Brisbane: Part 1

Monday November 14
Julia and I are now safely in Brisbane and I’d have to say, we had quite the adventure getting here. Yesterday morning Tucker, Freddie, Sophie, Grace and I went to the top of Mount Cargill to see the sunrise. It was pretty foggy and a little cold so it wasn’t incredibly magnificent but it was still pretty. We should have stayed longer because as we were driving back to the Lofts the sky became prettier and prettier. Upon arriving back at the Lofts we started season 4 of Dexter (yes, at 6am). After a few episodes it was time to say Goodbye to Grace and MJ.

I went back to my room after that to pack for Australia, but my mind was a bit boggled as I thought about all the other goodbyes that were going to happen throughout the day. My bag was strangely light after I finished packing and I felt like I was forgetting something but I couldn’t really think of anything, mostly because I didn’t want people to leave and I was thinking about that a lot more.

I went back to number 5 after I finished packing and Tucker, Freddie, and I listened to music and exchanged movies, music, and pictures. I then helped Fredric pack for his trip. Soon we were on the road to the airport. We got to the airport and parked in a place where we weren’t really supposed to and exchanged hugs and goodbyes. This was now goodbye number three of the day, and number five in total since last week. I feel like these past five months have gone by so quickly (too quickly), and now that I am comfortably settled and warm outside, it is time to say goodbye to all the amazing people I have met here.

Goodbyes here are not like the ones at Westover, or Bryn Mawr where there is a day that everybody leaves, such as graduation or something of the like. Here, everyone is leaving on different days and at different times of the same day and it makes saying goodbye a long and drawn out process that makes me really sad, especially because you know when people are leaving and you anticipate it. We dropped of Fredric at the airport and came back to the Lofts where some gossip was exchanged about the party the night before and then we watched more Dexter. We managed to finish season 4, except that we skipped a few episodes in between.

At around 9:30pm, I said goodbye to Tucker and Kevin, and Eirin walked me to the bus station, which conveniently was across the street from my house. I met up with Julia, who was with Ellie. Ellie was crying, which made me almost start crying, but I guess I could have easily masked that since it was also raining. Here we had our first hiccup where the Knight Rider bus only had one passenger down even though Julia had booked for two. It ended up being okay and he let us on the bus.

This bus was just like the Night Bus in Harry Potter, it had red velvety seats and curtains, and it was kind of skinny, and we drove completely in darkness. Mostly because there are no road lights, and the bus lights were turned off. We stopped once on our way and were at Christchurch airport by 3am. Upon arriving at the airport I felt a little better because there were people sleeping on their luggage on the floor everywhere. On my way back from Australia I have an 11.5 hour layover at the Christchurch airport between when I arrive back in NZ and when I fly into to Dunedin. I’m going to aim for one of the benches next time as the floor was not very comfortable.

We went to check-in around 5:45am. I thought we were early (mostly because we had been really spoilt by Air New Zealand and easy domestic travel) but I had forgotten that we were on an international flight and should check it quite a bit before 6 since our flight left at 7. Julia and I wanted to check my bag so we could bring our toiletries, since I thought it wouldn’t cost more than $10 or $20 but alas, Pacific Blue charges $50 per bag and our shampoo and soap really wasn’t worth it. Another reason why I love Air New Zealand and not other airlines; you get to check your bag for FREE with Air New Zealand. Anyways, we chucked our soap and stuff, and went through security. Here I had another interesting life experience. Not only was I patted down (which at this point in my life I’m getting pretty used to at airports) but I was also checked for explosives. As I was going through this I was thinking, “Thank goodness I decided to not pack the laundry powder,” because the last thing I wanted to deal with was the airport questioning me about a mysterious Tupperware full of white powder…

We boarded our plane and I pretty much instantly fell asleep until we landed. We went through customs, got another stamp in my passport, got sniffed by an adorable Beagle in a cute doggie uniform, and proceeded to take a taxi to… some hostels that I had written down. I had not booked a hostel for us, but I wrote down the names and addresses of four of them on the same street and the taxi just dropped us off at one of them and we decided to check it out. It was called Chill Backpackers and was pretty nice. The name is quite fitting as it is REALLY REALLY HOT in Brisbane. I haven’t felt this warm since…  I dunno… May Day. Our room has AC though, so I’ve kind of cooled off now.

On our walk to the beach. Notice how the water is not blue like it is in New Zealand...

In the afternoon Julia and I went to the grocery store across the street to buy some groceries for the next few days. We also stopped by the YHA a little ways up the hill from us to book a tour of the Sunshine Coast, a place highly recommended by Ralf, one of our friends from Switzerland. Sadly, both companies that did tours were booked (probably because they only go on Wednesday’s and Saturday’s and we were going to be in Sydney by Saturday). Anyways, after looking at other available tours, all of which did not look as interesting as the one to the Sunshine Coast and cost about the same amount we decided to scratch the tour idea as a whole and planned a beach day instead. Julia and I decided to go to one of the beaches near our hostel tomorrow and just laze about soaking in the sunshine.

 

For dinner we made spinach and ricotta tortellini with sundried tomato sauce and had mangoes for dessert. So far, food here has been cheaper than in NZ. After grocery shopping for the rest of our Brisbane stay, it comes out to be $9 per day per person for food. Staying in hostels is nice because there is always a kitchen for you to make your own food, but also unless you are travelling with a crew of people you are usually sharing the room with strangers. I really miss the times when we were at Queenstown and the Catlins because during those trips I knew everyone on the trip and we all shared the space and did not have to worry about our things. Anyways, this Brisbane hostel is pretty nice, and hopefully the ones in Sydney are too.

Speaking of Sydney, after our attempts to book our Sunshine Coast tour, we also decided that it would be a good time to book our hostel for Sydney. Since we were already at the YHA we thought we would just book for the YHA in Sydney. This is when we found out that every YHA hostel in center city Sydney was fully booked, and the only one that could accommodate both me and Julia was outside the city center, meaning we would have to take a bus to get into the city. I panicked for a bit, until I realized that YHA hostels are not the only option. We both went back to our hostel and used our hour of free internet to look for other hostels. To my surprise, a whole lot of other hostels were full too. Apparently, it’s almost Christmas, so everything is booked. To me, it’s almost Thanksgiving… but okay, I guess that isn’t universal at all. We ended up finding two hostels with relatively good ratings and funky names. I’ll let you know how those are.

It is only 10:35pm but as I have not really slept in the last two and a half days, I think its time for bed. Also, my body thinks its 1:35am with the whole three hour time difference between here and New Zealand. Jetlag is going to be interesting when going back to the US…

Wheel of Brisbane

Tuesday November 15

This morning I woke up at 6:30am and could not go back to sleep. I guess that in New Zealand it would have been 9:30am… After lazing about my bed for another hour or so, I went up to the deck and had breakfast. I sat there with my flannel and long pants on, not because it was cold, but because within the time it took me to eat a slice of toast I felt the back of my neck burning. It is another cloudless day in Brisbane, and already steaming before 9am. You can see the heat squiggles off the buildings.

At around 11am we set out for Streets Beach. About half way there we realized we had left our sunscreen in our room so we walked back to get it. It was sweltering at this point. I am equating today’s heat to the kind of heat the summer I lived in HCA where beads of sweat just rolled down your forehead even if you were just standing and not doing anything physical. I also think that I’m probably not used to the heat anymore since I have usually been cold since July.

We finally reached the beach after walking through path covered with purple flowers. The beach was beautiful, even though it was man made and in the middle of the city. The sand was soft and also so hot that I thought it would burn my feet. Julia and I then spent most of the day laying in the water and soaking in the sun. At around 4pm, we decided to rinse all the sand off of ourselves and stand in the sun again to air dry. We did not bring towels because the only towels we had was for showering. Once we were fully dressed again we went to explore south Brisbane for a little while.

We first went to a candy shop where I sampled a few candies that I had never seen before. Then Julia bought a bucket of chips (fries) and we sat down near the water to eat them. This is where we met the interesting bird, ibis. The ibis is an interesting looking bird with a really long beak. We watched in amazement as the ibis stalked us, folding up all of its claws every time it took a step. While Julia ate her chips, I went to climb a tree, and right as I got my leg stuck on a branch, and ibis knocked over Julia’s bucket of chips and stole one. I realize those two things were kind of a non-sequitur but it was funny because Julia had just turned around to take a picture when her chips fell over and there instantly were more ibises (sp.?) and a bunch of seagulls.

After our bird adventure, we went an took a walk in the rainforest where we met multiple lizards. They all had long tails and were very cute. At the other end of the rainforest we came to the Wheel of Brisbane, which was nice to look at but we didn’t really want to pay for the ride. We ventured father into the city and looked in shops along the ways and eventually made it back to our hostel in time to see a beautiful sunset.