Checking out Brisbane

View to Brisbane city from South Bank

Hello, Brisbane! Yes, we've made the move up north to Brissie, Brisvegas, Brisneyland, whatever you want to call it (we're still wondering exactly why Brisbane has so many damn nicknames!) and we're settling into life in the city.

It's a pretty nice place, with lots of nice people. It definitely doesn't have that work-work-work attitude of Sydney (so we hear), and it's got a great climate -- hence why we keep meeting ex-Melburnians who moved up here after deciding it was a little cold for them down south.

Yarrrrr, possums!

Sadly, it doesn't have the gorgeousness and grandeur of Sydney and its harbour, and it's minus the cafe culture, the fascinating little alleyways and the old buildings of Melbourne too, but as we explore the city bit by bit, we're finding we like it more all the time. There's heaps of beautiful plants everywhere, for one, thanks to the subtropical climate, and we are both madly in love with the typical Queenslander home: generally a big wooden house on stilts (designed to let the air flow underneath cool the inside) with a huge verandah, and often, really cool stained-glass windows for accent, and feels a bit like it would fit in in the Deep South of the U.S. There's also something of a wild feeling to the city -- nearly every wander our residential neighbourhood has found brush turkeys running around. And they're crazy! (And having poultry running loose in the city will forever make us think of Asia.) And the possums.... which are really cute, but I have a wee bit of hatred for after one devoured my basil plant leaf by leaf on our back patio one evening.

We heart Queenslanders!

But it is nice waking up to the sounds of bird calls (reminds us of our camping days!) while living a ten-minute walk from the Brisbane River, which cuts through the centre of the city. And we do love that there are parks everywhere -- how very... English? So perhaps we just haven't been here long enough, but we're finding it very hard to put our fingers on exactly what Brisbane is all about. It's certainly a weird mix of places we've been, and it's unique in that way for sure. Nothing stands out as overly spectacular, but at the same time, it's all very lovely. While we're still stumped as to what to put on a tourist's must-see list of the city, we do like that we're always stumbling upon pretty buildings and scenic vistas, and for that reason, we'll just keep our eyes open and keep on observing our new home.

The Death of Surfers?

For the past few weeks, I've been doing a bit of work for an organization in Surfers Paradise that works with city council to organize events and marketing for the suburb. It's been one of the most interesting jobs I've had, mostly because what I've learned in this short time about our town is astounding.

Surfers Paradise is a beautiful place on the beach, built on tourism and living perpetually in holiday mode. It's full of restaurants, hotels, shopping, and attractions like mini golf and wax museums, and the weather is pretty great year-round. For decades, it's been the place Aussies would holiday to with their families, it's the place where high school kids celebrate the end of their school years (Schoolies Week) and it's where international backpackers come to party, enroll in English courses, and soak up the sun. People come to have fun here, and then they come back again because it's such a great place to be. This has been going on for years and years, and so construction companies just kept building, and people keep opening more businesses up here. But realistically, this kind of success couldn't really go on forever.

These days Surfers is full of "For Lease" signs on storefronts and "Vacancy" broadcasted from hotel signs. It seems more and more shops are disappearing all the time, and the sidewalks are sometimes empty enough to envision a tumbleweed blowing through. There's even a totally vacant shopping mall on the main street, hidden behind a few shops that are still open (for now at least). We've been noticing this more and more the longer we stay, but what truly hammered in this point was taking on a work assignment where I ended up chatting up local business owners and managers about the state of Surfers.

Contest at Sin City nightclub

No one is entirely sure of the real reason why Surfers has lost so many visitors, but the consensus is, business began getting slower in the last three years or so and is now at an all-time low. And something's gotta give! Is it the global economy keeping international visitors away? Is the high Aussie dollar simply making it a better deal for Australians to holiday in Bali instead? Or has Surfers simply lost its former lustre/sense of fun/wholesomeness? Some say that Surfers has become too much of a party town, gotten a really bad reputation, and now families are staying away or heading to other suburbs on the Gold Coast (well, with a bar strip full of drunken hooligans roaming the street nearly every night, and some nightclubs offering a contest to win a boob job, it's no wonder). Others say that town planners and restaurants are trying to get too fancy/expensive and it's forcing families to eat at KFC when they holiday — we'd have to agree with this argument too, as we've been unable to rationalize spending a small fortune ($20 a plate AT LEAST) on a Thai or an Italian dinner. Some are saying that we need to encourage locals from other suburbs to visit, but the city keeps raising the cost of street parking ($2 an hour now I'm told) in Surfers but not in other suburbs, which is working against promoting local business as well. And it's not just Surfers that is suffering: newspapers are reporting Gold Coast with the highest unemployment rate in Australia (government reports are saying it's around 7%, though some are saying it's probably closer to 13% unemployment — some timing for our arrival!), thanks to both the lull in tourism and the collapse of some of the biggest construction companies/investors.

It's not happy days for Surfers Paradise, but underneath all of that, what I encountered most in longtime locals was a real nostalgia for what the place once was (it was the most exciting place in Australia to spend a week, or simply a laid-back beach town, etc.) and a strong belief that it'll make a comeback, with some careful resuscitation. Some people think some twinkly lights along the streets might liven up the atmosphere. Some say we need a better arts culture (me included) and perhaps some quality entertainment, beyond buskers (ugh)— like a music festival to get people coming back. Agreed! I've actually just signed on to work with the same organization for the next few months (I start my new job this week!), to help run the upcoming Surfers Paradise Festival in June/July and a bunch more events following that, so I'm extra excited now to find out what will happen to this place. And I'm not quite sure when it happened, but I think somewhere along the way, perhaps while I was meeting so many lovely locals, and discovering all the hidden gems of this weird and wonderful place, I think I'm starting to lose a little piece of my heart in this town, too. -D.

How Late is Too Late?

Dead Christmas trees littered the curbside weeks ago. The candy canes disappeared from store shelves even before that. Suddenly it's the end of January and there's that niggling feeling that we should consult our calendar more often, and oh, just maybe, perhaps, TAKE DOWN OUR CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ALREADY!

The traditionalists reading this are probably wondering why we still have Christmas lights up on January 31st. Truthfully, they didn't take all that much effort to put up: there were no 20-foot ladders, feral animals in the eaves, or snow squalls to contend with, or anything like that. It was more like, untangle one strand of lights, get out the clear packing tape, and tape them up around the front window. On the inside. (One point for apartment living!) It's not like it'll be a massive effort to take them down.

But, we wonder, is there really a magic date to take down the Xmas lights?

After taking a very informal poll of opinions of those around us, we've heard some say that the beginning of March should be the very last deadline for Xmas lights still being socially acceptable (as it's pretty gloomy up to then, but spring is definitely on its way after that); others say February's when enough is enough; and there's the school of thought that Boxing Day is when it's all over for the lights. Not surprisingly, there's many opinions online about it too — including a Facebook group titled "Take Your Damn Christmas Lights Down". (The group has 97 fans.)

As people who haven't owned Christmas lights in a long time (OK, we did try to put some up inside our van back in Australia, but they tended to drain the car battery), getting back into these little nuances of northern hemisphere culture is still something we stumble over now and then. And we're a bit torn on the whole issue. Even if the Christmas cookies are eaten and the presents have been opened, it is still nice to come home after work to electric holiday cheer — though maybe it's more about denying that bitter, awful winter that has yet to come. Maybe the same sort of that seasonal denial that kept some of us (not naming any names here!) wearing flip-flops well into October. But after taking a visual poll of our street, we've found that at least four other houses are still proudly lighting their houses for Old St. Nick. So bah humbug that!
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OK, seriously though. How about you take our handy reader's poll and tell us what you really think, so we don't have to go consulting Yahoo! Answers or anything like that. Or Google, for that matter!

A Terrible Discovery

It's kind of fun to live in the dark. This darkness I speak of, is being without television. Over the past few months we've been reading lots of books, getting our news from the internet, watching movies on our computers. Sure, we do have a TV set in the living room — it's huge and old and is hooked up to a DVD player: it's good for watching our small collection of movies, borrowed TV seasons, and DVDs borrowed from the library (Toronto Public Library has all kinds of films, from Hollywood bloodbaths like the new Rambo movie to seasons of Flight of the Conchords.... we love our library!). When the World Series was on in October, we flipped around our few fuzzy channels and found we couldn't get anything more than a very staticky Omni 1 and CBC, and some French channel with crystal clear reception. We didn't waste any more time on it — truthfully, we were sick of TV wasting all of our time over the years.

We always get this look of shock when the fact that we don't have cable television comes up in conversation. There's usually a look of pity, a pause, and a comment like "Well, that's probably a good thing..." or even better, "So what do you do with your time then?" Well, we spent 6 months in Southeast Asia without televisions (OK, occasionally we'd score a room with a TV showing Korean soaps, or surprisingly in Burma, we once had a room with a satellite news station from Australia), and managed to entertain ourselves just fine. Is there really nothing interesting enough happening in Canada worth turning off the telly for?

Or maybe it's just that sedate lifestyle of living in one place, working the same job for a long time, and hanging out with the same people that does it to us. We admit, even in Melbourne, when we got settled with an apartment, steady-ish jobs, and a city we knew well, we turned on the tube and zoned out in front of anything that was on. At that time in Australia, there was no such thing as cable TV, only satellite (expensive FoxTel) or antenna reception — even in the city you'd only pick up about five or six channels on air. We got hooked on some pretty crappy cop dramas, a Australian newscaster we liked to call "Space Granny" (see photo, left), and even watched some Aussie Rules Football. And we realized how in Toronto, we take for granted the many channels available, thanks to having that American entertainment juggernaut not far across the lake and well within reach of an antenna if your apartment's on a high enough floor. But television didn't seem to dominate Australian workplace conversations, either, which was kind of refreshing. Here we've been feeling left out.

Anyway, so on Monday night we realized that even after months of living without TV, we weren't ready to miss another season of 24 (we'd forgotten about the first episode on Sunday). Just for the hell of it, we thought we'd try to plug in a cable splitter and cord into the wall, and see if perhaps Rogers screwed up and had given us cable with our internet connection. Well, we didn't even get that far. Adrian attached a cable to the back of the TV set, a splitter onto that, and suddenly we had our channels clear as anything. We flipped around and found out we somehow get all the major networks, without even plugging into the wall. And happily watched Jack Bauer kick down some doors and yell at bad guys.

And there went our evenings. Suddenly, we know when the Law & Order reruns are on, we can rhyme off the weather forecasts, and we've learned Survivor's coming back soon with the villains and good guys. We even watched the Canadian Dragon's Den, which by the way, has anyone noticed the noise that animated dragon (that shows up before and after commercials) makes sounds less like a dragon and more like a strangled puppy? Last night I even watched Survivorman, a show I despise. Anyway, this whole TV thing is a bittersweet, possibly terrible discovery for us — yup, we're back in the loop, but has it really improved our (or anyone's) quality of life? I guess now we've truly settled back in.

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** Well, you learn something new every day! Apparently our beloved "Space Granny", Lee Lin Chin, has more than a few fans online. Here's A BLOG devoted to her oddball fashion sense; a few of her newscasting get-ups on Flickr (HERE and HERE), and according to Wikipedia, she once starred in an Aussie miniseries with Nicole Kidman. We miss you, Space Granny! Is there a Canadian equivalent??

A Few Resolutions...

Happy New Year! We finished off 2009 with a New Year's Eve full of great fun and reuniting with friends we haven't seen in a while! We hope everyone had a happy end to 2009 too. It's snowy as ever here in Toronto and it's still kind of a novelty. We've even volunteered to shovel snow once or twice...

But alas, to be really cliche and do that thing we're supposed to do every January 1st, it's time for a few resolutions!

1. Write more blogs! (No kidding!)
2. Get back in touch with old friends.
3. Spend more time enjoying the outdoors.
4. Get creative-- time to get out the paintbrushes, crochet hooks, sewing machines, all of that good stuff while we're holed up inside avoiding the cold.
5. Get cultured. Go to more museums, art galleries, and cultural events (we had a great time hanging out at the Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, festival held at Harbourfront Centre this past November. Not exactly like being back in Mexico, but pretty swell anyway). Toronto's got plenty to offer and we're going to get into it!
6. Eat more rice. Not that we're sad to have returned to the land of cheese (yay!), but we sure felt healthier while in Asia, living off rice for at least two of our daily meals.
7. Exercise more-- yup, gotta throw that one on there.
8. Try new things. Bollywood dance, anyone?
9. Fill 2010 with adventure-- wherever and whatever that may be.

And speaking of being creative, here's a little fun we stumbled upon online tonight: Cubeecraft.com is a nifty little site where you can download 'cubist' versions of your favourite characters-- from Domo-kun to Barack Obama, seriously-- to print and fold out of paper. Random fun!

20 Australian-isms we miss (and a few we don't)

The other day, I was flipping through my thesaurus-- not that I flip through my thesaurus as a pastime or anything, that would be nerdy!-- for another word for "grow" and, well, I stumbled upon "grouse". "Growwwwwse!" A little voice in my head chimes, with an Aussie accent. Unfortunately, my thesaurus didn't list the Aussie slang meaning of "grouse", which we only ever heard in Melbourne and was a favourite word of ours while living over there. While "grouse" here in Canada refers to a funny-looking bird, or can mean 'to complain'; in Melbourne, it meant "excellent". Here are some other Aussie-isms we're sad to have left behind (but still secretly use at home):

Heaps: Meaning 'lots', or 'very'. As in, "There were heaps of people at the game." Or "Yeah, it's heaps good."

Bogan: Another one we heard lots (heaps) of times in Melbourne, describing an 'unsophisticated person', sort of the Aussie equivalent to 'trailer trash'. "That style is really bogan."

Top shelf: The best. Like, "Megan is top shelf."

Fair dinkum: This was once defined to us by a teenage girl working at the IGA, home of 'Fair Dinkum Prices' as, "It's like saying, 'bloody oath'." [insert blank looks from grocery-shopping Canadians.] "Or like, 'True', or 'For real'. Uhhh, only old people say this." Maybe that's why it's so much fun to say.

Stickybeak: Nosy person. "My, that Bessie is a stickybeak!"

Good on ya!: A great way to say "Well done!" We still use this one a lot.

Champers: Champagne (though not the true-blue French kind, more like sparkling wine). As in, "I can't wait to have champers at the Melbourne Cup!"

On the piss: Drunk. As in, "I got on the piss last night."

Belly full of piss: Hung over. While we first worked in Port Douglas as housekeepers, we were appalled to learn this was a perfectly good excuse not to come into work on a Saturday. "Where's Amy?" the boss asked. "Oh, she's got a belly full of piss," said Amy's partner-in-crime, Anneliese. "Ahhhh," said the boss. "So hopefully she'll be in tomorrow then?"

Taking the piss: Making fun of someone (or 'ripping on someone'). i.e . 'Andy fell down the stairs on the way into the pub last night, and everyone spent the entire night taking the piss out of him.'

Bottle shop: The place where you buy booze. Also sometimes just called 'the Bottle-O', though this is the name of one of the many bottle shop chains around. It's so confusing to get back to the highly specific--and separate-- Beer Store and LCBO. Not that we ever really grasped the drive-thru bottle shop concept (what's so wrong with just shutting off the car and walking into a shop?).

Furphy: A rumour. As in, "That bloke's telling a furphy!" Here's a funny little bit of history on the furphy.

The Bush: The countryside, or anywhere outside the city. As in, "He had a house in the bush."

Dunny: Outhouse, outdoor toilet. We were privileged to have one of our own for a few weeks-- complete with gargantuan spiders inside-- while living "in the bush".

Bunyip: 'Mythical bush spirit' is how our Lonely Planet defines it. We were always hoping to meet one.

Flat out: Very busy or fast. To quote one of our managers at the bank: "I was flat out like a lizard drinking!" Hint: It has absolutely nothing to do with lizards being kind of low to the ground.

Hoon: A hooligan, a punk; or more specifically, someone who makes a sport out of street racing. I was tickled pink whenever one of my news stories received a headline like "Local hoons out in full force Saturday night" when writing for the Port Douglas newspaper. Also can be used as a verb to describe cruising in a vehicle: "I'm bored. Let's go for a hoon." Street racing is actually getting to be a huge problem in Oz, and governments are implementing 'Anti-hoon legislation' as we speak. Too bad the word is so much fun!

Ute: A vehicle that's half pick-up truck, half car. Short for 'utility vehicle', the ute is everywhere in rural Australia (including in the hands of hoons), unfortunately minus the kitsch factor its American cousin, the El Camino, has.

Knackered: Tired. As in, "What a long list. I sure am knackered from writing this blog."

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And then there's a few words we don't miss:

Bundy: Short for Bundaberg rum, a specialty of Bundaberg, Queensland. Its polar bear logo (come on, polar bears? In Australia?) was everywhere in Oz, including on numerous men who felt the need to wear Bundy gear from head to toe, and on bumper stickers. As in, "Get me a Bundy and Coke!"

Vego: Short for vegetarian. Even more annoying is "vegie" for vegetable (where did the other "g" go?)

Tomato sauce: What the Aussies call ketchup. Talk about a confusing first grocery store experience!

Rubbish bin, or 'bin': We call it a garbage can. It made for plenty of hilariously confusing "Who's on first?" kind of moments in the offices we worked in when we would ask if we should just file this or that document into one of plastic bins on someone's desk. "Trays, these are trays!" we would get. ¡Ay ay ay!

Thongs: The Kiwis (New Zealanders) call them 'jandals'; us North Americans call them flip-flops. No matter how long we had stayed in Oz, we could never, ever get used to calling our poor shoes by this name!

If you're craving a bit more Aussie, be sure to watch Australia (the movie with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman). We just watched it again for nostalgia's sake-- the first time we watched it was in an open-air cinema in tropical Broome, WA, right near where the movie took place-- and it was just as awesome as our first viewing, though without any planes flying overhead or geckoes on the screen this time around. -D.

Back to Weirdness

So it's been nearly a week since our English jet popped us back into what is now our bizarro world: Canada. And holy crap, is it ever hard to describe the feeling. It's been great to catch up with our families after so long-- my parents were surprised that I "haven't changed a bit" and I have to say I was a bit surprised to find everyone the same as how I left them (aside from my mother's nose stud!). But why should we be surprised at this? August was a month of reunions and they were all great-- it was just like picking up where we'd left off, like we'd seen Andrew, Krissy, Juan, and Laura a week or two ago, not years ago! Definitely a great feeling.

Aside from the people being pretty much same same (that's quasi-Thai, folks), I have to say many other things are the same as how we left them. Radio stations are still playing the same crappy songs they were repeating to death 3 years ago (have we not had enough Verve or Coldplay or Tragically Hip yet??); there's still nothing on TV at noon, or any other time of day really; lineups at the OHIP office still as long as ever... the usual. I was surprised to learn yesterday that yes indeed, I do still remember how to drive, and after years of living on the left-hand side of the road, trying to learn manual transmission, switching to an automatic car on the right lane feels natural all over again. I'm still reaching for the turn signal on the wrong side of the steering column though!

Maybe all this sameness is making our trip memories feel like it was just a movie we watched last week. It's amazing how quickly memories flit away. I always love the first few days in a new country, when everyone's accent sounds a bit funny (try going into a Timmy's after speaking 'Australian' for a couple of years) and the architecture is still new to me. I wasn't planning to readjust so quickly-- in fact, I was planning to be weepy and culture shocked for ages-- but I think it just kind of happened. Perhaps Britain was an excellent buffer to help transition between Asia and North America. Or maybe in the back of my head, I'm telling myself it's just another leg of the trip: my brain's way of dealing with the return.

It's also weird for us to be apart after more than two and a half years of hanging out every day-- now with all the catching up with families, there's some distance between Adrian and I. But we're in agreement that while things here might be the same, we're a little different inside. Like when I arrived to my old bedroom, and was astounded at how many clothes I have. (Who needs this much stuff?? Good god!) The average food portions in restaurants are way too much for us-- six months of eating teeny portions of rice for each meal has changed our stomachs, it seems. Neither of us has any desire to watch television: perhaps after having so much real-life entertainment for so long, a moving picture on a screen is hardly fulfilling. Some of these changes aren't a bad thing to hold onto, really-- but I guess after a long trip like ours we're bound to come back a wee bit altered.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and we'll keep you posted on what's happening. That travel bug doesn't just cure itself after all! To look at things on the bright side, at least now we have time for some much-needed reflection on our many experiences-- something we never really had time for while constantly on the go. We'll be sure to share often! Keep in touch.
xoxox, D.

Throwing a Sickie... well, sort of

Though I've been itching to chuck a sickie for ages (that's Aussie for taking a sick day off work when you're actually fine) but today I was unlucky enough to catch the flu bug that's been plaguing the office lately. On a Friday of all days! Eventually I had enough of the room moving around while I was completely stationary at my desk, and went home to get some rest.

That didn't work so well... I had a bit of a nap in but was woken up by (a) thoughtful phone calls (b) a thunderstorm complete with really loud hail and (c) nightmares about Huntsman spiders [btw: thanks everyone for your comments on the last blog... again our hallway friend has made himself scarce, so no need for the spider-killer spray. But here's a great Oz tourism video to watch, thanks to Sean.] So, forget sleep, I made some soup and got on the internet-- and found some interesting things...

Last week I found a great book on travel writing (something I'd love to do more of professionally) and it's gotten me pondering alternative forms of travel. Many of us think immediately of "holiday" when it comes to travel... whether it's a relaxation trip, week on the beach, or a sightseeing trip. Some of us have experienced the "working holiday", a totally different way of getting to know a new place. It's certainly worked for us! One thing that we haven't tried yet is volunteer travel-- which we would do in a second if it weren't for the enormous membership costs of many organizations and/or big time commitments (weeks/months). If anyone knows of any good links, do let us know!

While checking out the travel writing author's website, I was reminded of WWOOFing (short for Willing Workers on Organic Farms), where you get to stay & eat at people's houses/farms for free in exchange for a few hours of work each day. We've looked into ranch experience/farmstays here (to satisfy someone's cowboy urges) and they're all pretty pricey, but perhaps WWOOFing is something we might try to fit into our big Aussie road trip. Anyway, I wouldn't mind frolicking with sheep for a day! After a bit more searching, I found myself on WWOOFing sites for Italy, Hawaii, and Mexico... where I found my most favourite sample listing:

"I am interested in establishing raised beds for an organic vegetable and flower garden. I cannot be there from April until October and would like to find someone with gardening experience who would make a six month commitment to this project. The house is small and brand new, with lovely curves, sleeping alcove in one large room, kitchenette and composting toilet. Rent is normally $330 per month, but I would only ask for $150 and work trade. It is a wooded property, located in a friendly rancho outside of San Miguel Allende in the high desert country. I bought it 8 years ago, and it has taken me this long to pay off the original loans and raise a small but magical house. There is a well with good water. Property is about 1/3 acre. Have access to irrigation water from artesian spring that abutts property. Now I really want to put in a garden, but I have to go home to work for six months. Looking for the person who can love this spot of earth as much as I do. Rainy season will begin around May or June. Now the country is blossoming sweet perfumed yellow mesquite and guisache."

Anyway, enough dreaming for now. My travel writing author likes to suggest eating meals and staying with local families as one of the best ways to really absorb a foreign culture. Now this is something that weirds me out personally (not to mention the awkwardness of having to get out of eating meat dishes politely!) but I was surprised to learn that there are not-for-profit organizations out there (probably heaps of them too) that organize homestays-- such as Servas, and IMEC (where you pay $3-$7 per night to stay with a family in Kathmandu and the money goes directly to the family). Interesting concept, even just to think about.

And on another note... while browsing the Canadian WWOOFing website I found a really good reason to visit the UK in summertime-- check out this website!
Thanks for reading :) Back to bed for me now. - D.