More Wandering around Brisbane

Friday morning Jo and Andrew had to both go into the office. I made the mistake of not researching things to do in Brisbane. Call it system overload on trip planning, as I also did not make any plans for when I went to Sydney in a few days. 

With no plans, we moved rather slowly. This paid off when at 10:45 AM the doorbell rang and we found the mailman out front holding a box for me! Yes, my glasses finally caught up with me! Not the ones I lost in New Zealand, but the spare pair Bart mailed to me in case the other pair were not found.

Lazy morning for the win!

We did some laundry and played with their pup. A delightful day after going non-stop for two and a half weeks.

We walked to the train station. The night before Jo explained that rather than buying a ticket at the train station it is actually cheaper to activate the Tap and Go system by tapping your credit card on a machine at the start of your trip, and again at the end of the trip. Afterwards not fully believing that something easier was actually cheaper, Don compared our ticket from Brisbane to Lota with the next day's ticket from Lota to Brisbane and it was, indeed, cheaper. As in about half as much less expensive. Even factoring in it being more expensive during rush hour, it still seemed like a bargain.

So close!

My first wish for the day was to take our picture by the BRISBANE sign in the South Bank section of town. After trying to get all of the letters us in one picture without too many people looking as if they were posing, too, someone took pity on us and took our picture. They probably just did it so we would get out of their selfie since as soon as we were done, he posed for a selfie (he refused our offer to take the picture for him).

As I've noted in other cities, state museums are free! We walked into the Natural History Museum with the triceratops in front of it, only to leave within moments when we realized just how crowded the place was due to school holidays. Since the museum was free, we weren't upset.

Instead, we walked next door to the Art Museum and learned in just two minutes there would be a free guided tour of the museum's highlights. The group consisted of two other families with teens, preteens, and us. The ten to 16-year-olds seems to struggle with settling down and listening to the docent. This wasn't her first tour -- once she handed a sketch pad and pencils to them, they all settled down and started to draw. We later noticed adults using the same tools. They are available to everyone. What a genius idea! Being surrounded by art can be inspirational. This kit grants the opportunity to act on those feelings.

Our tour guide talked about the architecture of the building. How the ground floor was designed to be open in case of flooding, and includes a giant pool where water can collect. It hasn't flooded (yet), but it does present a logistical challenge with keeping the humidity levels just right for the art.

The museum has some familiar artwork in the non-Australia room: a Picasso,two Degas (a painting and a sculpture), and others. Most of the rest of the museum was dedicated to Australian artists. Artist Daphne Mayo was in both the Australian and non-Australian sections. She is an Australian artist who in 1919 studied in London, which influenced her art. Her claim to fame was being selected to create the tympanum on Brisbane's City Hall from 1927-1930.

I fell in love with the painting "Under the Jacaranda Tree" by R. Godfrey Rivers. The painting looks like how I would describe my perfect day -- relaxing in the shade of the purple-flowered tree on a warm Spring day. As it was Spring in September, the tree was in bloom and a docent laid flowers from one under the painting. As we continued to walk around Brisbane, we saw more trees in bloom. The students call the jacaranda tree the "purple panic" because when the tree is in bloom, they know their exams are near. I was under the impression the trees were blooming earlier this year, which I took as a gift to enjoy. Though we bought very few souvenirs on this trip, I did buy a postcard of this painting to keep on my desk at home as a reminder of Spring, of our trip, of the magical feeling I had that moment.

The museum also had a collection of indigenous masks.

The guide was easily distracted. In the end, we only saw a small portion of the museum before deciding to move onto something else. We popped into the State Library. It was not nearly as impressive as the one in Melbourne.

We plugged Andrew's office into Google Maps and went sightseeing along the way. Getting hungry we bought sandwiches from Woolworth's, or as the Aussie's say "we got toasties from the Woolies." I should have made it more authentic and added "in the arvo," which means in the afternoon. Australians like to use as few syllables as possible to convey their thoughts.

We passed through the Farmers Market in front of City Hall, which meant looking up at Daphne Mayo's art, the same one our tour guide told us about, and buying a chocolate cannoli from a local vendor because we could.

Andrew gave us the grand tour of his office, and offered to drive us back to his house after work. While we waited we walked down to Felons under the bridge at the wharf, took the elevator up to walk walk across the Story Bridge. I later learned Story Bridge is one of four bridges you can pay to go to the top of. The famous Sydney Bridge is one of the others. I'm not sure where the other two are located, but on a later flight someone told me about the cult of people who have done all four bridges. To think, I could have crossed half of the list off on one trip, but I didn't. (Note: Story Bridge can be done for $99 AUS, the one in Sydney is around $300 AUS.)

After some confusion over which of the four corners at the intersection where we meeting, we caught up with Andrew and he drove us to his home. I was reminded of a similar time I was in Montreal trying to catch up with mutual friend Johanna and I didn't have a cell phone that worked in Canada. Once again I was grateful we switched to a plan that includes over 250 countries for no additional fee.

Driving to his house involves going past this sign. Though we have lots of beware of deer signs in the Northeastern part of the United States, the koala crossing sign was a first for me.

Andrew made us chicken risotto for dinner -- our first home cooked meal of the entire trip. It was delicious. He then introduced us to Australian Rules Football by explaining the Melbourne Magpies vs. GSW Giants game. My takeaway is it is very similar to rugby except they pass the ball forward. It is not at all like American football or soccer. He showed us the one American on the team. Though we don't play the sport in the US, scouts go to basketball games to recruit players. Once he said that, I could see the similarities to basketball. The court is oval-shaped. There are 18 players on the field, 22 overall on a team. All passes are made forward as if they are playing a game of hot potato. A goal is worth six points, trying gets you a point if you fail. It is fast and chaotic. Barring no injuries, the players keep on playing. The next night Brisbane was playing their semi-final match.

We had local candy: carmello koalas by Cadbury for dessert. They tasted like a Twix bar without the cookie center. 

Andrew introduced us to the birds in his backyard. There are magpies, kookaburras, and lorikeets who visit looking for cheese, bacon, and whatever treats Andrew puts out for them. As we drove to their house we pass signs telling us to keep an eye out for koala bears (we did not see any). Wallabies roam free. There are toads who appear. And every night around 7 pm bats fill the sky for their daily return to wherever it is they spend the night (they fly in reverse in the early morning to wherever they spend their days). I know at home we have deer, foxes, cardinals, blue jays, and other wildlife, but their feels more magical.

It is a wonderful neighborhood. Quiet, with friendly neighbors, yet easily accessible to the city. A perfect combination.