I’ve changed cities for this weekend.  I got up at 3:20am on Friday morning to get to the Brisbane airport for an early morning flight to Adelaide in South Australia.  If you’re not sure where either place is and you’re American, it’s like flying from Maine to east Texas.

I’m in Adelaide for Eat Drink Blog food blogging conference.  This is the third Eat Drink Blog conference and the first time I’ve attended.  I’ve really looked forward to meeting and learning from bloggers I’ve been following for ages.

I was excited to meet the charming Charlie Louie from Hotly Spiced and Claire from Claire K Creations.  I admire both of them so much.  Claire is as cute as can be and anyone who hasn’t read Charlie’s blog is missing a real treat.  These are just two of the 80 food bloggers attending the conference.  Every one has a story and they’re all fascinating.

I’ve had time to find some food, go for a stroll and take a few photos for you.  The conference is being held at the Adelaide Central Markets, the largest under cover market in the southern hemisphere.

I ate lunch at the Markets on Friday.  I saw a baguette roll stuffed full of roasted pumpkin, pine nuts and aioli and just had to have it.

Equally exciting was seeing Lipton Iced Tea – virgin pina colada.  Some of you might have seen this for a long time but it was new to me and I just had to have it.  The only iced tea is found in bottles down here.

The sandwich was too big for me to eat for lunch so I broke the end bit off, pulled a bit of rocket out and took a big bite.  The outside of the roll was crunchy but the inside was soft and tender and the caramelized pumpkin was soft and sweet.

Then…  an elderly lady (more elderly than I am) walks up with her walking frame and sits opposite me.  She took one look at me and my sandwich and in a very thick Russian accent said, “You eat too much.”

I must have looked shocked as I replied, “I’ve been up since 3am and this is the first food I’ve had all day.”

She nodded, looked me up and down and said, “You eat too much, you should have juice like me,” and then went on to tell me how evil was taking over the world.  I don’t know about you but at this point my sandwich eating wasn’t so much fun and I left her to talk to someone else.

Today I sat in on a workshop with Dianne Jacob who wrote Will Work for Food where she did  her best to help us to become better writers.  Lots going on tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it goes.