| Laura
& Mark - 22nd October 1999 |
Today
we move, leaving Gloria and the bikers far, far,
far behind, in a different world almost as we
head for the beach. Despite the slight hassle of
packing our bags again and lugging them all the
way to the tram stop, it's all worth it as we
take another look around our new home. It's
10.30am and we've arrived in heaven (well
almost). As we settle into our comfy chairs in
front of the TV (just for a minute to try them
out) we are reminded of the episode of
"Friends" where Joey and Chandler get
some special TV chairs and they don't want to
leave them ever again (so their pizza orders are
sent next door: they don't have to get up to
answer the door as Rachel brings them across).
Unfortunately for us we have no friends here
(yet) so we are simply happy that they are comfy.
We unpacked and then went for another walk around
Glenelg. First we called the place where we'd
left our CVs on Wednesday, for the Cheap as Chips
job to tell them we'd moved and had a new phone
number. After that, we ended up at the
supermarket where we did lots of shopping for
lovely food. We brought it back to our flat and
had a large, well-deserved breakfast. By the time
all this was done and we'd washed up, we decided
it was time to head back to town. But first, the
man who works at the motel came upstairs with the
phone, there was a call for Laura: from the Cheap
as Chips place. They told her that they'd like
her to come to an interview at 10.00 Monday
morning, which was all very pleasing. Then we
went into town.
At this point we should probably tell you what we
forgot to tell you: last Tuesday while we were in
town we also went to the office for Licensing and
Registration (of cars and stuff in case you were
wondering) and inquired about Laura getting her
licence here. They said it was no problem (after
she passed the test of course) and so Laura
invested a small $2 in her future in the form of
a road code book for South Australia.
Why we have mentioned this now is:
a) we forgot before
b) it has relevance to the following diary
section, so please, read on...
While we were in town this afternoon, we went
back to the office of Licensing and Registration
to ask when Laura could take her test. They said
"now". She said "o.k.", so
they filled out the necessary forms. The written
test which you need to take in order to get a
learners permit (a piece of paper that gives you
permission to learn) involved 12 give way
pictures where you have to circle the car that
should give way, and a multiple choice section.
You can only go on to the multiple choice section
if you get all give way diagrams right, so Laura
did, or it would be a waste of the $20 fee to
take the test. Next came the 40 multiple choice
questions (you need to get 30 right), examples of
which sound a little like:
If you are coming up to an intersection where the
traffic light is on orange, should you:
a) speed up and try to cross the intersection as
soon as possible
b) slow down, but continue across the
intersection if it is too late for you to stop
c) stop, even if you have to do so abruptly
Well, this test proved not to be too tricky
either, for the answer to this question, please
e-mail us. Laura scored 38 out of 40 (for which
ones she got wrong, please e-mail dontbenosey@hotmail.com), and was given her
learners permit. Well, temporarily it was
actually a little piece of paper, the permit,
fully equipped with photo (for which another $20
fee applied) would be sent in the post.
Happy with the first step towards getting her
licence, Laura (and of course Mark too) grinned
her way back into the centre of town. We had been
going to do some internetting, but we were in a
good mood, and did not feel like being
disappointed by hotmail again. So instead we
turned right back round again and went home to
cook our first dinner in the new apartment.
This took the form of absolutely delicious Chilli
Con Carne with rice, lots of it, and we settled
back to watch "The Mask".
|
| Laura
& Mark - 23th October 1999 |
Aaaah, Saturday
again, such a relief after such a busy week at
work. Well, for everyone else maybe, and Glenelg
was certainly packed out with people enjoying
their weekend.
We got up and bought a newspaper, and over
breakfast we circled and crossed again. There
wasn't really anything very useful, at least not
that we could call before Monday so we tried
another strategy: The Yellow Pages. Here we
looked up local construction companies, thinking
that Mark could ask if they needed any extra
help. Mark decided that he would rather walk past
a couple of them so we split up. Laura meanwhile
went to find some more information about driving
schools and do the shopping.
This is what happened:
Mark - After half an hour of walking, I arrived
at one of the two construction companies that I
wanted to ask at. This was a luxurious villa with
an older woman mowing the lawn. I asked her where
the office was and it turned out to be a
construction agency, they didn't do the actual
building, they just delivered advice. So on to
the other place: a fenced off holiday-type park
which had the name of the construction company on
a "Built by" sign. This was obviously
no good either, and besides, there was no way in.
Instead, it was off again to find Laura and hand
in our photo rolls to be developed. I found Laura
outside the supermarket where we had arranged to
meet, so all went well.
Laura - I first called three driving schools
listed as giving lessons in Glenelg, and one in
particular seemed very promising: 7 days a week
lessons, $35 an hour and very friendly. So
satisfied that I'd found my teacher I went off up
Jetty Road. I found the internet centre, the only
one in Glenelg, at the back of a big shop, and
sent a quick e-mail to my parents (hi mummy and
daddy) telling them I'd achieved my Learners
Permit. Then I went on in search of somewhere to
rent a VCR from. This I didn't find, but I did
find a supermarket and decided to do some
shopping. I bought some minced beef (very cheap),
some Garlic and Wine pasta sauce (very cheap),
one onion, some milk, two carrots and one orange
paprika. I then chose a cash register to pay at,
where the assistant (if that's what you call
them), was busy taking $305 for the shopping of
the woman in front. He then said
"hello" and "how are you
doing", twice. And preceded to start a
conversation about paprikas. He asked if the
orange was nicer than the green and red, and I
said I wasn't a culinary expert, but they are at
least more colourful. He smiled lots and took my
money. When I left the supermarket I called
"Mark" because he was busy walking away
from me and hadn't seen me, so we met again.
We bought a bottle of wine to celebrate anything
that might be worth celebrating, perhaps the fact
that it was Saturday, and went home.
We had, as you may have quessed from the shopping
list, pasta and bolognese sauce for dinner and we
watched "Race the sun" (very nice film)
and "Sister Act 2" (also quite nice).
Feeling positively overwhelmed by all the sloppy
film viewing we went to sleep.
|
| Laura
& Mark - 24th October 1999 |
Sunday, and
what do people do on a Sunday: Very little, so we
followed their example. We didn't even cook
anything very interesting today. We got up late
and went to the amusement park for a while again
(to play some more pinball). After that we went
to the beach and sat on the sand. We didn't go
for a swim this time as although it was sunny
again, it was still a little on the chilly side.
While we sat there we enjoyed all the music
coming from the Jazz festival up on the
promenade. This was what had brought so many
extra people to Glenelg this weekend, and even a
few very special ones: a whole flock of old cars
came and parked on the grass opposite our motel.
The drivers of the cars were dressed to match the
cars and it was all very impressive.
As I already said, we didn't do all that much and
so we went home to eat the left-over bolognese
sauce on toast. We settled into our Friends-style
comfy chairs for a couple of games of Yatzee, and
to watch "Danté's Peak". Then we went
to bed early as Laura had to be up for the
interview bright and early the following morning.
|
| Laura
& Mark - 25th October 1999 |
The plan was as
follows: get up, have breakfast, go into town,
leave Mark there to call around for a job and
Laura would then go on to her interview which was
at 10.00am just outside the centre. When it came
to it Mark came along for moral support and
phoned around from a phonebox near the office
while Laura was inside. This is how it went:
Mark - First I called TNT about possible work (as
I'd worked for TNT, sort of, in Holland). They
answered with: "come in and fill in a
form". Next was a Swanray construction
company who I had to call back after I spoke to
someone last Saturday who couldn't help me. Their
answer was: "We have already filled all our
vacancies". Last was a reply to an advert in
the paper saying "order pickers". This
was an employment agency, but the woman I had to
speak to wasn't there and so I left my phone
number with the promise that they would return
the call at 15.00.
Laura - I joined a room full of people already
busy filling out forms, before two friendly men
came in and explained a bit about the work. There
were three quite complicated forms, at least for
me, not being used to the Australian system. I
did the best I could, which took some time, and
waited my turn to be called for a quick chat with
"Michael" or "Mark". It
turned out to be "Micheal" and he was
very nice. He asked after Mark and if he'd had
any luck elsewhere and we chatted a bit about my
background: where I lived in Holland, what work
I'd done etc. He also asked if I could handle the
job: filling shelves, and a little customer
service and I said "Yes" like a good
girl. They would select 20 out of the 30 people
they'd narrowed it down to prior to this
interview, and we would hear "Wednesday or
Thursday". I left feeling happy, but not all
too sure of my chances due to the competition and
my lack of experience. I hoped I would get it
though as the pay sounded great: $14.70 (ish) an
hour, and double time on Sundays!
We met up again outside and went back into the
centre of town. We returned once more to the
Information SA office to have another chat,
giving our hotmail accounts a quick check while
we were there. After a little more wandering
through town we decided to go back to Glenelg
early to do some shopping. But first: make
ourselves easier to reach, we fell into the fatal
trap and bought ourselves a mobile phone. We got
what sounded like quite a good deal: just a
pre-pay phone, without monthly bills, and $40 of
credit already for $129. It didn't seem like
much, and it was becoming so important for people
to be able to contact us for work, and of course
people calling from home whenever they wanted to.
So with our new toy to play with, and slightly
embarrassed at having bought one, we got back on
the tram to Glenelg. Laura got off to go to the
supermarket while Mark hurried home to be there
in time for the phone call at 15.00. Of course
when Laura got home, laden with shopping the
phonecall hadn't come and in fact it never did.
But now we had food again so it was time to
concentrate on Yatzee and then cooking.
Laura beat Mark lots and lots, and then turned to
the cooking. Mark cut up the chicken while Laura
prepared everything else. To make an increasingly
long story slightly shorter, we had delicious
teriyaki chicken again (this time chicken tonight
sauce) and rice. After which came Laura's
masterpiece pudding, the Hayward's own: chocolate
mousse flan. This should be chocolate mousse on a
sweet biscuit base, but this time it turned into
chocolate air-less mousse on a slightly burnt
base. But Mark, being the supportive boyfriend
ate it anyway.
A few more games of Yatzee and another episode of
the great "Good news week" comedy game
show and it was time for bed again.
|
| Laura
& Mark - 26th October 1999 |
Our room was
beginning to attract a few ants so this morning
we decided to give it a good clean. We borrowed a
mop and a vacuum cleaner and did our stuff,
leaving it sparkling and ant-free. We then went
off to find out the bus times for getting to the
airport where the TNT office is situated. Before
catching it, Mark gave his family a quick call to
pass on the mobile phone number and have a chat.
Then off on the bus to the TNT office which we
found easily and where Mark was given an
"Application for Employment" form to
fill in. This completed it was a good time to
call Laura's family, who were then also told the
mobile phone number and latest news.
All this done, we went into town again, preparing
to go on a date (with eachother of course). Mark
was taking Laura out to dinner, at Hungry Jacks
(Australia's burger king). The meal turned out to
be a little disappointing, not as good as it
looked every time it was advertised on TV. Next,
Laura took Mark to the cinema to see Tarzan (yes,
it's another Tuesday), which was also a little
disappointing as Disney had changed the story so
much. It was nice to watch though, despite the
changes, and then it was time for some more
internetting. We updated a lot of our diary and
went off back to Glenelg.
Once again we have forgotten to mention earlier
that Laura had also arranged for a driving lesson
for the following morning, so an early night was
a good idea as it was starting at 9.00am. This
was a good thing to be wide awake for, so
goodnight.
|
| Laura
& Mark - 27th October 1999 |
Well, it's
morning, and we're up, so that makes the day
worthwhile already. Laura was to begin her
long-awaited driving training and Mark was to
amuse himself while she did this.
So at 8.58am Laura trotted off down the stairs,
her tummy full of nerves to await her driving
instructor on the front step. In the meantime
Mark showered after having cooked a nice
breakfast for Laura (doesn't he spoil her!).
Here's what happened next:
Mark - I didn't do all that much, I showered and
got a newspaper to look through for more jobs.
With that done, I returned to writing details on
the back of the photos that we'd retrieved from
the developer on Monday.
Laura - A bright red, new car pulled up with a
big ASM sign on the top (Australian School of
Motoring) and so I got in. The man was very
friendly and we chatted about South Australia and
the "brown" summer, and birds, and lots
of other things as he drove us to a practice
circuit. Once there he explained lots of
complicated things and made driving look
ridiculously easy, until it was my turn. I didn't
actually stall the car at all, and once I'd got
over some of my initial nerves, I was driving
around quite well. We did steering and gear
changing exercises before going to drive around a
specially laid track (even over a hill!). It was
all a lot of fun and we chatted all the way back
home again (I wasn't driving by this point), and
I left with the advise to try some South
Australian wine.
Laura and Mark met up again in the apartment and
she told him all her news until she had stopped
being so excited. Then Mark told her about the
advert he had seen for people to sell
"Wiggles" and "Bananas in
Pyjamas". It sounded nice and so we phoned
to ask for some more details. At this point we
were asked to come in for an interview that
afternoon. So we decided to go into Adelaide and
visit our friends at the Information SA office
first. This all done, we walked up the stairs of
number 86b Pultney Street at five to four in the
afternoon. We were given a form to fill out and
then we had to sit and wait. By quarter to five
we were called into the other part of the office
to chat to "Chris the boss" who chatted
very, very quickly. So quickly it gave you a
headache to concentrate on what he was saying.
What he was saying however sounded very suitable,
it was selling toys on behalf of charities for as
long or as short as we wanted to. He asked us to
return the next day to "visit the company's
open day" and "see how our employees
work with our clients". So we promised to
return at 11.00am the next morning and went off
to do some more internetting.
We caught the tram home at quarter to seven, just
in time to be too late to do some shopping (10
minutes too late to be exact). So we went home to
improvise up a dinner. This took the form of
"Satay Beef" sauce with chicken (hmm,
something's wrong here, can you see it?) and some
more rice. It was nothing like saté flavour as
we had expected it to be, so that went well with
the fact that it was nothing like beef.
A little TV?
Yes
Goodnight.
|
| Laura
& Mark - 28th October 1999 |
Time to get up
early again, and with Laura's driving lesson
cancelled (originally scheduled for that
afternoon) we were free to attend the whole of
"the company's open day".
At 10.55am we arrived in Adelaide, in time to run
to Pultney Street. Once there we had to wait half
an hour (or a little more, why did we run?) until
we were introduced to our "leaders" for
the day. Laura and Mark were separated and sent
off in different directions, but not before they
got a clue of what the "company"
actually did. Every time someone was introduced
to a "leader", that leader would first
go off into a back room and return with a huge
bag full of something before taking their
follower (?) off out of the building: Door to
Door Selling?!?
Well, Mark and Laura decided to wait and see what
it was all about and Mark went off with Michael
by bus, while Laura went off with two leaders
(Joe and Alex) and another follower (Lee-Anne).
This is a summary of how the day went:
Mark - First we went to the other side of the
street where three other "open day"
couples were waiting and all the leaders had a
nice lunch. One of the followers already decided
that she wasn't interested and left and after
half an hour we set off too: direction bus stop.
We caught the bus to the north of the city and
went via the "O-bahn" (a long straight
route purely for buses) for some of the journey
out into the hills. Here we began our visits to
houses and shops trying to sell our toys. People
we visited were not happy to see us as they had
seen far too many "charity
salespeople". By 15.00 I had had enough and
so I caught the bus back to the central office
where I had to wait an hour to tell "Chris
the manager" exactly what I thought of his
"company". Once all of that was out of
the way I went outside to wait for Laura to
return.
Laura - I was "lucky" enough to have a
woman in my group who had a car and we too headed
for the northern outskirts of the city. Once
there, we began our tour of businesses and
houses, where Alex (the leader) was an obnoxious
idiot to all the people he visited. He told
stupid jokes that weren't funny the first time
you heard them, and we had to hear them all day.
He treated his customers like they were stupid,
and most were none too pleased with his
performance. Lee-Anne and I were embarrassed and
even pulled into the joke ("these are my
parole officers") until 16.00 when Alex
decided we'd seen enough for now. She then drove
the two of us back into the centre and on the way
we chatted about how we would never do this kind
of work, a feeling shared by most of the
observers on the "open day". Once back
at the office I told the secretary how much I
didn't want the job and Mark and I were off
again.
Reunited, we set off in search of food, neither
of us had eaten all day. Hungry Jacks looked warm
and welcoming and over a yummy burger meal we had
a good complain about how we were conned into
coming to the "open day" and how the
other employees were conned into working there at
all. They all seemed to have been promised that
with hard work they would soon be a manager (of
the same branch?).
More diary updating followed our meal, before we
returned home, exhausted, to watch "From
Dusk Till Dawn".
.............Bedtime..............
|
| Laura
& Mark - 29th October 1999 |
Absolutely
nothing exciting happened today, and we didn't do
anything exciting to make it happen. We lazed
around lots and lots, feeling sorry for ourselves
about the job turning out to be so useless. But
somehow the time seemed to pass and it was
evening pretty quickly. What we actually did in
that time:
A) We can't really remember
and
B) Wouldn't make for an exciting read anyway.
So in the evening we cooked Chilli con Carne
again as it was so lovely the last time, and we
lazed around some more, playing Yatzee and
watching TV. We also sent off some postcards and
other little stuff like that, but all in all it
was a relaxing day at home.
One of the reasons for the relaxing and quite
uninteresting day is that Laura had another
driving lesson in the morning which took away a
lot of her energy, almost all of it in fact. She
was filled with fear as her instructor directed
her out of the practise area (sans voitures) and
into the open road, across a traffic light! As if
this wasn't terrifying enough, he then told her
to do lots of difficult stuff like: "don't
hit that parked car" and "turn left at
the next road" and "just stop at the
stop line" and "relax". It was
going alright and Laura was gaining confidence
when he decided to smash it again. He directed
her back to the practise ground where she had the
pleasure of trying a hill start (actually more
scary than difficult). This out of the way they
went back across into the housing area until he
directed her onto a very main road indeed, at a
"Turn left any time with care" sign.
She did, taking more care than the sign really
asked for and pretty much yelled her way down the
main road. As if this wasn't bad enough, the road
went from two into three lanes, and Laura's
enthusiastic driving instructor Paul thought she
should drive in the middle lane. VERY VERY SCARY.
In fact she drove all the way home and only
stalled in front of one traffic light, but she
was shaking for much of the rest of the day!
|
| Laura
& Mark - 30th October 1999 |
Today is
another Saturday so we bought another newspaper.
Here we found very little hope for Mark in the
way of jobs, but Mark did call one man about a
job as a carwash attendant. The man at the
carwash wasn't there and so he would be calling
back later. This gave us a chance to go and do
some shopping: black trousers and black shoes for
Laura to wear to work. After one depressingly
shapeless pair of trousers after another, we
finally found what we were looking for: some
lovely fitting trousers for only $30. So it was a
great buy. Then came the shoes and after a very
little look we settled on some simple but neat
shoes for $20. So Laura was totally kitted out
and ready for work the following Tuesday. Once
back at the apartment the phone rang and a man
talked to Mark about the carwash job. As it
turned out he was looking for someone who would
be available more permanently, and preferably
with "Car-wash experience" (!?!?!?!?!).
Mark was a little disheartened by this so Laura
thought of a creative way to take his mind off
it: cook a quiche! We'd bought an oven dish on
the Thursday and were keen to try it out. We
spent lots and lots of time preparing it and even
more time trying to light the gas oven! This done
and the quiche and chips sizzling away we relaxed
once more in front of the trusty TV. This time we
were less fortunate: "Beethoven" which
at least passed the time until the quiche was
ready. Once every morsel had been gobbled up
(which took a while as it was a large quiche),
and we'd washed up we settled back in front of
the proper Saturday night film: Cliff-hanger
(which was good enough Saturday Night
Entertainment for us).
By this time we were surprisingly tired and we
opted for an early night.
|
| Laura
& Mark - 31st October 1999 |
Halloween! And
what do people in Adelaide do at Halloween:
Absolutely nothing more than what they do on any
other day of the year. Not even a BOO was
whispered as we crossed the street, heading for
the beach (the weather was finally improving) and
just to prove that Halloween existed in Laura's
heart, she decided to bleed profusely: she
slipped in her excitement and grazed her knee
completely (ouw!). So we went back home again
where we dressed the wound and Laura complained
and yelled lots and lots. Mark was more shaken up
than Laura though, as her precious legs now had
quite a large imperfection.
After a long while of feeling miserable we
decided to solve all this strife by playing some
pinball. We went across to Magic Mountain, but
our $6 ran out very quickly. Just as we were
about to leave, a man playing on the Indiana
Jones Pinball Machine told us that we could
finish his credits as he had had enough. We found
this to be very generous indeed as there were 12
credits left. Once we were down to about 6
credits Laura noticed another button on the front
of the machine, which said "B". Once
the turn was over she decided to push it and this
is what happened: The little number that told us
how many credits we had left changed from
"6" to "7". That's odd they
thought and she pressed it again. This time the
number changed from "7" to
"8". She kept pressing the button until
the screen read "30" credit and they
started playing again. So this was why the man
had been so "generous". We actually
discovered that you could press the button any
time you liked and it would just keep adding
credits (but never above 30). So we continued to
play for another half an hour before going home
to watch the Grand Prix (Formula 1, final race).
At the same time, we threw some chips and a pizza
in the oven and once the race was over, the food
was ready. We ate and relaxed and then washed up.
However now things started to go wrong again.
Mark's stomach was having an argument with the
freshly-swallowed pizza and the disagreement was
upsetting his stomach no end. Having decided that
it would be best for him to stay in until he felt
better, Laura went off in search of a phone to
tell her parents that she wouldn't be able to
make it for their "chat" time. They
said they'd call back later instead and so Laura
rejoined Mark in time to watch "the
Nanny". Just as the closing credits were
coming onto the screen, Laura picked up the
mobile phone and commanded it to ring, and it
did, immediately! She had a lovely long chat with
her parents and then Mark's parents called and he
had a long chat with them before it was time for
the Sunday night film: "Michael" (a
typical Halloween tail of love and friendship,
very scary!).
With Mark still feeling a little poorly and
Laura's leg hurting lots and lots, they went to
bed.
|
|
