast (slowly) and Mark prepared himself to go and do a few more hours of collecting. In the meantime, Laura would go and do some shopping and maybe some internetting.
Mark left to his collecting and Laura left to the shops, stopping briefly to enjoy the rock 'n roll atmosphere.
Mark came home a few hours later, having collected roughly $30. Laura had meanwhile spent almost that much in internet use and at the shops. She also went to watch some of the display dancing and the amateurs at the festival which turned out to be directly across the road from the motel. There were live bands throughout the day who played plenty of old classics. The show-dancers from the Adelaide Rock 'n Roll club were there to help people learn and there was plenty of food and drink (even a chance to ride in a hot-rod). All this was in aid of the Childhood Cancer charity and there was a wonderful atmosphere about the festival (even the weather was co-operating).
However, despite all the sunshine and festivities, by the time we finally made it down to the beach in the afternoon, the clouds were drawing in, covering the sun and cooling the air tremendously. It was very nippy by the water, so we quickly changed our minds about the body-boarding and went back to the motel to cook dinner. Laura cooked the wedges, peas and carrots and chicken vol-au-vents she'd chosen earlier in the day (pastry cups with chicken ragout in them), and pudding was home-made raspberry buns.
The stomachs fully satisfied, we settled our eyes and ears into "Jerry Maguire", and then bed.
Laura & Mark - 15th November 1999
Monday meant work. So that is what we did. Mark handed in his collected money from the previous week, and paid another visit to Worksmiths, just in order to thank them for saying: "we haven't heard anything yet".
Laura spent the day doing Cheap as Chips kind of things, just another day at work, and returned home in time to cook for Mark who was still out collecting.
Dinner was the lovely potato wedges (cooked with a special tasty sprinkle), accompanied of course by some delicious steaks, and a little tasty cucumber (plus some beetroot for Mark).
There isn't much left to be said about today, other than that we went for a very quick swim in the sea (the waves were too small to body-board), and watched a little TV before bed.
Laura & Mark - 16th November 1999
Another long day at work today for Laura, and a little collection work for Mark. The only difference today is that we both had our Tuesday night film to look forward too, and tonight we would also dine at Hungry Jacks as a change from cooking.
Laura was home by 6pm (ish) and relaxed for a while as she waited for Marl's return. When he came in, he had a quick drink before getting his things to go to the film. The bus journey there was completed swiftly and without incident, and we were soon in line, chewing over the tough decision of: "which film?"
It was decided: "Election", a comedy with Matthew Broderik wet in a school which sounded OK.
Then it was off to Hungry Jacks, where the decision was also tough. Eventually this was also decided: a bacon something-or-other menu for Laura, and a whopper something-or-other menu for Mark.
We enjoyed our meals and the scenery, with a little light conversation thrown in. The restaurant at the Marion Shopping Town took an old-fashioned Hollywood theme and there were pictures of stars on the walls, and even a juke-box.
Throw the rubbish away (no washing up) and onwards direction cinema number 24. This was where we would relax in the middle seats of the front row while we our minds were bombarded with pictures and sounds.
The film turned out to be highly disappointing, and we were on the verge of walking out even. We managed with, only a little pain,  to sit through the entire compilation of bad acting, awful characters, terrible camera work and a ridiculous, bordering on sick plot.
We were quite glad to see the final credit roll poorly up the screen and made a swift escape towards the bus, and home, and bed, and sleep.
Laura & Mark - 17th November 1999
Finally there was a shorter and more relaxed day at work for Laura. She only had to be in between 10am and 2pm today and could spend the entire time serving customers and fretting about her next driving lesson (scheduled for 2.01pm). The time at work passed quickly and the time to drive dawned. She went out of the shop and up the escalator and slowly made her way to the corner of the street, where hopefully for her, her driving instructor would forget to turn up. Unfortunately Paul was not that kind and he drove her out to the outskirts of the city centre, stopped along the side of a three-lane road, and said those words that brought a chill to Laura's spine: "Your turn". Feeling paralysed with nerves, Laura never-the-less got into the driver's seat once more, and they were off. Today's lesson was not a huge success. Laura was improving (apparently), but she was still scared of all other traffic, and pedestrians, and cyclists, and birds that sat in the middle of the road. Never mind though, because she got home safely and had got another step further to getting her licence.
In the meantime, Mark had done some more cleaning, and gone off once more to his collecting work. Today he also went along to the office from which he was employed and picked up his first pay. A very good feeling!
Laura got home nice and early from her lesson and headed off towards the shops to choose some dinner. She had decided to experiment, and buy every ingredient for tonight's meal from a proper shop, like a butcher or a green-grocer, rather than the supermarket, to see if it felt cheaper. She was having great success and had bought a loaf of bread for $1, spent not very much at all to buy nectarines, carrots, potatoes and an onion at the green-grocer, and she even braved the butcher. There she spent $3.50 on chicken filet, and smiling broadly she walked the whole package home through the sunshine. Once there, she was disappointed to find what she had feared, upon inspection of the chicken breast, it had more nasty meat than good meat so she abandoned that idea and headed to the supermarket to buy some mince. She had in the meantime decided to make lasagne instead of seeing more chicken filet.
She made a huge lasagne and peeled and chopped lots of carrots and cucumber, there was even fruit for pudding now so she was very satisfied. When her darling got home from his collection with sore feet and a hungry tummy, she was all prepared.
We feasted on the feast and watched the Simpsons at the same time (very spoilt we were). The evening passed quickly with a little TV and a few games, and it was time to sleep again.
Laura & Mark - 18th November 1999
For Laura, this day almost mirrored the previous one She worked from 10-2 and then had another scary driving lesson. Then she returned to the flat to have a little left over lasagne and just simply relax for a while. Her feet and head were tired and shaky after the work and driving, so she was glad just to be sitting for a while.
Mark went off again to some more houses and when he returned we cooked burgers, chips and baked beans.
There being little energy in either of us, we opted out of doing anything exciting this evening. It was important to be saving our strength as Laura had booked a tour today which we would be going on on Sunday. She had also booked the coach tickets to Sydney, so it was decided for sure that we would be staying in the Adelaide area over New Year. Our tickets would take us on the 8.15am coach on the 2nd of January, which arrives in Sydney at 9.30am on the 3rd of January (in time for the flight to New Zealand at 18.00 that evening).
Laura & Mark - 19th November 1999
The week has slipped by and it is Friday again, although Laura would be working on Saturday too, the knowledge that it was Friday and she was tired just seemed to fit somehow: a little routine was back. She went happily off to work again to spend the day putting out more stock (lots of interesting things coming in as it was getting towards Christmas). And Mark went off to do some more collecting too.
As we mentioned yesterday, we would be going off on a tour on Sunday, so the evening was spent relaxing again. We had a quick trip across the road to Magic Mountain to play some pinball, and Laura cooked a nice dinner of boiled potatoes, carrots and chicken in paprika sauce (shoved tastefully into the last of the vol-au-vents).
It is amazing how tired you can get from a whole week's work, especially with the added stress of the driving lessons for Laura, and the added sore feet from Mark's walking.
An early night once more.
Laura & Mark - 20th November 1999
Laura - I woke up this morning and my finger hurt. The index finger on my left hand to be a little more precise. I know this may not sound like an extremely unusual event, but it was certainly a very unexpected one. You see, when I went to sleep last night, all 8 fingers and 2 thumbs felt fit and healthy, so when I awoke with 1 aching finger it seemed a little odd. Whether I tapped it, squeezed it, bent it or merely looked at it, my finger was sore. It wasn't red, swollen, bruised or burnt, it just hurt. A lot.
As it turned out, my mysterious finger seemed to be an indication of the day to come. At my job this afternoon I had an entire host of odd (and not necessarily pleasant) customers, many more than usual. This included several people who only had half of their five dollar notes, a woman who wouldn't buy anything she wanted because I couldn't give her extra cash out on her card (even though I'd already put all the goods through the computer and into a bag); and finally a man who had a hilarious time buying the last blue gazebo (which had to be taken down from display especially for him), as he tried to "entertain" me by pulling the money just out of my grasp every time I reached for it: "yes, very funny sir".
When the long, hot (the air-conditioning in our building seems to get the weekends off) and thoroughly weird day was over I went to write some e-mails before going home to relax.
My finger hurt when I typed.

In the meantime, Mark did a little food shopping and some more cleaning and washing up. He then went off into the sunshine to knock on some more doors and returned, not all that richer, in time to help Laura cook.
We made a huge pot full of chilli con carne and sat with our feet up in front of "Back to the Future part II" (the best of the three if you ask us). We retired to bed after reluctantly doing some washing up, and slept soundly (an early start again tomorrow).
Laura & Mark - 21st November 1999
The alarm woke us at 7.00 this morning and by five to eight, we were dressed, breakfasted and ready for the day ahead. The minibus would pick us up outside our motel at 8.00am and whisk us away to a day of exploration around Adelaide. At three minutes past eight, the bus slowly drove off, with us in it, and we were headed towards the city. After stopping three times to pick up more passengers, we stopped again at the meeting point for all the tour buses. It turned out that we had to wait while all the buses arrived and people were transferred to the correct ones for their particular day trip. Our trip was entitled "The Great Southern One Day Tour" and we were told that our driver would be "Michelle".
We found Michelle, and her minibus and boarded quickly, taking seats about half way down the bus. There were nine people on our tour (including us): us, an older lady from Austria, a lady of similar age from Germany, A businessman over from Canada, a girl backpacking from England, a guy backpacking from Ireland and a middle-aged Australian couple.
Our tour started with the news that we would not be going to Mount Lofty (as planned in the tour), as it was far too cloudy for us to be able to see anything from the top. Mount Lofty is a roughly 1000m high lookout point over Adelaide, and apparently very spectacular as you can see right across the city with the sea in the background. We decided immediately the Mark and I would go another time as it was a sight not to be missed especially at sunset (so we'll make a whole day/afternoon of it another time).
With that news out of the way, we headed off towards Handorff, a town set up by Germans with apparently a very German style to it ("a place of interest"). We arrived in Handorff after struggling up and down several hills and sure enough, it looked quite a lot less Australian. What the Australians don't realise about European tourists, it that a town that has a very remotely German style is not a very unique attraction. Mark and I decided we had seen many more German-style towns in Germany and Austria. Never mind though, it was quite interesting and we bought a tasty sausage roll to eat as we walked up the main street. We threw a dollar into one of the many talking posts that lined the street and listened as it told us about Mr Hann himself and about the little bit of street we were standing on. Laura bought a badge with a beer-drinking man on it, and we slowly made our way to the chocolate factory, where the bus would be waiting.
The chocolate factory would have been very interesting if there had been any explanation of what the people and machines behind the glass windows were doing, but we were satisfied to watch for a few minutes and munch on a little sample of the produce.
After a quick cup of coffee and a biscuit, we were off again, through lots of little country towns in the hills towards a winery. The winery we visited was itself on top of quite a large hill, and we tasted a little of their produce while we were there too. Our tastebuds satisfied (although no-one purchased any, everyone enjoyed the tasting) it was on towards the Almond Train. This apparently used to be a train that carried produce (like almonds) through the countryside. The tracks were not in use any more, and two of the original carriages were kept as a sort of museum. We tasted some almonds (there were 17 different flavours to be tried, including BBQ, salt and vinegar, and curry) and decided that the cream cheese and chives flavoured one was the nicest. Laura then bought a couple of Thomas the Tank Engine postcards (why not?) and picked up a brochure on one-day camel treks. With a quick look into the second carriage, now operating as a tea-room, just to see the 114 (or something) teapots you could apparently drink tea from, we were off again.
Our next stop would be Victor Harbour, but on the way there, we were stopped from using the usual route by a road block due to the Adelaide Classic Tour (a three-day Car Rally with only classic old racing cars). We turned up another road to try to get there another way and found lots of cars parked along the roadside, waiting to watch the rally go past. A unanimous (well almost, the German and Austrian ladies didn't say anything) decision was made to wait and watch some of the Rally go past. From this main road, we could see brilliantly down onto a windy smaller road below us, where the cars would come squealing round the corner in about half an hour. We spent the half hour wait watching some of the more idiotic spectators. There were a group of boys having a great time, running down the hill as fast as they could until they fell over and rolled the last bit. It was all in very high grass, so our tour guide told us they'd probably get bitten by a poisonous snake and that would be the end of their fun. This didn't happen, but they did look awfully stupid, so that was enough entertainment to make the time pass painlessly.
Just as we were about to give up, two police cars came wailing round the top corner of the track below and soon after there followed the first of the rally cars. The beautiful old-fashioned Ferrari's and Jaguars raced around the three corners in sight and were off into the distance. We saw about 12 cars go past and then there would be a long gap until the next ones, so we moved off towards Victor Harbour.
Having spent a little too much time watching the rally, we didn't have so long in Victor Harbour, so we headed straight to Granite Island to look for the Fairy Penguins that were meant to be dwelling there. We walked across the long bridge rather than paying to go on the famous horse-drawn tram. The wind nearly blew us off the bridge, but we made it across safely and headed up the hill to look for the penguins. We circum-navigated the whole island but didn't actually see any little black and white flightless birds. We saw plenty of sea-gulls, but that doesn't quite feel as satisfying. We had a look in the shop on the island where they advertised some night-time penguin walks: ah-ha, They're nocturnal birds! So feeling frightfully cheated, we headed back tot he mainland shore. Here we searched for a good place to buy some lunch (it was almost 3.30, so the stomach rumblings were getting louder). We decided on hotdogs and chips and ate them surrounded by more of the plentiful seagulls.
At 4.00 the bus picked us up to take us to our last stop. We left Victor Harbour behind and hat to put up with the stories from the English girl who had spotted a few penguins on Granite Island. Mind you, she had cheated a little as she'd been on penguin tours before, so knew where to look during the day. A little saddened we drove to Maslin Beach: Adelaide's first ever nudist beach.
The weather was still incredibly murky and miserable when we got there, not to mention how windy it was by the sea, so we didn't expect to see many bare-bottomed people. Not all of the beach is a nudist beach though and we watched as some mad people in wet-suits battled with the waves on their body-boards. There were lots of them being tossed about and they looked like ants from a distance in their black wet-suits. They seemed to be able to stand on their body-boards, the waves were so powerful! We didn't spend too long at the beach as it was frightfully chilly. Only the Canadian businessman went into the water. We took his shoes and socks off and rolled up his trousers to go in up to his knees. Unfortunately for him, a very big wave came along an though he tried to run, he couldn't outrun it and got a very, very wet bottom.
We got back in the bus and after another hot drink we drove back to Adelaide. Altogether today we covered over 300km in the bus and Mark and I were glad to be the first to be dropped off. We arrived back at the apartment at 18.15, just in time for a pizza for Mark and some Chilli con carne leftovers for Laura. We watched the Simpsons, and the Nanny, and Robot wars, and 101 Dalmatians and then Mark watched What about Bob, while Laura fell asleep.