Friday, February 19. 2010
On the plains around Adelaide today
We spent the entire day driving to the North East of Adelaide. You come out over the mountain (and I use that term loosely) range and there are all these glorious fields spread out before you with old buildings that are pretty as can be scattered everywhere. Most small towns we went through seemed to have a bar and a bakery. Of course we stopped at the bakeries!
So, I will just share the pictures. We all agreed that it was our favorite scenery day.
We also stopped at Manam on the Murray River. Big river, lots of house boats that you can rent from there and go up and down the river. Truthfully, it just looked very hot to me. Did not see that there would be a ton of air conditioning inside, the water did not look like anything you wanted to swim in and the flies might have carried you away in the over 40 heat. I think I will pass!
We made our way winding over to another wine region (God, South Australia is BLESSED!) at McClarenvale, where we stopped to see Bazzas younger and prettier sister and her husband Mick. We went down to the local pub with them and they had schnitzel. We were full from lunch, but dad still jealously eyed their schnitzel and thought it was a better place to go to then the restaurants where he only wanted salad cuz he could find nothing. Funny man, as he is really not a steak eater. He likes his beef ground up into hamburger. Nothing makes his eyes light up more!
We then had a drive along the south coast over sunset, and the sunset was spectacular too.
We stayed at a HOtel called Majestic Roof Top Gardens in Adelaide, downtown on Frome St. Expedia or Orbitz or something rates it as the #2 hotel for value in Australia. I might disagree with that. Although MUCH better then our hotel in Brisbane, with air conditioning that worked really well and helpful front desk staff, there were all kinds of problems with the room keys and we were constantly having them changed and having to get staff to let us up the elevator and into the room. Similar to Brisbane! Our bad luck or are these key systems unreliable? They had a wonderful deep tub, however, the japanese inspired sink was so shallow I constantly got water everywhere. The bed had heating blankets on it (!) and even though a room was in the $200.00 range, you paid $25.00 a night Valet Parking on top, about $27.00 a day for internet connection (found internet VERY expensive everywhere we were for basically not much download data..I think everywhere has decided there that they are going to make up on internet charges what they loose in long distance phone calls in rooms nowadays...) and a further $25.00 a person for a crummy breakfast buffet in the morning and pay extra for your hot chocolate please and thank you. We arrived at the buffet shortly after 9, knowing it closed at 930 AM and while sitting down we were informed by the waitress that the buffet closed at 930 SHARP. It did not give us a warm and fuzzy feeling.
I had another episode in Brisbane like that. When we went to the airport to get our plane to Brisbane, we had time to spare so we went into the Qantas Lounge which you have privileges in with your AA admirals Club. In AA you can bring your immediate family in. I pulled out my ID and the temp card I had gotten from the Admirals Club in LA, since when I renewed it there, they told me since it had been expired by more then a month, I had to get a temporary and the permanent would come in the mail. No problem.
At Qantas lounge the one girl looked at my card and basically said she did not know what the hell it was and couldn't accept it. I explained and she kind of tossed it over to the other girl who read it and said "it must just be their temporary card" and then said "how many cards do you have" I said "just the one" and she said "well you can only bring one person in with you" I said "but they are my family and family is allowed in" and she said "not when you are using a AA membership on Qantas" and I started putting everything away and said "well how am I supposed to know that?" She said "it is all plainly spelled out on our web site"
Well forgive me, when I am told by AA at LA that I have no problem and can use it at the Qantas lounges in OZ, I did not rush to the web site to read all the fine print!! She was very busy looking down here nose at me, and I am not sure what i said then. I had finished putting everything away and was then told "that I was going to forgive it today and let you in for today ONLY" Which really pissed me off, as would it not have been better customer service to rearrange how she told me it and say " I am going to let you in today with your family,but Qantas policy is for AA Club members to only let you bring in one guest each time?" So my back was not immediately up by being told no?
I did tell her that I did not appreciate being chastised, and I sure as hell don't like many of the versions of customer service nowadays! We ended up going in for breaky, with us feeling quite uncomfortable.
Ok, enough ranting today. It is my mothers birthday today. The big 70! We all took her out for a high end lunch of Costco hot dogs, and now we are going to take her out for Dairy Queen instead of cake and then off to see the movie Dear John that she wanted to see!
I am starting to look for a RV lot for sale around the San Diego area...Just in case anyone has any knowledge of them! Or a piece of land to put the RV on and build a workshop, although so many places have zoning restrictions in that neck of the woods for putting RV's on property (in California? No, you are kidding!) Decided the not-as-humid- left coast might be better for our RV.
So, I will just share the pictures. We all agreed that it was our favorite scenery day.
We also stopped at Manam on the Murray River. Big river, lots of house boats that you can rent from there and go up and down the river. Truthfully, it just looked very hot to me. Did not see that there would be a ton of air conditioning inside, the water did not look like anything you wanted to swim in and the flies might have carried you away in the over 40 heat. I think I will pass!
We made our way winding over to another wine region (God, South Australia is BLESSED!) at McClarenvale, where we stopped to see Bazzas younger and prettier sister and her husband Mick. We went down to the local pub with them and they had schnitzel. We were full from lunch, but dad still jealously eyed their schnitzel and thought it was a better place to go to then the restaurants where he only wanted salad cuz he could find nothing. Funny man, as he is really not a steak eater. He likes his beef ground up into hamburger. Nothing makes his eyes light up more!
We then had a drive along the south coast over sunset, and the sunset was spectacular too.
We stayed at a HOtel called Majestic Roof Top Gardens in Adelaide, downtown on Frome St. Expedia or Orbitz or something rates it as the #2 hotel for value in Australia. I might disagree with that. Although MUCH better then our hotel in Brisbane, with air conditioning that worked really well and helpful front desk staff, there were all kinds of problems with the room keys and we were constantly having them changed and having to get staff to let us up the elevator and into the room. Similar to Brisbane! Our bad luck or are these key systems unreliable? They had a wonderful deep tub, however, the japanese inspired sink was so shallow I constantly got water everywhere. The bed had heating blankets on it (!) and even though a room was in the $200.00 range, you paid $25.00 a night Valet Parking on top, about $27.00 a day for internet connection (found internet VERY expensive everywhere we were for basically not much download data..I think everywhere has decided there that they are going to make up on internet charges what they loose in long distance phone calls in rooms nowadays...) and a further $25.00 a person for a crummy breakfast buffet in the morning and pay extra for your hot chocolate please and thank you. We arrived at the buffet shortly after 9, knowing it closed at 930 AM and while sitting down we were informed by the waitress that the buffet closed at 930 SHARP. It did not give us a warm and fuzzy feeling.
I had another episode in Brisbane like that. When we went to the airport to get our plane to Brisbane, we had time to spare so we went into the Qantas Lounge which you have privileges in with your AA admirals Club. In AA you can bring your immediate family in. I pulled out my ID and the temp card I had gotten from the Admirals Club in LA, since when I renewed it there, they told me since it had been expired by more then a month, I had to get a temporary and the permanent would come in the mail. No problem.
At Qantas lounge the one girl looked at my card and basically said she did not know what the hell it was and couldn't accept it. I explained and she kind of tossed it over to the other girl who read it and said "it must just be their temporary card" and then said "how many cards do you have" I said "just the one" and she said "well you can only bring one person in with you" I said "but they are my family and family is allowed in" and she said "not when you are using a AA membership on Qantas" and I started putting everything away and said "well how am I supposed to know that?" She said "it is all plainly spelled out on our web site"
Well forgive me, when I am told by AA at LA that I have no problem and can use it at the Qantas lounges in OZ, I did not rush to the web site to read all the fine print!! She was very busy looking down here nose at me, and I am not sure what i said then. I had finished putting everything away and was then told "that I was going to forgive it today and let you in for today ONLY" Which really pissed me off, as would it not have been better customer service to rearrange how she told me it and say " I am going to let you in today with your family,but Qantas policy is for AA Club members to only let you bring in one guest each time?" So my back was not immediately up by being told no?
I did tell her that I did not appreciate being chastised, and I sure as hell don't like many of the versions of customer service nowadays! We ended up going in for breaky, with us feeling quite uncomfortable.
Ok, enough ranting today. It is my mothers birthday today. The big 70! We all took her out for a high end lunch of Costco hot dogs, and now we are going to take her out for Dairy Queen instead of cake and then off to see the movie Dear John that she wanted to see!
I am starting to look for a RV lot for sale around the San Diego area...Just in case anyone has any knowledge of them! Or a piece of land to put the RV on and build a workshop, although so many places have zoning restrictions in that neck of the woods for putting RV's on property (in California? No, you are kidding!) Decided the not-as-humid- left coast might be better for our RV.
Thursday, February 18. 2010
Still in Australia, I wonder if I will have blog material until I get back to the BVI in April?
I am not sure if I am on a new day or an old day! But I will continue along until I get to the end of the pictures anyways.... My sister in law Kaye is VERY artys and craftsy. Something that my mother is as well and I do not have one single bone of arts and crafts in my body, and quite truthfully, the tediousness of being precise would drive me straight up the wall really quickly!~
Anyways, Kaye does these intricately designed and folded cards that she sells at markets...
Mom thought they were perfect Australian Souvenirs, grabbed a few, wrote them out and before you could say lickedy split had a stamp on them and in the Oz post office. We had a dinner out the very aptly and British Sounding SLUG AND LETTUCE.
This was a dinner with a lot of the cousins and nieces and nephews, always fun! It was good, my father was happily eating beef schnitzel with gravy and did not have to suffer through another rocket salad cuz he could find nothing to eat!!
Seemed like there was a lot of rules though for going out for dinner!!!
This is Bazza and his mother one more time. I never can get over how similar they look!
My parents and I were thrilled to see this "thing" on the road. I believe it was called a Skag something. Apparently they bite. And there is quite a dance you do to confuse them so you can pick them up that Bazza says he was much faster at when he was younger! We were amused watching the performance though and god knows none of the three of us were going near picking it up! Nice to tour Australia with an Aussie to find out all these little thins!!
Went down by the water in Adelaide. took a picture of an old anchor. Of course. Boaty people that we are!
And, birds in the tree...
Bazza says that this water tower looked exactly like this when he first came to Australia...when he was about 8! He was surprised that it still looked the same...
The rest of us just loved this "house on top of a house" there were birds living in it so maybe it was just a large bird house??? Ambitious anyways.
Tomorrows blog has some of the prettiest scenery. We went quite far out into the plains and took some great pictures....
Anyways, Kaye does these intricately designed and folded cards that she sells at markets...
Mom thought they were perfect Australian Souvenirs, grabbed a few, wrote them out and before you could say lickedy split had a stamp on them and in the Oz post office. We had a dinner out the very aptly and British Sounding SLUG AND LETTUCE.
This was a dinner with a lot of the cousins and nieces and nephews, always fun! It was good, my father was happily eating beef schnitzel with gravy and did not have to suffer through another rocket salad cuz he could find nothing to eat!!
Seemed like there was a lot of rules though for going out for dinner!!!
This is Bazza and his mother one more time. I never can get over how similar they look!
My parents and I were thrilled to see this "thing" on the road. I believe it was called a Skag something. Apparently they bite. And there is quite a dance you do to confuse them so you can pick them up that Bazza says he was much faster at when he was younger! We were amused watching the performance though and god knows none of the three of us were going near picking it up! Nice to tour Australia with an Aussie to find out all these little thins!!
Went down by the water in Adelaide. took a picture of an old anchor. Of course. Boaty people that we are!
And, birds in the tree...
Bazza says that this water tower looked exactly like this when he first came to Australia...when he was about 8! He was surprised that it still looked the same...
The rest of us just loved this "house on top of a house" there were birds living in it so maybe it was just a large bird house??? Ambitious anyways.
Tomorrows blog has some of the prettiest scenery. We went quite far out into the plains and took some great pictures....
Wednesday, February 17. 2010
Lou Mirandas, Barossa Valley, Food, Cheese and Wine. Pretty much a perfect day except for the heat
Lets go onto the next day in Adelaide..We decided to take a drive out to the north and northeast. We stopped at Whispering Walls, where it is a perfect "something" oval shape and you can hear people whispering from a long way away across the dam. That is about as technical as I get.
My god was it hot out today! Bazza kept on thinking we should get out of the car for little walks and we kept on complaining (although in his favor, both my parents have said they lost 5 lbs on the trip which is pretty amazing for vacation!) We saw no animals. Why? Because it was too damn hot for the animals and they were all sleeping! Where we should have been!!!
I guess I had not realized that there was such a large wine district by Adelaide. The Barossa Valley. There were vineyards from many well known variety's, Penfolds, Wolf Blass, Hamilton, Jacobs Creek, and a ton more. We decided that it was a perfect day to stop at a nice AIR CONDITIONED wine cellar and restaurant. It was one of the best decisions we made the entire time! We stopped at Lou Mirandas...
What sold me was the fact it was obviously air conditioned! But, it was lovely inside as well. Massive wood tables, wine bottles made into wall sconces, and a great menu..
The Pinot Grigio we had was totally clear.
We had a great cheese plate that we all enjoyed and also had fresh almonds and dried apricots with it..
We pretty much just picked a whole bunch of meals that really did not go together and put them in the middle of the table. I had forgotten how GOOD REAL fresh scallops taste! It was amazing. I am sure the ones we get in the BVI now are stamped rays cut out. There is no comparison. We also had baby corn with a mayonnaise on top, salt and pepper calamari (which is still big everywhere in OZ) and of course, lots of fries for dad.
The piece de resistance though was dessert. We had a chocolate fudge banana cake that was to die for. I can still taste it weeks later!
Took this picture from my daughter in law. She had a baby picture of her Wade with Bazza in the shower. LOOK AT HOW SKINNY HE WAS!!!!!!!! I also hated the beard! Apparently he also had a lot more hair then!
Compare that to the man happily eyeing over the pie counter here in Australia!
OK, it is just possible that there was more then Bazza looking over the dessert counters!
Went out for more meals with our son and daughter, Karen and Wade. One thing all our children have to admit is that they get fed well when I am around! Imagine....
My god was it hot out today! Bazza kept on thinking we should get out of the car for little walks and we kept on complaining (although in his favor, both my parents have said they lost 5 lbs on the trip which is pretty amazing for vacation!) We saw no animals. Why? Because it was too damn hot for the animals and they were all sleeping! Where we should have been!!!
I guess I had not realized that there was such a large wine district by Adelaide. The Barossa Valley. There were vineyards from many well known variety's, Penfolds, Wolf Blass, Hamilton, Jacobs Creek, and a ton more. We decided that it was a perfect day to stop at a nice AIR CONDITIONED wine cellar and restaurant. It was one of the best decisions we made the entire time! We stopped at Lou Mirandas...
What sold me was the fact it was obviously air conditioned! But, it was lovely inside as well. Massive wood tables, wine bottles made into wall sconces, and a great menu..
The Pinot Grigio we had was totally clear.
We had a great cheese plate that we all enjoyed and also had fresh almonds and dried apricots with it..
We pretty much just picked a whole bunch of meals that really did not go together and put them in the middle of the table. I had forgotten how GOOD REAL fresh scallops taste! It was amazing. I am sure the ones we get in the BVI now are stamped rays cut out. There is no comparison. We also had baby corn with a mayonnaise on top, salt and pepper calamari (which is still big everywhere in OZ) and of course, lots of fries for dad.
The piece de resistance though was dessert. We had a chocolate fudge banana cake that was to die for. I can still taste it weeks later!
Took this picture from my daughter in law. She had a baby picture of her Wade with Bazza in the shower. LOOK AT HOW SKINNY HE WAS!!!!!!!! I also hated the beard! Apparently he also had a lot more hair then!
Compare that to the man happily eyeing over the pie counter here in Australia!
OK, it is just possible that there was more then Bazza looking over the dessert counters!
Went out for more meals with our son and daughter, Karen and Wade. One thing all our children have to admit is that they get fed well when I am around! Imagine....
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