The Obsession Continues

I know you are dying to hear about the rest of our trip to Australia but I need you to focus on what I have to say right now. This is very important.

There is a new chocolate bar with sea salt in it. That's right in it, not just sprinkled on top. The sea salt is mixed in with the amazing dark chocolate to create the offical candy bar of my top desk drawer. My endorsement is a gold mine, I'm sure.

I scored one of these delicious treats at my friend Sarah's bridal shower a couple weeks ago and I have a little piece every day after lunch. I think you should try it.

If there's ever an occasion where you need to buy me something, let's say my 30th birthday on July 1st, Christmas 2010 or Chocolate Lovers Day which happens to be today, you can just give me one of these chocolate bars and I will be yours forever.

Paging Dr. Phil

Do you ever look at the calendar and suddenly panic that you haven't paid any of your bills on time? This happens to me all the time and it's super weird, especially since I actually do pay my bills on time. With the recent increase of online bill pay options I think that I forget what I've paid, since it's all just clicking; like the regular clicking I do on dlisted or facebook or msn. The clicking becomes indiscernible and I simply can't remember what I clicked on when and what information a certain click sent into the universe on my behalf.

I constantly dream that I haven't shown up to work in weeks or that I have a big final coming up but I stopped going to class ages ago.

Am I trying to tell myself something? Do I need to be more responsible or is my subconscious telling me to wake up and realize that everything is fine?

Adelaide & Clare Valley 2/11-2/14

We left Sydney early on Thursday morning and flew to Adelaide, my dear friend Lill's hometown. I have to make a special mention of the Virgin Blue gate attendants that kept themselves entertained by paging people like Mr. Giant Wang and then trying to hide their giggles. This kind of thing would never fly at a US airport. Pun intended.
Lill lives in Melbourne now but her parents Geoff and Donna are there still. Lill flew to Adelaide the day before we arrived and I was so excited to see the three of them again. They picked us up at the airport (anyone can go to the gate in domestic Australian airports, old school) and we headed out to a local wine region, Clare Valley. Geoff and Donna have a house in the Clare Valley complete with vineyards.

Behold:

This is not the greatest shot of the house but you get the idea. It's a really comfortable modern house set amongst rolling hills and vineyards. Simple perfection.
We spent two days tasting wines at local cellar doors (aka tasting rooms) and enjoying the McKinnon's hospitality and company. They were amazing hosts.

Some of the wineries we visited:

Knappstein winery and brewery had great wine and beer, what else could you ask for?

This is the view from Paulette's winery; not too shabby.

Somebody teach me HTML because this captioning pictures thing is not working for me. Trying to make this post pretty is futile. Bear with me here...

One of the highlights of this leg of our journey was that we got to see kangaroos in the wild. There was a big red one hopping through the fields of Clare Valley while we were driving and another two grazing on the McKinnon's property. For Australians this is no big deal but for me and Dan it was pretty sweet.

Another highlight of this trip was meeting Mr. Ned McKinnon, the cutest dog in Australia.

Ned waiting patiently outside Paulette's.

Dogs love Dan and Ned was no exception. When we got in the car Ned hopped up on a box of wine (a box containing wine bottles, not boxed wine, just had to make that clear) and snuggled up to Dan, occasionally licking Dan's ear or resting his head on Dan's shoulder. It was really cute.

Ned and Dan, friends forever.

Next post: Adelaide; containing stories of places called Star of Greece, Mt. Lofty and The Garden of Unearthly Delights, should be a good one...