We kicked off the weekend in a delicious way, with dinner at one of Ellyn’s favourite restaurants from last time, Café Michael 2. (Yet to be determined, the location of Café Michael 1…) It is a small Thai restaurant with delicious food and wine. John tried a new dish (new to him): drunken noodles. Now we understand the name! He was absolutely in love and was “drunk” off the goodness of the meal. And he loved the restaurant! He said that was one place Ellyn had not talked up enough and wondered why it took us 2 weeks to make it there! We have already ordered take out from there…

We picked up our rental car and were on the road to the Adelaide Hills by 9:30am. We stopped in Hahndorf for an apple strudel for breakfast (yum!) and then headed north to Charleston and the Bird in Hand winery. On the drive up, we decided it was better we were running a bit late as we may have looked like slight alcoholics had we showed up at the winery right at 10 when they opened. We had a great experience there, with great wine. John was impressed that there is no charge for wine tasting in Australia, though we decided it made us feel more compelled to buy their wine, which was fine by Ellyn!

From there, we headed over to the small town of Lobethal, which was very cute. The winery we were headed to though, Tilbrook Estate, not so much. Their “tasting room” was on a main street and there wasn’t a vineyard in sight. After just having left the beautiful surroundings above, we kept driving. We were next in search of BK Wines. Admittedly, it was more for their BBQ Goat Sandwiches, not their wine, that we were after. The weekend we were there was the annual Winter Reds Festival so many vineyards were having food and music on site as well. Unfortunately, it appeared the festivities were mostly on Sunday as BK was still cooking the goat! So we did a few tastings there but were not overly impressed and Ellyn embarrassed John by walking out without buying anything. He was in such shock that Ellyn would taste so much, especially since the girl opened multiple bottles and finished off a new release (that was not set to be released until the next day) of Shiraz, but still didn’t buy anything that he couldn’t even think to suggest buying one. What can you do? The wine wasn’t that great!

We headed into Hahndorf to the Udder Cellar! Ellyn read you could do some cheese tastings here and thought it might be fun, as well as a way to take a break from the wineries, John was driving after all! When we stepped in, they were very busy so we waited a few minutes. When it was our turn for a tasting, the girl gave us three cheeses to try. Really?! Three? We just waited in line for that? Come on!

Given the lack of cheese tasting, we were hungry and headed to Grumpy’s for pizza and beer. It was a cute little place with their own brewery (though the only indication of that was the name of the beer and the tap it came out of.) Nonetheless, we had a nice lunch and then it was back on the road. The next winery was one that came highly recommended and the minute we turned onto the road, we knew why. The Lane was a beautiful little winery sitting up on a hill overlooking vineyards, a pond, the hills, etc. It was wonderful. Of course it probably helped that it had been somewhat cloudy that morning but as soon as we turned onto the dirt drive to the winery, the sun started shining. When we pulled up to the vineyard, the building had a large deck to stand out on and enjoy a glass of wine and a larger deck with tables and chairs, where they served lunch. We were a bit sad we’d just eaten at Grumpy’s when this looked so amazing! (We decided we would come back when the weather gets warmer and have a nice lunch.) Before the first glass was pored, Ellyn said to John, as she was looking out the floor to ceiling windows, “I’m just going to say now that I am going to like every wine here.” Lucky for Ellyn, John did too! Picture below is at the beginning of the dirt road leading to The Lane and the first picture at the beginning of the blog is John and Ellyn on the porch of The Lane.

As much as we didn’t want to leave, we did want to hit a few more wineries so we headed to Shaw + Smith. They also had a nice view but I am sure we would have been even more impressed had we not just left the view at The Lane. We entered their tasting area, again with floor to ceiling glass doors, and were approached by a young guy that explained their wine tasting. You sat down at a table with a placemat that gave you the description/backgrounds of 5 wines and you received a platter of different cheeses to compliment each glass of wine. You could do either white, red or both. We did a selection of both. It really was a wonderful way to have a tasting as we were able to enjoy the wine (very generous serves) and cheese, while having beautiful scenery just out the doors. (I believe, in spring and summer, they open these glass doors and let the air in, which must be awesome.) The picture below gives you a bit of an idea of what the view was like…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKkWOvJx-bA

After finishing up at Shaw + Smith, we headed to Nepenthe. It was a larger winery (in fact, Ellyn had purchased a bottle of wine from there earlier in the week and spoke with her mom and discovered she’d also purchased one from there!) Needless-to-say, it was a bit large, though still not huge, and the cellar door was still quite charming. It was a bit crowded, but we managed to have a few tastes and enjoyed some of the wines.

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Upon leaving here, we headed to the winery that was open the latest (trying to get them all in!). We headed up to the cellar door, again with a gorgeous view, but were told we needed to wait a moment for a tasting. Apparently, they want you to enjoy the tasting while having someone explain the wines to you on a one on one basis. The wines were good but it was a bit awkward set up, especially since our guy apparently wanted to get into acting but couldn’t make it so he decided to act out his love affair with these wines. Seriously, there were moments when Ellyn could barely keep her laughter under control. (But again, that may have had something to do with the wines…good think John volunteered to drive that day!) Oh, and we met a couple that had just returned from visiting their son and daughter-in-law in Chapel Hill, NC! Small world!


We headed home and literally crashed. A long day of wine tasting sure is hard work!

Sunday, John returned the car. (The place we rented it from closed at 4pm on Saturdays and instead of taking it to the airport like Ellyn wanted to do, John thought parking it illegally overnight was a good idea. Of course, the entire night, every time Ellyn heard a truck of any sorts, she was convinced our car was going to be towed and then we wouldn’t be able to rent any more cars the entire time we were here because a car would have been towed on John’s license and Ellyn still has a speedy ticket outstanding on hers from last time she was here.) But alas, sometimes John IS right! The car made it through the night! When he got back to the apartment, we got ready and headed out to get some bikes! Adelaide has city bikes you can rent for free and ride all around the city and surrounding suburbs. We hopped on and headed over to North Adelaide. It was gorgeous day (probably low 70s, we’re still getting used to this Celsius thing, so our conversions might be a bit off, and sunny) and we had a great time riding through North Adelaide and through the parks. The city is very cycle friendly (too bad Ellyn isn’t as cycle friendly…on the way up one hill, Ellyn got off the bike, claiming it was to take a picture, and then decided if she was already halfway there, she should just walk up the rest of the way.) We stopped off at a burger bar for lunch and then headed back to the City because we had a footy game to get to!

The picture Ellyn HAD to take (i.e. needed a break from the hill, but it DID turn out nicely!). And John later admitted that the hill was much steeper than he originally realized.

We made it to the top!

The footy game was the Showdown between Port Adelaide and Adelaide (our team). Imagine the Clemson/Carolina game but when the teams share the same stadium, so the rivalry is even more heightened. We were super pumped about the game because of the success our team, the Adelaide Crows, had the previous weekend (if you recall, they beat the #1 team)! We were definitely disappointed – the game was a let down. Adelaide’s accuracy was not on and they were behind the entire game. We even left the game 5 minutes early and Ellyn does not enjoy leaving a game early, for many reasons, one of which is people scream things at you like, “Why are you leaving early, the game’s not over. We’re still playing footy!!” Oh hush! My team is losing and I’d like the beat the rush back to the City, THANK YOU VERY LITTLE!! Anyway, the highlight of the game for us was the freshly made, hot, cinnamon doughnuts. While they don’t go that great with beer, they were definitely delicious!

This week has been pretty quiet. John’s been working a bit later and we worked on the photos for wedding album and got those choices sent off last night. Hopefully, with that now completed, we can be timelier with our blog posts!

The Greatest Sport of All Time

Disclaimer: For those of you that received my emails last time I was here, you'll remember how long winded I can be. I apologize in advance. We are using this somewhat like a journal though, so the longer, sometimes (!), the better.

After work last Friday, we headed home, changed clothes and headed to the pub for a drink and snack before getting on the Footy Express. We had Ellyn’s old favourite – chips (aka fries) with sweet chilli sauce and sour cream for dipping. Ellyn admitted it wasn’t as good as she remembered it but nonetheless, it was tasty and hit the spot. John was more concerned that we down a few beers quickly because really, who can go to an Australian Rules Footy game sober? We run (literally, as our one beer turned into two, we were close to missing the bus Ellyn wanted to take) to the bus stop to get on the free shuttle from town out to the stadium. We arrive with just a few minutes to spare, but instead of going straight to our seats so we can see “kickoff”, we went straight to the bar. We noticed there was a “limit” of 4 beers per person per trip to the bar. That’s right…FOUR beers, per person, per trip. Don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem like much of a limit to us – this should be interesting. As we were waiting in line, John talks to the guy behind us who informs us we should get the premixed Whiskey and Coke in a can as opposed to any of the beer options as they are all “rubbish”. When we got to the front of the line and actually placed our order (for beer), the guy behind us said, “Oh yeah, go ahead and drink the rubbish, don’t listen to the local. You’ll be back at halftime for some whiskey and Coke.” We went back at half time and though the beer was not that great, we still opted for more beer. (And we each only got two beers at a time – it’s a bit difficult to carry four beers. Although, smart Australians – they provide lids for your beer! So there was no splashing or spilling of the beer as we made our way to our seats.)

We arrived at our seats, not having missed much of the game, and proceed to get VERY into the game. John knew a fair amount of the rules and for those he didn’t know, he asked the guy next to him, who happened to pull for the opponent. The woman next to Ellyn was a bit annoying and seemingly disoriented as she was yelling for both teams and at moments when yelling wasn’t really warranted. But you would never have been able to tell we were newbies to the game of Footy…we joined in on chants and enjoyed a classic Footy experience – beer and meat pies. (See pictures.) At half time, Ellyn went and got meat pies while John went and got beers. However, when we met at the entrance back into our section, we were told Ellyn needed to carry 2 beers and John the other 2 (as opposed to John carrying all 4). So apparently Aussies don’t care if you BUY 4 beers at a time, but you better drink 2 of them before making your way to your seat. Nonetheless, the game was awesome with the Adelaide Crows (ranked #12) defeating the Geelong Cats (ranked #1). We made our way back to the bus into the City (very efficient process) and by the time we were back to the City, we were so pumped up about the win, we walked down the street singing the Adelaide Crows fight song: “We are the pride of South Australia, we are the mighty Adelaide Crows!” NOTE: the fight song is actually a bit longer but that’s all we could get from the screaming mobs. NOTE 2: to supplement the missing verses, we added our own verse – the “CAW CAW” we imagine a crow would make. Fabulous! John declared Australian Rules Football "The Greatest Sport of All Time".

Saturday, we were picked up by Hillary, another American working in the office, to head to Hahndorf for a breakfast and a secondee (other rotationals) soccer match. We picked up some breakfast at a local bakery in Hahndorf and went to the Schmutz’s (Greenville family) to eat and wait for the remaining secondees. After finishing our breakfast, we headed to “The Cage”. Not really sure what we were expecting, but this DEFINITELY wasn’t it. Think of a basketball court, with a sturdy chain-link like fence around it and the goals are more chain link, just jutting out of the sides. Given Ellyn’s history of soccer skills (attempting to stop a ball with her elbow, which is apparently illegal), she opted to sit out of the game with a few of the other girls. The US and Czech Republic were against the Brits and South Africans. The game went on for quite a while. So long in fact when Ellyn saw John “swat” at a Brit to try to distract him and it reminded her of a 12-year-old prissy girl, she said she thought their time might be up. The game was called shortly after with the Brits/South Africans winning in the last minute. We headed back to town and to a pub for beers and burgers. Did a bit of shopping before heading home for a nap.

Saturday evening, we ventured to North Adelaide. John injured his foot in the soccer game (it was purple and swollen and he looked like a gangster with “swagger” walking through the street of Adelaide), so we took a cab over to North Adelaide. We looked around at various restaurants and finally decided on Indian. John had never been to an Indian restaurant and after one bite, he was hooked. We had a delicious meal and great drinks. When we got back to the City, we headed straight to Cocolat, a fabulous dessert place. When we walked in the door and it was packed and Ellyn was searching for a table, she saw the look on John’s face that she’d seen in the market – apparently, he does not enjoy fighting for a table! So we got dessert to go and went home.

Sunday was lazy with sleeping in, a bit more shopping and a movie (Twilight – Eclipse), that cost $34 to see…for just the tickets. That’s right - $17 a person. Ridiculous. That maybe the last movie we see!

The rest of the week has been relatively uneventful with getting settled at work and going out to our clients a bit. On Wednesday, we did go to a Belgium Beer Garden that is right behind our apartment and always packed. We decided on two different beers that were on tab. We didn’t know what a process it was to get a Belgian beer!! After ordering, the guy selected the glasses from the breweries we’d ordered. He dunked the glasses into a sink of soapy water a few times. Then into another sink with clean water. Next, they were placed over a spout with water shooting out of it. He poured the beer out of the tap and the foam (there has to be a more technical word than foam…) was scraped off a few times. But, the Belgians apparently wouldn’t dare serve you their beer in a sticky glass where beer may have dripped down the side because the glass is then re-dunked in water and dried off before being handed to you. When we say it took approximately 5 minutes to get 2 beers, we aren’t kidding. Luckily, we ordered bottled beers the next time and Ellyn sat at the table while John waited on them at the bar. (You rarely have a server come to your table at any restaurant in Australia – you go to the bar and order and pay each time you order (no tabs).) Obviously the Belgians think highly of their beer too…4 Belgian beers and an appetizer = $61. Maybe we just aren’t used to “city living”…

We've Arrived!!

After a long, long flight over, we made it to Adelaide! Our total travel time was over 30 hours and we were completely exhausted by the time we made it to our apartment. Ellyn was able to sleep on the long plane ride (LA to Sydney) but John attempted to get on "Adelaide Time" as soon as he got on the plane...drinking caffeine to stay awake until it was night-time in Adelaide and then trying to sleep when it was Adelaide's night-time. His body had other intentions, so he was awake for all but 1.5 hours of the 14 hour flight. Ellyn was too busy snoozing to notice...

Given the craziness and unorganized nature of the Sydney airport, we missed our connection to Adelaide. As we were waiting in line to go through security, already having missed our initial flight, some guy informed us "you should never fly into Sydney"...thanks, we'll remember that. No worries though - there was another flight to Adelaide about an hour later, which we managed to get on. However, we needed to inform the driver that was picking us up that we would be late. For some reason, John was unable to work the pay phones (we didn't have Australian cell phones yet) and so we had to boot up a computer and send an email. As Ellyn is tapping her foot watching the time, John frantically sends an email. Then we hear, "Final boarding call for flight 123 to Adelaide." John presses send to the email, practically mid-sentence, and we take off running through the airport...great way to start the trip!

We arrive in Adelaide and are greeted by our driver and also fellow Greenville office natives, the Schmutzs. What a nice surprise! We visited with them for a few minutes while waiting on our luggage and they gave us a bag full of goodies - Australian goodies that is: tea, Tim Tams, Shapes and fresh fruit! After saying goodbye to our fellow Americans, the driver gives us a quick driving tour of the City on the way to our apartment. We are met at our apartment by the Corporate Housing representative. After a quick tour and some signing of paperwork, we quickly change clothes and are off to meet Christian (Schmutz) and Hillary (another American from Denver working in the Adelaide office) for lunch. ( Click the link to see a video of our new place:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1fsLkbHHHE). We love that lunch over here, during a work day, can still include beers. However, one beer + long flight over + jet lag = one very tired person. So we leave lunch, get cell phones and head back to the apartment for a "quick nap" before getting up to go to one of Ellyn's favorite restaurants from last time. BUT we sleep until almost 10 so we just grab gyros and come back to the apartment for more sleep.

Ellyn had already "planned" to go to the Central Market for a Big Brekkie on Saturday morning. We are up and at 'em and on our way to the Market by 10 am. We head straight to the Big Table. Ellyn loves the atmosphere of the Market and fighting for seats. John, on the other hand, is less than impressed. (Perhaps because he was convinced he had a table and Ellyn was convinced she'd found seats at the bar. We give up the table and go to the bar, just in time for the table to get up and someone else to get it. So we ended up sitting at a side bar area looking at a wall, not the people walking around...oops!) After a yummy Big Brekkie (Texas sized Toast, poached eggs, tomatoes, bacon, mushrooms in pesto sauce) and a coffee, we walk around the market and purchase some fruit, cheese and bread. We walk around the City for a few hours and join a gym (John's idea...they are MUCH more expensive than back in the US and Ellyn considers their time in Australia "vacation". Vacation = no working out) then head back to tap a "quick nap". We wake up at 3:30 am. Great - we're really going to be on Adelaide time in no time at this rate...

Sunday was a fairly lazy day, we went out to lunch, walked around the park, went to the grocery store (astonished by how much things costs - 18 pack of Cokes were 1/2 off and still cost $11; $3.50 coffees with no refills, $3.50 for 12 oz Coke in a restaurant/lunch bar...guess we are sticking with beer and wine) took more naps and had a true South Australian dinner - wine and cheese. Monday was the start of work, and well, we all know work isn't that exciting so we'll just leave it at: we had training, we got our client assignments and we tried to get acclimated to the differences between the US and Australian offices.