Brisbane – Part 1

14/06/2015

It was only a short drive up the Pacific Highway to Brisbane and I stopped at Thomas' house to park my van. Thomas, originally from Waldviertel, did a semester abroad at UQ at the same time as I, 9 years ago.

Back then, there were four Austrians at UQ that I knew of in total: Johannes (St. Wolfgang am Wolfgangsee), a colleague of mine from Management Center Innsbruck, Isolde (University of Vienna), Thomas (University of Vienna) and I. We were in the same circle of friends down here and thus met at several parties.

Catching up with Thomas was great and I can stay at his town house for a few days. Quite interesting to hear his story, he initially went back to Vienna, then to Oxford to finish his studies and then came back to Brisbane and has been here ever since. While being a scientist at work, he is also a gifted musician and singer and enjoys opera and classical music.

I had lunch in Oxford Street with Kylie, the wife of Karsten, who used to be my boss while I was working for Sandvik in China for almost a year, and who mentored me before that time on another project. We had a great conversation and covered a lot of ground. Kylie was diagnosed with cancer last year and told me about the operation, the chemo and radiation therapy. She is almost done with her treatment and is slowly progressing towards better health. I wished her all the best to get back to her former energy levels.

I walked back fro Oxford street to Balmoral, first along the Brisbane river (a lot of great new houses were built there over the last years) and then just walking along residential streets. The climate over here is vastly different to Perth. The subtropical, rather humid conditions make for a very different flora and fauna and the wooden, 'Queenslander' house designs give it their own charm.

Back at Thomas' place, a few friends and neighbors were invited for dinner and we had a great time, lots of laughter, extremely good food and several bottles of wine. A great way to spend an evening.

Distance traveled: 80 km

15/6/2015

I caught up with a friend who arrived in the early morning in Brisbane, after a 14h long party on the plane – why do they put a bar into the A380 for the higher classes? ;-)

Just around the corner from where I'm staying, great deli and decent coffee

The lovely waitress gave me a gingerbread man with my take away coffee :-)

Back where the big spiders are - saw quite a few of them yesterday while walking though the suburbs

Walked down to Oxford street along the river, Balmoral and Bulima are really beautiful suburbs along the river. One of the most scenic ways for public transport is the CityCat, the ferry service that runs along the Brisbane river, from Hamilton down to the University of Queensland. At the Paleo Coffee shop, I had a Bulletproof Coffee, nice and creamy.

The City Cat

After driving around the inner suburbs to explore the area a bit and in the process enjoying the sunny afternoon, I had some junk food pizza at Crust. I guess I'll survived that.

Quiet evening, watching the last episode of season 5 at Thomas' place. What a grim ending to a season.

Distance traveled: 0 km (with the van)