Saturday, December 15, 2007

The move

At 8 o'clock this morning the securitybar guys made their delivery of 2 sets of bars. This one goes at the back but we have to paint the windowframe first.

The white cocky was watching all this.

And so was the red one. This cocky recently scared the crap out of the mattress delivery guy by the way by talking to him when walking past.

The bars mounted on our front window. It's a job well done and noone's going to come through that window anymore.

In the morning we started moving our stuff into the flat. We're going to sleep there for the first time tonight. This is the corner view, next to the bed.

This is our desk where my iMac is located now waiting eagerly for his companion: Nic's iMac...

In Rundle mall we ran into Carlos Vamos, a Dutch-Spanish guitar/stick player. We know Carlos from Amsterdam and to once more prove how small the world is we met him in Adelaide.

Funny enough we talked about Carlos with the other guitar/stick player we met in Rundle mall 2 days before, Andy Salvanos. Yesterday Andy left a message on Nicole's blog saying that Carlos was in town unexpectedly so we figured he'd be playing Rundle mall and indeed, he was! On Nicole Mobile Blog you can see more pictures about our meeting with Carlos and his mate Lindsay Buckland.

In the evening we went for a drive to the beach.

Guestblogger Kees Huyser spotted this vehicle in Amsterdam. Of course we have to post this. Thanks Kees! :-)

Friday, December 14, 2007

Le frigidaire

Getting petrol in the morning...

And GO! (stand still in the boiling hot sun infront of a traffic light without airconditioning - it reached 36 this morning but thankfully a cool change arrived late afternoon)

We went to Radio Rentals to buy ourselves a fridge for the flat (gardenhouse). We bought a small one with a little freezer compartment.

There's a special rack for bottles, it makes it look a bit fancy. We shall stock some chateau migraine for our visitors then *grin*.

In the evening we went for a drive.

Completely unexpected we ended up at Cafe Cena where they slightly burned my pollo parmigiana which made it taste a bit funny. But I was hungry so I ate it. It's rare to get funny tasting food in this country. It's usually of a quality that exceeds most restaurants (or places that pretend to be one anyway) in Amsterdam. Oh, I do miss Le Stivale d'oro and I Trulli...

Thursday, December 13, 2007

The bed

Today we finished the bed. The slats are in and the mattresses are on top. We had a bit of a test on them in the afternoon and they're very nice. We'll probably start using them this weekend after we move most our stuff into the flat. Exciting!

Nicole and Vicky busy in the kitchen with I don't know what...

I try to stay out of the sun like almost everybody in this country but you still tan. I wear a watch, can you tell?

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

How Virgin sees their clients.

20 minutes after I woke up Tony drove Nic and me to Jozo's ship yard. Tony managed to find a magical amount of wood in the back of our house which we were going to use for the bedslats. To do this, we needed to use some of the ship yards machines. You wouldn't think we were driving through an industrial area, would you?

The number of trees rapidly decreased and everything started to turn brow and -very- dusty.

Looking outside from inside.

This is Adelaide's powerplant. Gas driven turbine engines.

In this hangar a ship was being build. There's a long way to go still.

The cabin is being build seperately and then put on top later.

I managed to find a bag of kruidnoten at the Central Market yesterday. I also found a kaneelstok but that's already gone...

Also yesterday I bought this little friend at Bunnings. The bonsais are still doing allright.

We thought we ran all out of notepads at home so we went to officeworks to buy a few small ones. Little did we know that there's almost a whole cupboard filled with notepads at home. Oh well...

When we came back Tony had finished a few of the slats to see how it's gonna look. I say it's looking pretty damn good! Tomorrow Nic and I will finish sanding the slats and we can put the bed together then.

To complete my CV and to avoid very big phonebills I bought a little prepaid SIM card for my phone. It's from Virgin and in the booklet that came with it there is a chapter called "Cheap restraint". The following was written for the Australian market. I skip the boring technical parts, right: "Dialing under the influence. Can't help but calling an ex, or even your boss, when you've had one too many? Simply dial blah blah blah when you're out on the town and we'll blacklist that number untill 6am the following morning. At just 25 cent a pop it's a small price to pay for peace of mind.".

Is Virgin taking the piss out of me? Is this for real? I'm afraid it is! They should save all the money people pay for this service and give away free fucking brain transplants for the poor sods that used this number!!! What do you mean this country doesn't have an alcohol problem?! I'm stunned.

So, at Office works we also bought a desklamp for our soon to become computer table. I'm very happy with it.

And to be able to bring order in my paper chaos I have bought a plastic container which can be used to hang folders in. Kinda like MS Windows but different.

"RACING"

"GRUMP"

In the evening Nic and I had dinner at Henley beach. There is a really nice and reasonably quiet square infront of the jetty with an amazing view.

The sun set during our dinner.

We finished with a lovely cappuccino.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Luvbus

In Rundle mall they were making sand sculptures of Santa and naughty gnomes pulling his hat off. The latter is not visible in this picture I think. We went to Rundle mall to get bed linen. It's bloody retarded. They sell King single mattresses here but they don't sell any covers that cover both at the same time. We have 2 seperate mattresses and we want only 1 cover but it seems impossible. At least we managed to get 2 single covers and pillowcases so we can sleep on it when it's finished. The bed slats (lattenbodem) still have to be made you see.

When we parked to go to the central market for lunch and some cherries we spotted some cool plates again. This is the "LUVBUS". I wonder what goes on inside that car!

Right next to it was a car with a plate that said "TAURN". I reckon this person is a World of Warcraft player in which "Tauren" is a race you can play. I myself play a Tauren druid for instance.

We went to our favorite Thai place at the food plaza next to the Central Market.

Nicole had a "sizling" plate of veggies and big-ass prawns in Thai sauce. It was steaming and bubbling indeed.

In Australia all kids that go to school (up to a certain age) have to wear school uniforms. Pictured are 2 different uniforms. I reckon it's a good thing because this way all kids are more equal. It makes them all look really christian though...

Nicole buying cherries for her mom.

In the evening we went to Karin and Gav's place for dins0r. Nic cooked tagliatella with broccoli in a creamy sauce with Pecorino cheese on top which was rather lovely. Mason has to stay in his beanbag when he's inside but he's always trying to lean out as far as possible. He's a very sneaky little dog but also a cuty-pie.

Karin, Nicole and Gavin with a well-filled guts before the cricket match (Aus-NZ Twenty20) started.

Monday, December 10, 2007

The powerrrrrrrrrr chef

Early morning Tony was cutting some delicious pigs fat. This is the bit of pig that sits right under the skin. You know, the cute pink of the piggy. Underneath the pink the piggy is white. The layer of fat is about 3 cm thick and when cut in small cubes and then fried and what not aparently becomes a yummy snack.

I'm not convinced.

Now. I can hear you thinking, shees, what barbarians, what age do they live in to be eating pigs fat (eventhough just as a crispy little snack). It's not that bad I think because at least they'll eat the whole pig and not throw half away. And did you know that the people living close to or on the northpole will happily eat fat every day? It's their only source of fat you see.

Nic's mum was doing some power-cooking. I'm unaware of the results to be honest.

Outside the sun was shining. Surprise!

My to-become bonsais were all still there. They actually got a little friend today but I forgot to photograph it. Maybe tomorrow.

And then it was off in the car again. We didn't get the wood we needed. Also we didn't get the part for repairing our flyscreen-door. But I did buy myself a new cordless drill/driver and I'm very happy with it. It was only $98 which is about €60.

We drove and we drove and we drove. I'm actually getting a bit sick of driving around for bloody errands now but we have to get more stuff like bedlinen and pillowcases still...

This is becoming a pretty common view for me. Hmmm.