We took our time getting started in Geelong for our drive to Melbourne, to get things appropriately packed up for our flight to Adelaide, Mark's old stomping grounds. My planned portion of the trip was completed, and it was time to stop by Mark's alma mater and then get ready for work on Monday.
We filled the little red car with gas, dropped it off, then went through security. We found a restaurant that worked with our Priority Passes and got eggs on buns and Bloody Mary's before our unmemorable flight.
Landing in Adelaide, we took quick a long and traffic-y Uber trip to Mark's friends' house - he was going to see Manoj and Anya for the first time in about a decade! Mark met them when he attended Flinders for his masters in the late 00s. And I was getting to meet them and their daughters for the first time.
After dropping off our stuff in the guest room, we met the girls and the dog and got a quick tour. Their backyard included a large clothes rack (dryers aren't common) and a half-built chicken shed that was mostly a cover for the girls to do "discovery" behind it.
Anya, Mark, the girls, and I then took a walk along the trails to the girls' school, complete with downed trees as play equipment and story settings. They lived by the gorge, what they called a large park that separated them from Flinders, so we did a bit of downhill into that before Manoj called with his ETA. We walked back along the neighborhood streets to get home for dinner.
The meal of pork with cracklin, mustard, slaw, and potatoes was the gas in the tank we needed for the birthday dance party. Though a day late, they celebrated by taking out half a cake (that they had made and eaten the previous day) and attractively covering it with strawberries - and at the end of the "Happy Birthday" song, they added a “hip hip hooray” at the end that’s classically Aussie.
The girls performed an impressively (and probably slightly impromptu) choreography to Shake It Off (and I showed them a Jazzercise move or two). We did a cultural exchange as well: they taught me how to “floss” before dinner and I taught them the “shopping cart.”
After the girls went to bed, Manoj built a fire and there was lots of reminiscing about Mark visiting in Nepal. When Manoj had had his eyes closed for five minutes (and I was struggling to keep my eyes open), we decided to call it a night.
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