Adelaide

Been in Adelaide a couple of days. Longer than I intended, but that's the way it's worked out. They do this thing called Northern Lights which is illuminating some of the old buildings on the North Terrace with patterns that change every 5 minutes or so. I happened on it my first night without my camera, so I only took 2 pictures of the same building on my phone, but hopefully you can get the idea. It's pretty impressive. Wandering around town yesterday I came across my favorite store name ever. Acoustic Stomach…they sell purses. I think I stood and stared for a few minutes.

My Dad always talks about how friendly the Aussies are and if they hear your accent they will ask where you're from and be totally enthralled. Hopefully any sister reading this to Dad is now paraphrasing because of course times have changed and we Americans are not so loved anymore. At any rate, while out to dinner last night I offered to take a photo of 8 women out together. After returning the camera and going back to my wine one of the women turned to me and did the where are you from and a few other requisite questions before telling me that she and her best friend were going to Las Vegas in May because she had met the most wonderful man from Richmond. Va online and Vegas was the meet up point. I tried not to break in and say are you effing crazy? half way around the world to meet someone you met online? In Vegas? So long story long, Aussies are friendly, but sometimes they just wanna talk about themselves.

Today I went on a wine tasting tour of the Barossa Valley. I now know more about Barossa Valley wine than I know about Oregon wine. I won't tell you everything I learned here. Of the 9 people on the tour I bought the most and now have to figure our how to ship it home. The 4th and last vineyard was the smallest by far and had some great wines and offered some deals. The couple buying before me bought, then tried to talk the nice guy who had done our tasting in to giving them a bigger percentage off, then some wine glasses with their logo and finally a polo shirt also with the logo. The woman was American so while the nice guy kept saying no and they wouldn't lay off I started encouraging her to back off.

No go. The nice guy finally went in the back and took off his polo shirt and gave it them. That made them happy enough. Me up next, I do my purchase and after he packs all the wine for us and the couple walk away he hands me another bottle of one of the wines that they only sell at the vineyard and that I had purchased. I'm sure it was because I was trying to get those people of his back. I wanted to tell them that I got a better freebie than they did, but I didn't.

Tomorrow off to Kangaroo Island to look for…KANGAROOS!