Oct3

Laura & Mark - 15th October 1999

We got up reasonably late again this morning (we earned our lie in with the previous day's energetic body-boarding), and did some shopping for dinner. Tonight's delights would be: spaghetti (well, pasta spirals) and bolognese sauce (our own recipe of course). So at the big indoor market we bought some pasta, some tinned tomatoes, some carrots, some mince meat and one onion. This cost us in total around $8 so we were quite happy. After taking all our shopping back to the kitchen in the Youth Hostel, we went off into the city again to visit the free internet place (Information SA office). We said "hello" to the friendly ladies and took our seats in preparation for the cyber-experiment. Today with the aid of modern technology at it's best we would be able to do some interactive chatting with our parents. At 2.00pm our time (6.30am Dutch time) we logged into XOOM, the chat room that Laura's darling sister Sarah put on our internet site (this internet site). But where were our parents? Waiting with baited breath in anticipation, we worried and tested and looked generally concerned until "Weldam" appeared on the page. Only one more chattee missing: "pa". After Mark sent an emergency e-mail to his parents, we were all pleased to see that "pa" had joined us and we could continue the cyber chatting. This all turned out to work very well, and after half an hour we had to be torn away by more people who wanted to use the free half hour internet.
That didn't matter as it was all very successful and our stomachs had now settled enough for lunch (and those of our parents, for breakfast). We went off in search of another cheap foodcourt, to try another tasty treat. These food courts can be found downstairs in all of the bigger malls and have a good variety of cheap foods. Today our eyes fell upon the sign: "today's special: grilled chicken sandwiches". We ordered two and set back to enjoy the culinary delight. They were delicious and filled to the brim with grilled chicken, cucumber, and some lettuce. Not to mention the fried onion and salt and pepper. All wrapped up in such a lovely crisp roll they were well worth the $3.50 each.
It was now time to go off to the beach again, as our aches and pains had subsided and we were ready for the waves once more. We caught the tram and it clattered and swayed all the way to the shore again. This was definitely an old tram!
When arriving at the beach this time, we were bitterly disappointed by the view. The sea no longer looked sparkly or inviting. The waves were high and menacing as they crashed against the sand. The beach itself was almost deserted and the shops seemed to be preparing to shut early. After pacing the promenade for a while, hoping to catch a glimpse of some good weather on the horizon, we decided to go to Magic Mountain. We played a few games of pinball in this big amusement/crazy golf/water slide/air cycles/bumper boats arcade. When we went back for one last look at the beach we had to decide for sure that despite the sunshine, the wind and the temperature would not improve enough for us to swim today.
Instead we walked up through the town. Down the long high street (Jetty Road) lined with shops. We stopped at lots of the shop windows to admire the souvenirs, the baked goods, the clothes, the sports equipment etc....
At the end of the street, just before the tram stop where we would get on to go back to the city, we found one more interesting shop: "The Booze Brothers". It being such terrible weather, and us having done nothing we'd hoped, we decided to celebrate by getting a bottle of wine to go with our dinner (and perhaps a little beer for in front of the TV).
We brought all of our goodies back to the Youth Hostel and started to cook our dinner. Everything was going swimmingly until it came to adding the tinned tomatoes. We had of course expected these to be tinned, chopped, peeled tomatoes (although the label was in Italian - where's Marc when we need him?). They turned out to be tinned, whole, not very peeled at all tomatoes. So Mark spent the next 10 minutes bravely extracting the stalks and trying to chop them up a bit. He did a very good job because it was all delicious again (we'll be professional chefs soon), including the wine.
After washing up (we're so domesticated), we sat back to watch "Dave" on TV (the comedy about the man impersonating the American President). It felt almost home-from-home as we relaxed in the comfy chairs, another very satisfying day behind us, and we will swim again tomorrow, won't we?

Laura & Mark - 16th October 1999

Ah, finally Saturday, after such a tough week of holidaying we really deserved a good holiday.
Today we really should go to the beach, so that's what we did. We caught the tram there after buying some lemonade and biscuits for later, and were pleasantly surprised once more by the beautiful view. The ocean looked inviting again, and it was definitely warmer. We were pleasantly surprised again when we consulted our watches and it was still only 12.15. That meant a whole day of body-boarding ahead of us, and because it's only Saturday, we can always sleep in tomorrow (again?). We went to the Beach Hire shop again and picked up our boards. This time we swapped colours, and Laura took the purple and orange one while Mark took the blue and green one. There was no question of "overcoming the first contact with cold water" this time as we ran straight in, too keen to get started. We spent a happy two hours bobbing up and down, catching waves which brought us all the way to the beach and pushing our way back out to sea again. We seemed to have a very good talent for picking a nice big wave and riding it all the way in, then turning round to watch an even bigger wave crash down behind us.
After 2 hours we had a "Lemonade and biscuit" break. This involved going up the beach, lying on our body-boards and having some lemonade and a biscuit (double layered ones with cream in the middle). Then it was obviously time to bury Mark. This being normal "post-lemonade and biscuit break" behaviour. We buried him up to his neck, took a smiley photograph and then ran back into the waves. Here followed another 3 hours of body-boarding.
By this point we were obviously starting to get very good (or at least look very good to the untrained eye) as we had a couple of students. These two men were watching us very carefully for about ten minutes as we rode the crests of the waves, and then they thought they'd try to copy. They paddled out with their rented body-boards until they were at the same level as us and then watched us watching the waves. When we got ready to take one in to the beach, they did the same. We were successful, they weren't. They did improve however, but after an hour of worshipping and following our moves from afar, they had to go and give their boards back. Feeling very professional we continued to ride the waves, still missing the really big ones until, we too had to go home. It was 18.00 and we were burnt (?) and happy.
We caught our trusty tram and decided to just go past the supermarket on the way home and then collapse for the evening. We went past the supermarket, but that was all we could do: go past, as the doors didn't seem to want to open, and the "closed" sign wasn't going to help. Well, no dinner then. Time for plan B: PIZZA!
We picked up a large "Ozzie" pizza, and some interesting garlic bread and took it home with us (an Ozzie pizza by the way has ham, cheese and egg on it, we added salami).
We dived into the pizza in front of another film: Y2K. For all those who have seen it, you know what it's about, for all others, it's not worth the internet space to explain.
Ache, groan, crack, ouw, time for bed.

Laura & Mark - 17th October 1999

Shall we get up this morning? NO
Shall we get up early this afternoon? MAYBE
Shall we get up in time for dinner? YES

We actually didn't get up that late, as we were e-mailing again by 15.30 (having had breakfast, showered, shopped for this evening's dinner and gone into town). Our bodies however would have preferred to stay in bed, forever if possible, and they grumbled about overuse and sunburn continuously while we got up.
What were we having tonight: Teriyaki chicken and rice. So what did we buy? Chicken, teriyaki sauce and rice. We did of course buy a few vegetables too, it told us which ones on the back of the sauce bottle.
Then as we already said, we went to e-mail, as tonight we would have "Cyber-chat, part 2".
This time we wanted to expand on the number of people we would chat too, so we sent a few extra invitations.
By the time this was all done, and we'd creaked and moaned our way back to the Youth Hostel, we had 1 hour to relax before we had to cook dinner. What did we do? Moaned and ached mainly. Then it was time to cook again.
Thankfully there was not too much thinking involved in this, as all we had to do was follow instructions. This worked perfectly and we "fried the chicken, added the carrot, stirred in the bean sprouts and added the sauce, before simmering for 10 minutes" as though we were experts.
After indulging in our wonderful meal we washed up and then realised we were late. Rushing to the internet centre we arrived only a "Brabants kwartiertje" late. This time it was our parents who could do the worrying as they were all waiting patiently for us to log on. We chatted for 2 and a half hours, other people were unfortunately unsuccessful in logging on, so we caught up on all the news. Laura was especially pleased as her family at all corners of the world could all "chat" at once, a real treat.
While our parents went off for breakfast, we returned to the Youth Hostel in time to watch the rest of "Die Hard with a Vengeance". And yes, we promise to tell you more about beautiful scenery and cultural experience as soon as our bodies have recovered.

Laura & Mark - 18th October 1999

Monday again, and no work for us yet. This is sadly a problem that we had to start to solve, even if we would prefer to holiday forever. Today we should hear from Robin (the man at the Youth Hostel) about whether there is a job for Mark, delivering bins. And from Gloria (the woman at the Youth Hostel) about whether Laura can have any shifts in the reception. So for now there wasn't much we could do but wait. We sat around getting very nervous, and worrying lots and lots for most of the morning. We then went and used some more free e-mail time, and did some more shopping at the local supermarket. Tonight we would eat marinated pork and French beans and boiled potatoes.
We walked around town in the afternoon, trying to find out some more information about going to Kangaroo island, and about other things we could do. After a while though, we decided this was futile as we still didn't know if we had work, or indeed if we would be staying in Adelaide. So today, all we did really was worry, but that passed the time quite well.
Somehow, it managed to be evening already and we went down to ask about the work. Robin had good news and said that Mark should go along the following morning and meet the boss "Hans". A German guy who we were told has lived in Australia for a long time. This all seemed fine, and satisfied with the answer we went back upstairs. Here we managed to catch the end of the first episode of "Neighbours" we'd seen since we arrived (for details on what happens please e-mail us, we'd be happy to oblige). After the Simpsons, we decided we should cook, so we did. Once again we did it with great success, this time it was even ready at the same time, and we also made gravy (all very professional). Sadly we then had to wash up again, until Laura found a way to make her escape.
Gloria (the woman mentioned before, from the Youth Hostel), called her down to the reception. She went straight away, leaving Mark up to his elbows in dirty saucepans. Gloria asked if Laura would like to do a shift in the reception on Thursday to see how it suited her, and Laura nodded with glee. She skipped lightly back up the stairs to more good news: the washing up was finished!
It was (unfortunately for those who expected some exciting news about Australia) time to watch a little more TV. This time it was "Good News Week" a comedy quiz show a lot like England's "Have I got news for You" (and the Dutch equivalent), except it's Australian. This means ozzie accents, and ozzie humour, some of which was very good indeed.
Off to bed early tonight as tomorrow we would meet "the Boss".

Laura & Mark - 19th October 1999

Judgement day: will Mark impress Hans?
We got up early and after a quick breakfast we went to the travel information centre in town to find out about the buses. It turned out to be quite a long way, so we caught one bus out to Arndale Shopping Centre, past beautiful buildings, the wide river that people go punting on, and lots of road-side golf courses. From this out-of-town shopping centre, we caught another bus to Grand Junction Road. Our instructions were to go to the "big warehouse with broken windows and a big for lease sign, on the corner of Grand Junction Road and Wingfield road". Due to a slight mix-up, and a possible existence of two Wingfield roads in the area, we arrived at the warehouse after a nice long walk. We were happy to see a bus stop directly outside it, at least we didn't have to walk back.
We went in and followed the next part of the instructions: "ask for Hans". Hans was a big, very German guy, wearing lots of gold and carrying his mobile phone like a gun. We approached carefully, Mark spoke while Laura covered his back. He was quite friendly (if a little scary) and very, very German. Mark baffled him with his English and Hans replied (where he could understand) in a few grunts and moans. It all seemed to go very well, and Mark promised to tell Robin his decision very soon. Hans said "oooh. keeey." and they shook hands. Mark said "see you in two weeks", and Hans said "ooooh. keeey" again (we think he'd been practising that from his "how to speak good English" phrase book).
We left and caught the bus back to town where we visited our friends at the Information SA office again. After a chat with these bubbly helpful women (our replacement mums in some ways: they give advice and even offered to take us home for tea , they don't do our washing though), we went off to find Laura a job. They had suggested to try the big department stores which made need help with their Santa corners. So that's what we did. Unfortunately Laura was about two months too late, as it was obvious that you should prepare for Christmas in August!
We decided to try the computers at Centerlink, where you can see all sorts of jobs that are advertised in the area, and Laura bravely rang a few. Sadly that was no good either, so we returned to the Youth Hostel, as at least Mark had work, and Laura could probably still work at the Youth Hostel's reception.
We told Robin that Mark would take the job, and to please pass the message on to Hans when he went in to work (he works there too) the next morning. We then watched Neighbours again (do you want to know?) and the Simpsons. Later we set off for the cinema as it was Tuesday. We should perhaps explain at this point that we go to the cinema here every Tuesday (if you are a keen reader, you would have noticed the pattern emerging). This is not because we suddenly become home-sick for the Sneak Preview that we would be watching in Eindhoven, it is because Tuesdays are cheaper here.
Stopping in at an amusement arcade on the way, where Mark played the Simpsons, and Laura played Rumble pinball, we caught the 21.00 showing of American Pie. This is quite a good comedy in parts although highly unsuitable for parents.
Home, to bed.

Laura & Mark - 20th October 1999

"Laura, room 24, are you there?"
"Laura! Room 24! Are you there?!?"
"LAURA!!!!! ROOM 24!!!!! ARE YOU THERE?!?!?!"

This was how we were woken up this morning, at 8.30am, not very pleasant at all. Let's just say, it had better be important!
But it was: Gloria (Youth Hostel woman) was calling a staff meeting via the intercom system, and Laura of room 24 had to attend. So Laura of room 24 crawled out of bed and threw some clothes on before moaning her way downstairs.
Gloria, Laura found out all too soon, was not in her most cheerfull mood. She too seemed to be suffering from the early morning blues. And she was taking it out on all her staff, it wasn't their fault that she called the meeting so early but never mind that.
It seemed that she was a little upset with her staff and the fact that they weren't doing their work at all (according to her). She threw in plenty of language that we will have to sensor out of this account, but Laura didn't think it was a very good start to the morning anyway. Laura may not have started working yet, so the anger was not directed straight at her, but in all battles, it is always the innocent bystander who suffer the worst.
Finally she came around to giving Laura some attention, although it had hardly been worth the wait. According to her Laura would be working 6 days a week in the reception (O.K.), having Saturdays free (I don't think so, that means Laura has to work Sundays when Mark is free). Laura then sneakily looked over her shoulder and saw that the shifts were from 14.00 until 19.00, which is hardly agreeable: who would greet Mark home from work, and cook his dinner of course. Well, to Laura this was simply unacceptable (when would she see Mark?), and Gloria was definitely not about to change anything. So Laura said "thanks, but no thanks" and went back to bed.
When Laura went back downstairs a little while later, having showered and dressed properly, she asked Gloria about how much the long term rent would be (we were still paying the daily rate, $40 a night). Gloria greeted her with a face like a thunderstorm and told her that Mark hadn't got the job. She said that Hans (the boss) had decided, as soon as Mark had said that he'd let him know later, to hire someone else.
This all seemed rediculous as we had definitely heard an "oooh, keey" from Hans, and the work wouldn't start for another two weeks anyway. Gloria then followed up this happy news with lots of "you'll never get a job in Adelaide with that kind of attitude" sort of sentences, and a few more words that cannot be repeated.
This was more than Laura could stand, so she said that she'd go and tell Mark, and marched off (quite angrily by now) upstairs. Time to wake Mark up with the bad news: that should be fun.
Mark joined Laura in the "feeling quite angry" mood, and together they sat and worked out their own theories on how he'd lost the job. After a few seconds they'd landed upon two very valid hypothesese:

1) Gloria phoned Robin at work (with Hans) as soon as Laura had said "no" to the work at the Youth Hostel and then Robin had made sure that Mark didn't have that job anymore either,

or

2) Mark had made a mistake during the meeting with Hans of asking when his passport details and Tax File Number would be needed. At this point Hans had given a very vague answer about some form that Mark would fill in after a few weeks. So maybe Hans didn't want people working for him "legally" (he wanted to miss out on the whole taxation part).

Ourselves, we prefer answer number 1) although both are equally possible (or maybe moody Gloria is right, naaaa).
So the job searching began once more. Thankfully it was Wednesday, so the papers are packed full of "positions vacant" notices (and "appartments to let" notices). So we scanned them carefully and circled and crossed what we could. We came up with a few phone numbers and decided simply to try a few.
The first on our list was an advert for people to help in a retail business during the christmas rush. Laura bravely called for more details and was told that it was a few positions with the company: "As cheap as chips" (a bit like the dutch Xenos, or England's One pound shops). It would involve helping in the warehouse or shops until after Christmas. We promised to send our CVs and kept searching. After calling one or two more places, we decided to drop our CVs past this first one straight away, as it seemed the most hopeful. We went off into town to the travel information centre to find out what bus to catch, giving the company another quick call to warn of our arrival.
The address didn't seem too far away on the map, and the bus wasn't due for another 20 minutes, so we started walking. Having almost reached the end of the following street, we changed our minds just as the bus sidled along the road. We dropped our CV's off and they all seemed very friendly and helpful. Then we decided to go on to the beach to see if there was any accomodation available and perhaps work too. We went to an office from which they let appartments, but sadly the minimum length of a lease was 3 months (we are only here for 2). So we went on further and decided to ask in a motel that we found which had a sign outside reading: "self-serviced appartments" and another one: "vacancy". So far so good, now to find out the price.
A very friendly man greeted us and showed us one of the rooms: a beautiful one-bedroom appartment exactly suitable for us with a little kitchen, eating area with table and chairs, bed, bathroom and our own TV (with comfy chairs in front of it). He offered us a discount price of $250 a week for the whole time and promised to keep the offer open while we thought about it. It was a very nice place, and directly on the sea front (almost), the last road before the beach.
We went on through Glenelg (Adelaide's city by the sea) and asked in a few more places. They all told us either that it was very expensive or that they couldn't accomodate us for that long. We went back to Adelaide on the tram with mixed feelings: it was cheaper than staying on at the Youth Hostel, but was it cheap enough?
We went home for spaghetti and meatballs on toast, excellently prepared: toast bread, open can, heat contents, put on bread.
An it was time for bed again very quickly after a long, hard day.

Laura & Mark - 21st October 1999

Thursday, already, time was passing quickly but we weren't really getting anywhere. Mark went down to buy another newspaper (to check the accomodation and job adverts again) and was mooded at by Gloria. She urged that we pay very quickly (we were one nights pay behind, but they knew very well that we would pay, we'd already stayed there a week). Added to a few nasty comments, this time it was Mark's turn to be on the recieving end of Gloria's early morning frustrations.
After paying (quickly) we decided that we would move on tommorrow and that was that. We then called a few more people about appartments, but it was no good the leases were all too long, so off into the city again.
It did feel better and better to be leaving though, as the bikers who had joined our Youth Hostel a few days before (in connection with their 3 friends' funerals, who had been shot, in our street, not long ago) were beginning to get rowdy. There was a huge party Wednesday night that could be heard all the way up and down the street, they seemed to be doing an aweful lot of celebrating. It was also a little worrying that people had started to come up to our floor for breakfast as they didn't want to sit with the bikers downstairs while they smoked their early morning joints. All a little scary.
Anyway, we were leaving, the only question left was: where too, and as we just said, we went off into town to find out. We went to the Information SA office again for a chat and some interneting, but they couldn't come up with anything for us either. So we went back to Glenelg to have another look at everything.
We went first to the Tourist Information office to ask about accomodation and work, but they couldn't come up with anything useful for either. Everything they had was too expensive, but they did tell us where the employment office was. We went to the employment office first and used the computer screens to search again for the perfect job for us. This however didn't seem to exist, but we were given an idea: ask if the amusement centre on the beach needs more help for the summer. So that's what we did. They told us to leave our CVs behind so we went off to sort out accomodation first.
We decided almost immediately that we would take the appartment that we'd seen the day before and went to ask the friendly man if we could take it for one week, to see if any of the job opportunities worked out.
Back to Centrelink (employment office) to photocopy our CVs and then of to Magic Mountain again (the amusement park). Then to another few places which may need help and guess what: "leave your CVs behind and we'll call if we need you". So we did.
Then back to the city for out last night in the Youth Hostel, a little fresh hope beginning to blossom in our hearts.
It now seemed about time to allow our friends from overseas catch up on what we've been doing. So we sat down at the computers to type 2 and a half hours worth of diary into hotmail, ready for sending. We'd caught up completely and were feeling very pleased when we pressed "send" (a very normal thing to do) and everything disappeared (as it's meant to) and we were logged out of Hotmail (uh-oh!) and when we got back in, it wasn't there (what?!?) and nothing we could do would bring it back (grrrr!).
So with the hope sinking again into storage, we went off in search of something to make us feel better and we settled eventually for pizza.
We ate this in front of "The Arrival" (even though it went on past the "23.00 TV off" time).
A bit more GRRRRRRRR! and time for bed.