I’m starting to get into holiday mood and I like it. Anders and Linda arrived on Saturday and we had a nice weekend together visiting the International Flower & Garden show in Carlton, showing them the city and having barbecues on the balcony. I had to go back to work on the Monday and Tuesday but Simon had time off so he kept then busy with some shopping, a trip to Torquay and a visit to Williamstown.

Yesterday, my first holiday day, we flew over to Adelaide to visit Simon’s family. A rainy first day offered some more shopping and I bought myself a pair of Merrell shoes so now I’m prepared for all the walking!

Today we’ve spent the day getting up close and personal with some of Australia’s wildlife petting both koalas and kangaroos.

I took a nice walk along the beach today. I really love the ocean and the beach. It’s not something you get to enjoy as much in Melbourne so being within 5 min walking distance from the beach here is a treat.

Yes, I know it’s already Wednesday and my weekend update is only posted today but there have just not been enough time left over to blog. Work is busy at the moment, on Monday night we were invited over for dinner at a couple of friends’ house and I’ve had SWEA stuff I’ve had to do so I’ve been flat out. On top of that my back has been hurting, I strained a muscle at boot camp on Thursday it felt alright over the weekend but then went all bad again Monday night. To be honest I’m a little cranky since I’ve not been able to sleep properly for 3 nights because it hurts when I move and on Monday night even when I breathed.

But enough whinging back to the weekend. We left work early on Friday and it took us about 8-8.5h to drive over to Adelaide. The drive wasn’t too bad but there were lots of road works slowing us down which was annoying. We had Simon’s cousins wedding on, on Saturday and spent the whole day celebrating. It was a nice low key, budget wedding but nice to catch up with family. Sunday we just relaxed a bit before we had to drive back home. It’s a very long drive to do just over the weekend and I don’t think we’ll be doing it again since half the weekend is spent in the car. But the flights were around $500 return for the both of us and with our trusty Cruze who took us both there and back on less than two tanks we saved probably aroun $350.

Another great day down under is almost over. Not that hot today, “only” around 26 degrees so it was actually a perfect day for today’s adventures which offered a trip to Mt Lofty and a visit to Cleland Wildlife Park as well as my first bodyboarding attempt. I think I caught more seawater in my mouth than I caught waves during the last one though but at least I had fun trying.

View from the Mt Lofty summit, Adelaide CBD in the center.

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Something special took place in Adelaide last Saturday – the Credit Union Christmas Pageant 2010. The parade is an annual event, actually the largest event of its kind in the world, attracting crowds of over 400,000 and televised to millions more. Families flock to the route early in the morning to join in the Christmas spirit, watch the amazing parade of storybook floats, listen to the marching bands, and to wave at Father Christmas.

The Adelaide Christmas Pageant was founded by Sir Edward Hayward, owner of the Adelaide department store John Martin’s, who was inspired by the Toronto Santa Claus Parade and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It begun back in 1933 with just eight horse drawn floats and four bands but the event has grown and this year it had 75 sets including 57 floats, 14 bands, dancing groups, clowns and walking sets. More than 1,700 people made up the characters, dancers, musicians and drivers in this year’s pageant.

This year a Guinness World Record was set too, the spectators broke the record for the largest group of carol singers singing Christmas carols at the same time. They set a record of over 9100 carol singers, breaking the previous record of 7541 set in the USA, back in 2004.

Another eventful weekend has past this one spent in Adelaide visiting Simon’s family. Since the flights were so expensive we decided to drive there which in real life means 8 hours in the car covering a distance of about 730 km. We had Friday off so we left straight after work on Thursday, stocked up on lollies and drinks and arrived tired in Adelaide around 1.30 am.

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