A Big Adventure

]Friday 27^th February 2009 – Adelaide Fringe 2009,  Australia.

So we arrived in Adelaide airport at around 7:30am, A two and a half hour time difference and we have cleared customs by 8:30am on a glorious sunny Friday morning in Adelaide, Australia. We had no hotel booked nor any transport sorted out, but I am much more relaxed about those facts than I would have been three months ago. We went to the Tourist Office desk and were treated to a model of general all around customer service awesomeness. called Rachel, in short order she had booked us rooms told us how to get transport there and loaded us up with relevant brochures.

Getting us rooms as quickly as she did was no mean feat as apparently today is the first day of the Adelaide Fringe 2009, turns out it’s one of the biggest annual events in Oz and we had landed smack bang in the middle of it’s opening day, and when I say smack bang in the middle I mean it, just two blocks away where most of the action of the festival will be.

We all get in a large aussie taxi to our place ‘Mantra on Frome’.

Our rooms are very nice, the kitchen has everything and the lounge is great, no TV in the bedroom (which for some reason Sofia considers good).

Twin beds for the kids, double for Sofia and I and also a washing machine and dryer. It is pricey but worth every AUS$ at this stage and they let us straight in.

Everybody except me headed to bed, I had the urge to explore our immediate environment, Adelaide is a quaint city of just 1.2m people and in the central area where we are, very few multi story buildings, it’s a low level city built on a grid system so getting around is easy.

I went back after a couple of hours having got some supplies for the fridge.

I checked in on Sofia, it was obvious she was still out for the count, so I thought I would catch up on my blog.

There was an internet connection in the room, so I connected it up and then saw they wanted $0.55 per minute, what a fluffing joke, what sort of backward rip off the customers attitude is this, we paid a small fortune for a room and they cannot even provide free net connection, bastards.

So I decided to just update my blog as I am a few days behind and the next thing I know I woke up with my laptop on my lap, so I thought maybe I should go to bed as well.

We woke up a few hours ready wiling and able to make our way out to witness the start of the Adelaide Fringe 2009, the crowds were amazing with great trails of people moving down the streets. All the pubs, cafes and restaurants were incredibly busy but when passing an Argentinean Steak  place called Stotsa, we could see the size of the nice juicy steak on the punters plates and we knew we were not in Asia anymore. We managed to get a table and we all relaxed with a nice cold San Pelligrino and I had a local light beer, I cannot remember the name but it was good. Sasha ordered Quizidella, Sofia ordered Oven Cooked Goat, Basty ordered a 650g Rump Steak and I ordered a Meat Platter. When Basty’s steak turned up he was shocked by the size of it. Well we all dove straight in and it was heavenly, the meat was beautifully cooked, Basty’s steak was perfectly cooked and so moist, and the vegetables were amazing, Sofia was swooning over her goat and my platter was bloody brilliant, possibly our best meal in three months. I’m a bit pissed off, I lost a nice bit of weight in Asia, but here in Oz I am in very big danger of putting it all back on and more.

We moved on to Rundell Park where the crowds were even bigger, there was stage set up and a band called the Levitators were entertaining us all. They played a jazz, funk, dance trance, god knows what else mix of really good music, Sasha disappeared into the crowd and Sofia, Basty and I enjoyed the show, after they finished we headed bak through the park, there were more bands into the early hours but we were still feeling too fragile to stand around for hours, plus all though it is lovely and warm here in the daytime, in the evenings it is not anything like as hot, I guess the lack of humidity makes it cooler.

There was a cool sort of steel structure which looked a bit like a boat, but was a structure with drums and huge organ pipes with flames everywhere. We watched them for a while, Sabastian was ready to head back and asked for a room key and headed off. Sofia and I stood and watched the flame organ for a while before heading back via a shop for more supplies.

When we got back to the hotel after fighting through the massive crowds of people and copious amounts of broken glass, Sabastian was not in the room, it was 11:00pm, we waited for about half an hour then I went out to search for him while Sofia stood at the windows looking for him. So, it seems even though we told him where we were staying and that all the roads were on a grid he obviously could not find the place. It’s shocking to me how my children are so small town, I know when I was younger I would be catching buses and trains all over and exploring on my own. My 13 year old son cannot even find him self back to a hotel a few hundred yards away. So being the parent I had to spend the next few ours wandering around the streets trying to find him, difficult when the streets are full of people all taller than myself. I walked the street, going to the hotel twice to check if he had come back, he hadn’t.

After returning to the room, we discussed going to the Police, Sofia was looking out of the window and said I think that’s him, we are four floors up and the windows wont open. So, I run out to the lift and stood waiting for the slowest lift to arrive and then take me down to the ground floor, of course by the time I get out there he is gone, so I run off down the streets trying to find him, twenty minutes later heading back empty handed, I saw him, but this time it turns out he had been sent out to find me!

He had actually seen Sofia banging on the window and realized that was the Hotel, apparently we practically crossed on the street. Oh the joys of parent hood. OK so if he could not find the hotel would Sasha? By 2:30am she had not returned and I decided to quickly trawl the glass strewn streets, coming from Asia to Oz has been a cultural shock reminding me what I hate so much about the UK, streets full of people who are drunk after a night out, broken glass and puke everywhere and a simmering undercurrent of violence about to be committed.

You don’t get that in Asia, people go out have a good time and all the rest of the shit just does not show itself. Out on the street I was quite happy to see so many people on the street and so many places open, the chances are Sasha was just out enjoying herself. Of course as parents it’s hard to just turn off, so Sofia could not sleep until Sasha returned well after 3:00am, not her fault she was just doing what we told her to do, which was enjoy herself.

But we did tell her to take her phone with her from now on, in case of emergencies. Our first day in Oz, all sorts of excitement and finally all to bed.

[mappress]