Already things are starting to blur. It's shame I was too tired the first few days to write everything down (or type it). Okay, let's see...I think I left off at the point in the story where I was determined to find a Farmer's Market. Rumor was there was one at the Queen Street Mall. I don't even know how to describe the place other than to say once I go down the escalator into the pit of it, I have a difficult time finding my way out. So does Benji but that's a story for another day. There are outdoor restaurants down the middle of the walkway....apparently all owned by the same person/company but all with different names. I insisted that we sit in the sun because I was cold. So much for the idea that I wouldn't need anything with sleeves in Brisbane. Good thing I'm stubborn and didn't listen to that piece of advice. Let me repeat this one last time. I GET COLD when other people DON'T. Am I clear? Okay, good. Sitting in the sun, wearing shorts and my chaco sandals felt lovely. I ordered an "Australian Breakfast" which included eggs, tomato, bacon, choice of juice and toast. The bacon was not what I expected...it was much thicker than American bacon (called "streaky bacon" here) but it's one of my new favorite things. Like breakfast ham but better. My tea was loose leaf. The eggs were dreadful for no particular reason but the tomato made up for it. Coming from springtime in the US to fall in Australia does have it's advantages and ripe tomatoes tops the list. The waitress said, "No worries". I didn't let on that I thought that was cute. I think my breakfast was around $12. After breakfast we quickly realized that the Farmer's Market did not exist (I've since found out that it's on Wednesdays). We stopped by the tourist information center for brochures. Now we have enough reading material for last us for weeks. Rumor had it that there was a Farmer's Market at South Bank so we made our way to the river to catch the ferry (CityCat), not realizing there was a nice footbridge that would have taken us to South Bank.


South Bank was gorgeous. I so wish we could afford to live there. Beautifully landscaped pathways, a paved path along the river...everything just perfect. They have an artificial beach, several swimming areas, water play features and fountains galore. Benji even jumped in for a quick swim. I went to sit on a nearby bench to wait for Ben to come back from getting a cup of coffee. Benji yells from the water, "Mom, you've got to bring your trunks next time. The water is great.". I grinned and replied, "Well, how about I bring my swimsuit instead? I think that would be more appropriate". The man sitting on the bench beside us said, "Oh, I don't mind if you go in naked." I was completely speechless. Kelsey looked at me. I looked at her. And we both just cracked up. I'd like to state for the record that this man appeared to have all his teeth which is the complete opposite of the typet that usually tries to flirt with me back in the States. As for the Farmer's Market. No luck. There was a market but it was all art, jewelry, clothing, etc. Nice in it's own way but I wanted food. By this time, Mike (Ben's co-worker) had called and we had agreed to meet them back at our hotel for lunch and to be taken to the grocery store.


By this point, jetlag was really kicking in and I was wondering how long it would be until bedtime. Again, I just felt so disoriented and unable to think. Mike, his wife Misty and their girls were all very nice. We went to a place down in New Farm for lunch. I ordered iced tea and ended up with a bottle of Lipton. (Savages.) Apparently you can't get a brewed iced tea here. I even checked a Starbucks. But, they do have something called a "flat white" which is yummy. I'm sure if I knew how it was made, I could get it in the states but the way coffee drinks are made is a mystery to me. I'll figure out later...I'm still too tired. Anyway, the food servings were much too small for the price. Kelsey's salmon salad was $23 and looked more like a side salad. But, all tasted fine. Ben, Benji, Mike and his girls went to New Farm Park (huge!) while Misty, Kelsey and I came back here to go to the grocery store. Thank God she drove. There are NO yellow lines on the road. Seriously, I don't know how they know they are in the right lane. Getting a place to live near public transportation was suddenly of supreme importance!!!!


The grocery store...thank goodness there were two people there to help me. Grocery stores are a challenge even when I'm in the best state of mind so trying to plan and grocery shop while jetlagged in a foreign country....I needed a babysitter! The carts are all wheel drive. No way to push it along with just one hand while you grab something off of a shelf. Oh no, you gotta be driving that baby every second. Going around corners, it would whip around and I'd find myself doing a little jog to catch up. Embarrassing. If I saw a familiar brand, I grabbed it (Newman's Own, Kraft, those cute little cheese wedges I love so much ....Laughing Cow) and if it wasn't familiar I took Misty's advice. Afterwards, we hopped over to the fruit market (I guess they had veggies too but you know me...fruit makes me happy). I didn't care how much I spent there, I grabbed everything I could possibly eat before it went bad. Strawberries (mediocre), pineapple (obviously dropped straigh from God's hands....it tasted like candy), watermelon (ick) and bananas (yum). Overall, I spent about $250 for 3 to 4 days worth of food. But, we are in beautiful Brisbane. One does have to expect some trade-offs, right?


Bedtime that night was 8pm and I had to struggle to stay awake that long. I slept through until 5am. Again, enjoyed the beautiful sunrise looking out over the river (and some Australian bacon, thank you very much). Plans for Sunday included finding cell phones so the kids could go out on their own and still be in contact with us and exploring West End. Queen Street Mall seemed as good a place as any to start looking for a cell phone since there seems to be a place selling mobiles (prounounced differently here....moe Bile...like bile from your liver) every 3 or 4 shops. The fellow who we spoke to at Allphone was, ironically enough, named Ben. He was quite the character. As he chatted with us, he launched into an example of what type of accent we might hear if we venture out into the "bush". I'd tell you what he actually said if I'd understood even one bit of it. I guess I'd better stay in the city. He also said "no worries" at one point and any number of other things I've only ever heard in movies. Three pre-paid mobiles later and off we went to West End.

Tons of cafes....vegetarian restaurants, alternative medicine, bookstores...tons of bills posted about concerts, lectures, etc. Used the filthiest toilet I've seen in quite some time because I didn't have any other choice. By 2pm, I was pretty sure it was midnight. I just didn't understand why the sun was still shining. Back to the hotel for one grouchy evening. The only person in a good mood was Benji. Everyone else was struggling just to stay awake. Bedtime by 8:30 in hopes of sleeping later the next day....up at 5am on Monday.


Not much to tell about Monday. Benji, again, the only person seemingly unaffected by the strangeness of it all. He hopped out of bed bright and early...insisted on going downtown to the Bunker by himself and headed out the door. Kelsey was going to go downtown with me and then, after lunch, planned to head over the modern art museum in South Bank. By this point, a mild form of culture shock was setting in for the rest of us. The vacation was over. Ben had to go to work. I had to make my way down to Queen Street to meet him at the bank to confirm our identities in person so we could access our money. The time had come to start looking for a place to live in a city that I don't know with public transport that I don't understand. Which areas are best? Which areas can we afford? Which areas are near public transport? Which areas are not a huge ass walk up some big ass hill? Trying to figure anything out without the internet is difficult. I'm used to just hopping online to get directions, to find out if something is open, and to find out admission costs. Free wi-fi at restaurants is virtually non-existent here, the exception being McDonalds but even there it's not even worth accessing. There's an internet cafe in New Farm but you can only be online for 30 minutes. The other few places we are aware of charge by the hour.


Which leads me to real estate. Oh my gosh. I've just never imagined a system to bizarre. The realtors don't work together. You literally have to go to realestate.com.au to see if there's anything you're interested in....then contact that individual realtor to see (a) it's still available (b) where it's located and (c) when there will be a showing. That showing might be a week or a month away. And it's for about 20 minutes if you're lucky. Everyone who wants to see it shows up at the same time and you all look at it at the same time. Walking into a realtors office seems to be a waste of time. They just look at you as if they are in shock that you thought they might have some information. I suppose it's hilarious in it's own way.


Anyway, I digress. I won't go into the gory details of spending the day at the McDonalds food court because we neglected to make an appt. at the bank. Benji kept me company once I found him. He'd gone underground at the mall and couldn't find an exit. I'm wondering if those little blue signs showing a running "man" mean that an exit is the way the arrow on it is pointing. Hmm. I guess I'll have to ask. Someone was kind enough to put my "rubbish" in the "bin" for me. And I spent some time talking to a nice women who was giving me information on the various suburbs in the area while I waited for the &*(^%$#@! webpages to load so I could even see what was available on the market.


After finally giving up on the internet connection, I wandered out into the sun and checked out a natural skin care store. A nice lady washed my hand with some yummy concoction that I immediately purchased. I'm a sucker for customer service.


Once all our downtown business was completed, we hopped on the bus to head home. Again, Benji is the only one in a good mood. Everyone else is just struggling to hold it together. More than anything, it was the lack of access to the internet that was the problem. Everything just seemed that much harder because we couldn't get the information we needed. How were we supposed to find a place to live if the realtors don't help and you can't look at the listings?
Soooo, we stopped by the front desk to try to solve the problem. Lo and behold. Internet is available at the hotel....to the tune of $20 per week plus whatever Telstra charges for your uploads and downloads. Yes, that's right, you get charged for every single little bit of what you do online. So far, I've spent about 3 hours looking at houses and that cost me about $10. So, if I don't even get on the internet again this week, we will have spent $30. But, I did find some properties that look a little bit promising. I'll be going to look at one this afternoon in New Farm.


Bedtime Monday night was about 9pm though it was a struggle. I was awake at 6am. Benji was off to the Bunker again this morning. I'm sure he's spent all of his allowance now so he'll have to find some other way to amuse himself tomorrow. I did a bit of laundry in the teeny tiny washer (the dryer vents into the room and that apparently is standard for the area) and went for a walk with Kelsey. We found two used clothing stores though she didn't buy anything today. It's good to know they are there because when we went into Target yesterday, the least expensive pair of shorts we saw were $27 on clearance. OMG, I forgot to say...Payless Shoes has a store here. Don't be fooled though. The least expensive pair of shoes I saw there was about $59 and, damn, were they ugly. Anyway, we wandered down to the library in New Farm today. Small and charming. I can't wait to get a library card. No hurry though because I still can't really concentrate long enough to finish much of anything. A quick stop to get some groceries and we were back on the bus to the hotel. The kids are off on an exploring adventure. They wanted to go check out the Borders and then Benji wants to show Kelsey the park in New Farm. It's starting to look like it might rain this afternoon and I'd really like to take a nap. But, I'm going to try to stay awake. I don't want to miss any of the daylight!


Oh, and we ordered take-out pizza last night. I thought Ben was going to destroy the phone. Apparently it was quite the ordeal and included a recorded message, needing to know our postal code and who knows what else. He did finally manage to order two large pizzas. If we hadn't been so tired we would have quite the giggle when they arrived. You know the frozen pizzas you buy at the grocery store? (DiGiorno or Tony's or whatever?) Well, these weren't even that big. Good thing we ordered two!


I'm hoping to get to the Botanical Gardens soon and working on finding us a home. Benji is making plans to go kayaking as soon as any other member of his family is alert enough to go along. Kelsey is wondering how we are going to meet people and Ben is just working on getting our lives organized. All in all, the last few days have been an adventure. A mostly amusing adventure. We are looking forward to getting settled. Brisbane seems to be a laid back town...full of things to do and with stunningly beautiful weather (at least for the moment...and really, the moment is all we can ask for, right?). We feel certain that we're going to be very happy here.