Brisbane & Beyond!

So I know this is a little bit after the fact, but I wanted to write a little review of Brisbane all its own just because I had such a great time there!

I arrived on a Saturday afternoon after my long, 28 hour hitch from Cairns, and was warmly welcomed by my friend Boo (who I had met in Sydney and hung out w/ a few times) & his housemates at the fabulous Brereton Street house. We had dinner and caught up until it was time to go to an engagement party for a friend of theirs who I had never met, which was being held at the house of my friends Anna and Holly. The party was totally fun, and I was surprised to run into several more people I have met through the years- two of whom remembered me from a squat we stayed at in Barcelona 3 years ago! I hit it off with a few people and had a generally good time just chatting away, catching up and getting to know new people until I was too tired to talk anymore. I walked back to the house and crashed out on the futon in the living room, too exhausted to even get up and move when other beds were evacuated and offered to me early the next morning. It felt really good to get a solid night's sleep after several restless nights in hostels and the back of a truck!

The next few days I went exploring the city with Boo and/ or his housemate Tonia, which included eating fake chicken at the veggie Chinese restaurant, going up to the top of Mt. Koot-tha to overlook the city, playing lots of dice games and cooking and eating lots of yummy food, at both the Brereton St. kitchen or the local vegan restaurant down the road (The Forest- has really good cherry vanilla cake & tempeh sandwiches)!

On Tuesday I moved into Anna's room at the Jane St house, where the party was happening the night of my arrival. Anna had to go to Townsville for a feminist conference for work, so she kindly offered me the use of her room while she was gone. It was nice to have a little refuge of my own, and I managed to read 3 books (Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende, Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of NIMH- an old favorite from my childhood, and a really beautiful graphic novel called The Arrival by Shawn Tan, who apparently has written/ illustrated several other really awesome books). I miss reading so much sometimes- I know I am on vacation when I have the time to read!!! Incidentally, I also went on the read Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, which was excellent. But back to the story.

On Wednesday night I went to the house of Carmel and Kylie, the girls I knew from Barcelona, for a late dinner, which was really fun. They are both really friendly and funny so I felt pretty comfortable right away, which I oftentimes have a really hard time doing with people I don't know super well.

Yeah, so Brisbane- what else happened? Oh, well, on Friday the 21st the Brereton St kids put on a little Cabaret night and it was sooo cute and fun! They even let me MC (well, actually no one else wanted to or was able to do it, so I stepped in), which was totally fun cause we all know I like to be loud and in front of an audience. I got to wear the infamous "butch dress", so named because of its ability to make even the butchest of people look lovely and femme, just by slipping it on! Boo and Marnina did a really awesome sailor-themed acrobatic striptease thing, and Holly and Shannon and a couple of their friends did a really cute dance performance with a cowboy flavor to it. Later on there was arm-wrestling, dice, and even some spin-the-bottle going on, so I think everyone had a pretty good time! When I get my camera back and eventually get on a computer, I will put up a few photos of the night and Brissie in general.

Anyway, so that went on late into the night. We were all gonna go to the Markets the next morning, but at 10 am I was the only 0ne even remotely awake, due only in part to the fact that I had been told in no uncertain terms that the vegan sausage roll stand would be out of them by 11 at the latest. Alas, after finally rousing Tonia and hassling her into getting dressed and running down there, the warning turned out to be accurate and so we had to share their final "Dagwood Dog" (kind of like a corndog but the batter was just wheat flour not corn) and a samosa, which must have totally met my grease intake quotient for the month; kind of a nasty way to start the morning, but what can you do?

The market itself was really nice, though, and really crowded. There was a good amount of organic produce as well as all the usual hippie vendors selling mystical rocks, raw food treats, Tibetan dresses and homemade candles. There was plenty of non-hippie stuff too, but nothing too noteworthy. I was eyeing up some sexy cutting boards but I restrained myself, all too aware of my propensity for picking up crap I can't take back with me...

My last day in town was Sunday, and in the morning I finished working on the little project that Tonia and I had started...I decided to bury some treasure, to be located and dug up by the next person I know who goes to Brisbane (so if you're going to Brisbane, let me know and I'll give you the map!!!). It took me hours and hours, but I was pretty pleased with the result, and Tonia and I found a really great spot to bury it in. So that was the first place we went, en route to meeting Holly and a few other folks at the Korean bathhouse for an afternoon of hot tub relaxation! It was really nice there, though once we arrived and watched how the Korean ladies were really going all out with their loofahs, creams, oils etc, we regretted not having brought masks and exfoliating products of our own! I guess it's like, if you're gonna pay $15 to use the place you may as well make the most of it. But now we know... every day's a school day, I always say...

After the baths I went with Tonia, Holly and Holly's girlfriend Shannon to eat at a Tibetan restaurant. I was really excited because the food all looked and smelled really good, but when mine came out I was shocked and sad to see that it was made up of 50% TVP chunks, which were really not very good at all. I guess I should have said something, since nowhere on the menu did it mention this, and I didn't really enjoy my meal, but by that time I felt like I'd already had a bit of drama just trying to explain the vegan thing to the waitress that I didn't want to deal with it again. We made up for it by going back to The Forest and sharing a slice of really delicious chai cake, and then eventually back to Brereton St where the house was also saying goodbye to Boo, who was due to fly out the next to Melbourne en route to America for queeruption. All in all, it was a wonderful time and I'm really glad I got to go!

So with that I will leave you, until I can post my further adventures...

xoxo, P.