Brisbane

Cities are fun.

Quite fun, although tiring. I've had very full days here in Brisbane, all of which I go to sleep too tired to be stressed about all the homework I'm not doing.

Oh, and I finally posted all the pictures up to now on Picassa web. The link is in the "about me" section directly to your right of what you are reading right now.

The first day, Monday, (well, first full day) was just work. Work work work, some eating, some ALIAS watching, and more work. Despite that, I didn't get much done, which I've decided to contribute to the fact that I hadn't done any schoolwork whatsoever in three weeks. My mom downloaded her main email account, which meant 987 new, unread messaged to deal with, but eventually got through most of them. By then, however, people started realizing she was emailing so sent her a million more messages. Our hosts didn't have work that day (well, one of them had a very early appointment but was home after that), so took us on a walk by a stream where we saw numerous water dragons and ducks right by their house. That day was uneventful, but relaxing.

The next day was much more exciting. My dad had a meeting in the city and our hosts (C and W) had work, so the three of us decided to take the bus down there, my mom and I walk around while me dad went to his meeting. The bus was very easy, although a little intimidating at first. I think it was also the first day of school for students, so there were people on the bus and walking around in wonderful little polos, knee socks, and dresses (no, not all together, although that would be quite a uniform). Once we got into the city, we walked around through streets crowded with hoards of tourists, students, and business people dressed in collared blouses, blazers, and heels. My parents thought we were lost a couple times (I, being so superior to them, of course knew exactly where we were the whole time), but we eventually got the the university where my dad's meeting was. It was painful walking there, because every couple steps we walked though either the draft of a heavily air conditioned store taunting us to escape the sticky heat to go buy expensive jewelry, or a small hole-in-the-wall kebab or Vietnamese place with odors of hot meat and vegetables wafting out into the street. Eventually, though, we got there, and after dropping him off my mom and I headed back towards the main square where we got off the bus. It was still pretty early in the morning, so although the amazing smells weren't torture it was still pretty hard not to lead myself into a restaurant. Once we got back to the main square, we searched a little and saw multiple food courts below every mall. We, of course, had to look at them all, to pick the best place to eat, and eventually got so hungry we settles for very yummy foccatia pizza (a little silly to get Italian food in Australia, but still delicious). It was difficult to find a seat in the buzzing enclosure, but eventually we found one. Lunch was very yummy, and after roaming around fascinated by the size of everything and buying books and more adapters, we went to the predetermined meeting place to find my dad. It turned out the meeting place we picked was the same meeting place that everybody picked, so it took a little while to find him through the masses of people standing looking hopefully into the distance, but eventually we found him and caught the bus back home.
When we got home, we looked for the dogs (Buddy and Holly). We couldn't find Buddy, and were worried what C had said might happen came true. The day before she was saying how recently Buddy had been getting out during the day (he absolutely adores people, especially C. They actually got Holly to be a companion for him, but it hasn't helped much. Now they just fight over C's attention). Later, when C got home, she listened to the message on the machine and went across the highway-street to the house Buddy was often at, slightely annoyed at him for running away. The next day she didn't let them be in the yard during the day and set up a giant barricade into one of the rooms with chairs, rolled up rugs, and a bright yellow sheet (which was all on top of the wooden fence W had build for just this purpose, but wasn't working as Buddy had figured out how to get around it). Buddy hasn't gotten out since. Anyways, that afternoon we then worked some more, watched some more ALIAS, weren't very productive. Same old.

The next day my dad had a full day of meetings back in the city, so he left pretty early. After some discussion, my mom and I decided to go to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary on the other side of the city. We caught the same bus into Brisbane, then walked to another giant underground bus terminal to catch a different bus to the Sanctuary. That bus was longer, but eventually we got there. We knew it would be a little touristy (although not as bad as the Steve Irwin zoo about 10 miles north that we went to last time we came here), but it was still very fun. It wasn't much of a sanctuary, as the animals (which were only partially koalas, also kangaroos, wombats, birds, etc) mostly had very small cages and were marketed to interact with the humans. This included being able to hold a koala (which I must admit was very fun. It was extremely soft and it felt like it was hugging me) and feed kangaroos (we got free food from people leaving who had bought too much, so we were able to go into the giant "kangaroo reserve" to go torture the poor animals by annoying them with temping food and pictures. That was again very fun, because they were very soft and seemed to appreciate the food most of the time). We had plenty of time until the bus was due, so we ate some grapes we bought earlier and battled with a wild turkey over territory. Once the bus came we got back on and went back home.
That night my mom went to a dinner meeting with W, so I cooked for my dad and C. It was pretty good-- a veggie stir fry with pine nuts and pasta, very different from what we have been eating (which has been very good-- they are very good cooks).

The next day, Thursday, yesterday, our hosts took us to a very fancy Thai restaurant out in the country. The food was very good, and very different from the Thai food in Eugene. It was quite expensive, and again they were so amazingly generous and paid the bill before we even had a chance to offer. C also bought me a cook book from the cooking school attached to the restaurant, which I am very excited to make something from (everything in it is spicy-- mm mm mm mm mm!). That basically took our whole day up, because of the long drive and being at the restuarand for awhile, so by the time we got back it was about 5. My mom and I took a walk down by the stream again, and after that watched and ALIAS. That night was Chinese New Year, and our hosts have a tradition for all of their respective kids, their partners, and a couple friends get together with them at a local small Chinese restuarant for a banquet. They brought us along, which turned out to be very fun. I was stull full from the large lunch, and Chinese food isn't my favorite food in the world, but the atmosphere was fun and it was nice to see all of them together. There were millions of courses-- they just kept bring out more and more food. A lot of it turned out to be very yummy. We were exhausted by the near end of the evening, as was C, so got a ride with her back home.

Today my dad had another full day of meetings, so my mom and I had a similar day to Wednesday. We caught the same bus into the city, the bus driver now recognizing us, but instead of leaving we stayed downtown all day. We bought some more books, got lunch in yet a differnent food court, and walked across the river to the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). They had an exhibit that populated most of the museum called Optimism, which was various peices of art that were made to make the viewer/experiencer happy. It was quite amazing-- some were funny (bizarre videos of a random guy dancing, but hilariously constructed), comforting (a whole room of white, fuzzy, pillow trees), or cute (wonderful sculptures of Vespas crated to look like snails-- one of the cutest things I have ever seen). We stayed there for awhile, but eventually got museumed out and headed back through the main square of the city to catch the bus back home. I was thinking of getting a haircut today, because my hair is getting very long (I can see it above my eyes sometimes-- deffinately time for it to be shorter), but that seemed too hard and we ran out of time. I may to that tomorrow or on Stradbroke (the island we're going to).
Anyways, we got home, and I started writing this post.

I should go now. Homework, food, ALIAS... the most important things in life (well, the latter two at least).

Bye.