Brisbane - the city that simply isn't!

CBD - By the river
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Brisbane was the first major Australian urban space which we had visited since our arrival in Oz nearly a month prior and after weeks of the carefree beach life it felt quite strange being back in a city.  It was odd to look up and be confronted with buildings and strange bumping into people on the street, but I think the weirdest thing of all was that both Em and I were slightly daunted by that at first, it's amazing how quickly you slip into another way of life and the hustle and bustle of Brisbane (and believe you me compared to London Brisbane is nothing) took a little getting used to.  Having said that Brisbane is quite a compact city, the CBD is an eclectic mix of highrise business blocks and comercial shopping areas and you are able to walk all over the city without feeling weary.  This was lucky considering we were staying slightly outside the CBD in an area called Foretitude Valley.  Foretitude is quite a cosmopolitan part of town a bit like a relaxed Hoxton with a couple of cool little coffee shops and one-off clothing boutiques where Em and I could both have spent a fortune (we didn't mind).   Unfortunetly however our hostel Valley Verandas was a dive, incredibly dirty with a tiny kitchen, small toilets and crammed rooms, and the most stupid guy I think I may have ever met in charge, he was a total goon.  A canny one mind - we had paid for a week up-front and as we later found out no deposits were given meaning we had to stay in the shithole for the whole week or lose our cash.  Cheeky blighter.

Main bridge in Brisbane from North to South Bank
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Needless to say we spent the majority of our time out and about investigating Brisbane and I think we were both disapointed with what we found.  We attempted to go to both the major art galleries which were both closed until December, we visited the Museum of Brisbane which housed an exhibition about 'Miss Australia' and described the history of the Australian beauty pagent  where we were informed that 'A woman should be proud to be allowed to enter' and 'It's not a competition about beauty but also personality, deportment, cooking and other female virutes'.  Don't even get me started... We went to the Queensland Museum which seemed to focus on the ephemeria of Australian Life (think vegimite and lemmingtons) and hardly touched on the aboriginal or torres strait islander cultures.  The best bit (or most amusing section) of the museum was an interactive area about Queensland's extinct frogs, there Em was merrily pressing the buttons to find out what different sounds the frogs made and a man says "I'm afraid we don't know what this frog sounded like but we think it was something like this rrhhibbitt rrhhiibbiitt" no joke the guy was making up the sound of a frog croaking and that was the exhibition - a lot of money is clearly spent by the Brisbanites in understanding their cultural history and their natural habitat!

when you try and meet the people you are stalking you never manage to do so but when you stalk them by accident you meet them all the time!

CBD from the south bank
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Despite this we still had a giggle in Brisbane but this has more to do with the people we met rather then the city itself.  At the Valley of Hell we encountered Ronaldo a rather amusing old Italian Romeo who looked like Sean Connery and ozzed charisma and charm.  In his slightly suave and entertaining way when we were discussing the hostel dirt he informed us that 'people were like water, they found the quickest way to the gutter'.  I think he had a soft spot for our Em and over a glass of vino I do believe he flattered her endlessly in a vain attempt to woe her - needless to say he didn't succeed.  One of our roomies here Sabine also reminded me how small this little ole world of ours is as she used to live in Bath and worked as a German Teaching assistant at Sheldon School in Chippenham approximately 3 years ago, so Sy (my little bro) I may have some dirt on one of your teachers - how much is it worth?  We also bumped into Kelly and Mark here again who I think began to get a little scared that we were stalking them.  We weren't honestly.  But we figured randomn meetings in 3 seperate places is too much of a coincidence maybe we need to go get drunk together so we organised to meet in the Pig & Whistle for a beer or three the following evening.  But there is no Pig & Whistle in Brisbane, there is an Elephant & Wheelbarrow and an Elephant & Whistle and a Pig & Wheelbarrow etc etc, yep when you try and meet the people you are stalking you never manage to do so but when you stalk them by accident you meet them all the time!  We finally hooked up and got rather daftly drunk together - I have a vague recollection that we made up the Greyhound Rap at some point in the evening so reckon that is proof enough!

Chief Grasshopper at the Brisbane museum
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All in all Brisbane is not up to much, the rest of Australia refers to it as being a decade behind any other Australian city and I'm afraid I kinda agree.  It's has all  the right ingrediants to be a great place with a mix of new and old, dirty and clean, young and traditional that work elsewhere but just don't sit happily together here.  By the end of the week both Em and I felt as though we were simply treading water and were so ready to get back on that greyhound we were at the checking in desk 3hrs before the bus was ready to go, and so it seemed were all the other passengers!