Brisbane, AUS… Again

As previously noted, our last days in Noosa finished quietly and uneventfully, due to both poor weather and poor health. Unfortunately, neither of those things have changed with our change of scenery. We arrived in Brisbane yesterday afternoon after a smooth bus ride back along the Sunshine Highway. We checked back in to Chill Backpackers, with which we had been impressed on our last visit, and immediately appreciated the isolated quiet of our new room. Christina had been feeling especially ill, and I was still feeling rough, so we rested for the remainder of the afternoon. In the evening we returned to our familiar friend, The Beach House, for a bite of dinner. The act du jour was a fellow playing slide-guitar, followed by a couple songs on a very small guitar, and who had also a harmonica – though we didn’t get to see that in action. He was the most talented of the musicians we have seen here so far, and we enjoyed his performance. Christina had pumpkin soup for dinner, and I had a chorizo pizza. Both were excellent. I would say that, with the exception of Common Ground in Katoomba, this has been my favorite dining venue in Australia.

With one exception, our return to Brisbane has not been eventful. We had the very good fortune to be in Brisbane at the same time as Sandeep and his wife Rachael (along with their little one, Maya), who are visiting for her sister’s wedding. Sandeep is a friend and co-worker of Christina’s from iStockPhoto, so hanging out with them was a little slice of home, and a very welcome social diversion. Rachael’s father brought Sandeep out to pick us up for a delicious indian dinner at their home, which is not close to the hostel, so it was very nice for them to take time out of visiting to spend time with us.  If our culinary experiences in India can match tonight’s dinner than we will be lucky indeed! I’m looking forward to it. 🙂

Tomorrow we will take off for Sydney again, for just a couple of days before our departure to Manila. Christina has been doing most of the writing recently, so I’ll say just two words of my own.

As the more astute readers will have already noticed, my sunglasses have recently changed. A tragic moment of negligence on my part resulted in one of the arms on my original shades breaking off, and so they have now been replaced. This would not normally have been notable, except that these sunglasses are from an NZ “dollar store” equivalent, and cost an outstanding $2NZD ($1.75CAD). Even in the roughest markets of Asia a fellow would be hard-pressed to compete with that price. I did a little “bargain hunting”, if such can be said of any shopping in Australia, and found my new pair for $12.95AUD ($13CAD), which isn’t bad, but feels like a markup travesty. Anyway, they still look awesome, so that’s good.

Also notable; I’ve been doing a lot of reading, and would like to recommend something. Those to whom I’ve recommended books in the past (you know who you are) will enjoy Captain Alatriste, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. I have an issue with authors who don’t start out with a plan, and allow their plot to develop “organically” as volumes in a series are published. You can tell who these guys are right away, with their cheap, one-volume plot devices, insoluble continuity errors resolved with phrases starting like “it just so happened that…”, and no investment in environmental depth. Kids stuff. Right out of the gate I could tell that my man Arturo was not one of these. The very first paragraphs are enough to know that he’s composing a narrative through the voice of a character with way more depth than you’re going to get in one book. A boy who remembers fondly the swashbuckling adventures of “The Captain”, whose influence will be formative in stories not even yet in scope, but which stories have already been written in the mind of the author. Read it. I’ve picked up another of his, not related to the Alatriste character (in fact, it’s in another vein entirely – something about drug running in Mexico and Spain, so we’ll see). I’ll let you know how it goes.