The chuck key

This is a drill chuck (NL: boorkop). It's from the drill press (NL: Kolom boormachine) I found last weekend. I couldn't find a matching chuck key though so on our weekly FREAK trip to Bunnings I scored one.

A chuck key.

We also visited a pet store to look at more bird cages. They had fishies too.

We actually saw a big-ass aquarium ("aquarum" for Americans who prefer simpler spelling of already not too difficult words like aluminium) that we might get some day.

There was also a big leash-section for all your S&M needs. Some people also use it to walk the dog.

Next door was a shoe shop. Nicole was impressed!

We went for a bit of a drive to further enhance my skills. Today I was overtaken and cut-off twice by cars on my right deciding they needed to take the exit on the left after all. Several people had trouble indicating before turning. Also Speed limits and not overtaking on the left didn't have any apparent meaning today. Some one indicated with their horn that they wanted me to dive in to reasonably fast traffic with no suitable gaps when turning left at the lights. And a Indian party crew decided to overtake me whilst driving 40 in a small suburb street.
Adelaide traffic, it's... different.

We had lunch at Larg's bay where our seagull friends were waiting for us. We hadn't been in a while and it was nice to sit there. We even got some sun.

In the public toilets at the beach there are separate bins for syringes. I think that's a good thing.

In the evening we had dinner at Karin and Gav's. Gavin welcomed us with flowers.

He had actually hand picked them for Karin at his work. They were very pretty.

The schnitzel / The weird front

On the way to work the sun was shining brightly. This is parliament house.

This is something else.

In Rundle mall I pass this house almost every day. Well, it's not a house, it has two shops in it. The weird thing is that it's one building but they gave it two different fronts.

I think it was actually designed this way. There are a few small details that give hints in that direction. Unfortunately you can't tell from this photo so I won't bother explaining...

Walking in to the City Cross mall/food court I walk passed this Ducati motorbike. It's put on display by a shop that sells things for guys (I think). I saw that they sell high detail World of Warcraft action figures this morning so I might have to pop in there some day.

My work took me out for lunch again today. We all went to the Coopers Ale House, known for it's extremely large schnitzels.

This is Luke's giant schnitzel. It's not even the biggest size they have. It's a "Beef parmi".

These are some of my colleagues, from left to right: Melvin, Daniel (over from Perth office for two days), Justin and Ben.

And more colleagues! From left to right: Stephen, Craig and Dale.

To surprise everyone who just ate 2 kilo's of schnitzel we bought them some doughnuts ;-)

Going home

The city council has finally done something nice. We saw them putting in these signs this morning already. They show you the way to near by places and very important: toilets!

This is my bus stop. It's a nice bus stop. It's one of, if not the, first bus stops on the bus' route so the bus is empty when it arrives.

And then we wait...

Hordes of people crossing the lights after 5PM.

The yiros

On my way to work in the morning I went by the post office to find out they were still closed. Their office is above the food court. The court is very empty in the morning.

I popped out of the office briefly during the morning to go to the post office and to get some statement from Medicare.

Unlike previous visits, this one went nice and smooth and I was back at the office in no time :-)

For lunch I ate yiros. It was OK but badly wrapped. My colleague had to do an emergency plate-run for me because my roll was falling apart...

The plant

On the weekend I bought a plant for at work. Finally I have something nice on my desk. I hope it likes it there because there is no light from outside coming in there. I will have to put in in front of a window when I leave for the weekend. If it doesn't like it I'm gonna take it back home.

After work I walked about 35 minutes to North Adelaide where I was going to meet Nicole for dinner. Close to work I saw this poster and I just had to photograph it for Nicole and Suzanne.

Adelaide by night.

Adelaide by night.

Red circles

This is the statue at the drop-off. Not the drop-off from Finding Nemo, but the one where Nicole drops me off on the way to work in the morning.

Quiz: Can you find out where (crossing of two streets, I want both names) this statue is?

When I start wearing my Mulligans bomber jacket you know it's cold. It was actually not as cold as last week but that will come back soon I believe.

Thanks to my friend Kees I now have a superduper graphics tool to draw red circles with. I used to load Windows and use paint for this but now I can do it on the Mac. Very happy.

Chocolate @ No 5

Tip: Do NOT put the cheese in between two slices of ham when grilling your sandwich. For who doesn't get it: The cheese will melt and stay liquid between the ham instead of melting on/in to your sandwich. This is my favourite plate by the way. I've had it ever since I moved out for the first time. I believe it's been mine since I was a kid. I also have a bigger version.

Nicole and I went driving through the hills today (See last picture for details). There were a few other villages we wanted to see. We drove through Aldgate and are now very fond of that place. Somewhere in between we ended up in Hahndorf, at a place called "Chocolate @ no 5". This place has put Hahndorf back on our personal map. Shown above is my cappuccino.

You see, Hahndorf was losing it's appeal for us. Over the past seven years a few quality places (like the VERY good Scottish restaurant) have disappeared and more tourist traps have opened.

This place is now totally a reason for us to go to Hahndorf again. Check out this cake. It's a chocolate hazelnut cake. It was fantastic. Not too big, not too much, not too rich, not too powerful. Perfect. I tried Nicole's hot chocolate and for the first time I liked it. The thing is it should be made with water. You add a bit of milk and chocolate. Frankly I thought it was like chocolate tea. In Holland it's made with 100% milk and i never liked it...

The place is an old cottage but inside it is decorated with nice modern touches. Not too many tables so you have enough space around you. A variety of seats but all comfortable,

They have a lot of chocolaty stuff which you order at the counter.

Details.

This is the cottage. I do think they should make it more inviting though. It's not directly clear what's inside when you walk past and from the outside you can not see how nice it is inside. And just letting people know you got chocolate doesn't cut it. I hope they'll stick around for a while.

After Hahndorf we drove on in to the hills. We drove through the basket range which is beautiful. I saw wild wallabies in between the apple trees!

On the way back we drove through Summer town and stopped at Aunty Bets. Been there before, nice place but often a weird crowd for some reason. We feel like we're the only humans and the rest are all aliens. It's probably us...

After Karin's cottage pie yesterday I felt like another one and I had one before here and it was good so I ordered one again. We had a nice view.

This map shows all the places we visited in the bottom right corner. We live in the top left corner. Adelaide is squashed in between the sea and the hills.

(See the abbreviation of North-East road? - NERd ;-)