Radelaide

I like to think that things take a little longer in Adelaide. I haven’t visited the city of churches and dead bodies in bank vaults since I was four years old, but my perceptions all seem right so far. It took twice as long as usual to get off the plane. Traffic lights take forever to change. The internet is slow. The beef and black bean stirfry I’m eating while I write this took 15 minutes, and I was the only one in the shop. Even the people seem a little slow, like maybe they’re natives of Canada, ey? So with these judgements etched firmly in my mind, I’ve always been a little surprised that Adelaide hosts a round of the V8 Supercars, one of the fastest sports in Australia. So I decided to cross the border, take a journey back in time, and find out for myself if Adelaide really is as backwards as I always thought.

I arrived in Adelaide this morning at 7am curious as to how this weekend would unfold. To be honest though, I never really expected much. Adelaide is like the shy, less attractive, less popular sister of Melbourne and Sydney, the type of sister that will put out for anyone because she knows if she doesn’t, she’s going to die alone with 10 cats, a nice real estate portfolio and some colleagues who ‘never really thought she’d be the type to own a gun, least of all use it on her own family’. And so it is with much surprise that I find myself saying this; Adelaide doesn’t seem all that bad.

I walked from the hotel at 8am through the CBD to the track and despite it being ‘peak hour’ there weren’t all that many people around, and those who were around smiled at me as I passed them by.  After making sure I was wearing pants and that they were done up, I came to the conclusion that they were just being polite. Polite! Smiles from strangers! That never happens in Melbourne.!

And now, as I sit in my hotel looking out the window at the sun setting over a pleasantly mild evening, I notice that the atmosphere on the streets of Adelaide tonight is as electric as the Tesler road car that ran some demonstration laps today at Clipsal. Every other person is dressed from head to toe in merchandise declaring their allegiance in the war between Ford and Holden. I am not one to give credit where due, yet in this case I might have to make an exception to my stubborn nature. Adelaide have put on one hell of an event, and sure I might have a lot of not so positive things to say about Adelaide, but they certainly know how to stage an event. Things might be a little slower here, but maybe that isn’t such a bad thing.