Brisbane

Good morning, not a lot of time to post, so I'll make it a quick one. This picture is an obscure reference, but in the movie Rainman, Ray says "Qantas never crashed." So hopefully you get that. Its a stretch I know.

I left for Brisbane on Friday and arrived that evening. I took a train and a bus to Queensland University. My "Up with People" friend from England, Neshat had just arrived in town as well so a friend of hers hosted me there at the college. It was a tight fit in a small dorm room, but it worked.

On Saturday, Neshat, our host and I went to a Koala sanctuary. It was like a zoo. Pretty good time overall. I've never seen Koalas, Kangaroos, wallabees and other Australian wildlife. I took some pictures I will post soon. My impression on Koalas is that they live a pretty good life. They sleep 18 hours a day. On the other hand, Kangaroos look like prisoners, all laying down, not moving much.

We spent the afternoon trying to plan the next 5 days of our trip. We had this great five day plan that took us out to Frasier Island, spending two nights on a boat and eventually flying to Sydney. The problem was that it cost about $1000. And to be honest, Australia was getting expensive to travel around. So we decided not to do that.

Neshat and I went out on the town Saturday night with a guy from Malaysia that our host had asked to take us out. He was kind to show us to the "Valley" where the clubs in Brisbane are. It was really packed. An exciting scene of clubs and bars. I didn't bring the right shoes on my trip, so I wasn't allowed into the bar we wanted to go into. But my new Malaysian friend and Neshat were convinced they could get me in by doing the shoe switch trick. And remarkably they got me in. I had to change shoes with the other guy who was already let in. I wasn't really up for it but they wouldn't take no for an answer.

After a good night on the town, we arrived home around 2am Sunday morning and decided we wanted to get out of Brisbane. Brisbane is a great city, a college town. It is, however, 2 hours from the ocean. So we booked our flight for Sydney (The flight was 9 hours from the time we booked it!) for an amazing price of about $100 USD. I had only been out of Sydney for 7 days, but felt like 10-14. I'm ready to be here for good. The traveling was great, but I'm itching to start doing what I came here to do.

Next post will be a Holidy Post hopefully. So look forward to that.