Adelaide, Day 2

Sunday, 10 March

Sunday morning I slept in. The day before, I'd seen so many of the food stalls that were operating in the park, but unfortunately they were out of my price range. I hope to go to WOMADelaide again next year, but next time I will save up for it well in advance so that I can try some different foods from around the world - at festival prices, eg 1 curry meat dish and rice $12, or 2 meat dishes for $15.

So my first stop for the day was Woolworths, in the main city mall. For $11 I got all my meals for the next two days - some fresh fruit, salami, cheese, and hamburger rolls. So perhaps not all the flavours of the world I could've had, but I definitely saved on money.

A sign posted in the mall.

Adelaide, Day 1

Saturday, 9 March

I boarded my flight out of Brisbane, and we took off on time just after 6 in the morning.

I was in a window seat, and the couple in the seats next to me were also first-time WOMADelaiders heading down to Adelaide for the world music festival. (But with thousands of people in the park, I didn't actually end up seeing them again at any of the shows.)

With a tailwind, we landed in Adelaide almost a full half-hour ahead of schedule. South Australia is in the Central Australian time zone (GMT + 9.30), so it's usually 30 minutes behind Brisbane. But since that state observes Daylight Savings, it's now half an hour ahead of Brisbane. So I flew westward, but the clock went forward... weird.

When I travel to other countries, I re-set my watch to local time. With only a half-hour difference, I kept my phone on Brisbane time for the week, and just had to remember to add 30 minutes to whatever it said.

The sign inside Adelaide Airport, welcoming me to South Australia.

Holidays, Day 1

FRIDAY 8 MARCH

My first day off was also the first night of WOMADelaide, but I had a slight clash of timetables - Friday 8 March was the first Broncos game of the season, and was being played at home!

Being season ticket holders (for a second year), Kara and I of course went. But due to my Saturday flight plans (departing 6am), I stayed up late Thursday and had a really long sleep-in on the Friday to prepare for my all-nighter.

Music Month

It looks like March is going to be a Music Month.

As of tomorrow, I'm on annual leave from work for 4 weeks.

My holidays start with a trip down to Adelaide (my first visit in actual - not toddler - memory) for the annual music festival WOMADelaide. With artists coming from all over Australia and the world, it's a festival I've wanted to go to for quite some time.

90s Action

More explosions, more car chases, more complicated plans to steal all the gold or rule the world. It's time for my favourite 90s action films.

This list features:

• 3 starring Bruce Willis
• 2 starring Nicolas Cage
• 3 directed by Michael Bay
• 4 directorial debuts (Bad Boys, Speed, Boondock Saints, Con Air)
• 7 with police/FBI officers as major characters
• 1 with oil-rig workers as major characters
• 0 featuring space aliens... unless you count Peter Stormare's cabin-fevered cosmonaut.

Top 10 (Movie) Musicals

I finally got around to seeing "Les Misérables" at the cinema on my Monday off.

For one reason or another, these are the musicals that I have enjoyed the most.

I should point out that for as is the case for every one of my top 10 lists of movies, they are movies I've seen. There are probably awesome musicals out there that I haven't seen (yet), but they won't appear on my lists just by virtue of being critically acclaimed, or Oscar-winning.

This list features:

• 3 movies that are original film musicals
• 4 movies adapted from stage musicals
• 3 movies with plots arranged around a selection of previously written songs
• 2 movies featuring both Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen

So without further ado...

Alex Cross

This afternoon's viewing was the thriller-that-wanted-to-be-an-action-movie "Alex Cross", based (according to the end credits) on the novel "Cross" by James Patterson.

The character of Alex Cross, featuring in a series of twenty Patterson novels to date, has been seen onscreen before in the films "Kiss The Girls" and its sequel "Along Came A Spider". (Although in book form they are in reverse order.) The detective with a psychology degree who does profiling work as a consultant for the FBI was played then by the great Morgan Freeman. Personally, I think Morgan Freeman was slightly old for the role, but his performance as Cross is miles beyond Tyler Perry's. I'd still like to see a Denzel version.