Cheese Please

Downtown Brisbane

At the end of my three day stint here in Brisbane, I am happy to report that my burn streaks are significantly diminished and almost (but not quite) gone. Very exciting stuff. Overall, Brisbane has been a great place to visit. The hostel here has been a fun place to be (and even decently clean! Yay!) I have met some great people and One of the best features of the hostel is that it has free internet! And you know how much free internet makes me quite happy.

I do have one complaint though: the guy in the bunk below me snore's sound like a dying cat. I deeply regret forgetting to bring earplugs with me. However, I did have my trusty ipod so that the soothing voice of Jon Foreman sang me to sleep. (Although some of the dying cat sounds unfortunately managed to overpower the musician's peaceful tones.)

The Lagoon

But, aside from that I've been able to explore the lovely city of Brisbane; I've been to the museum, art gallery, shopping centers, botanical gardens, riverside and my personal favourite, "the lagoon." The Lagoon is essentially a mini beach in the middle of the city complete with white sand, palm trees and an island. It is pretty awesome- I wish Edmonton had something like that, however I can see why that wouldn't be as effective in a city where it is below 0 degrees for 9 months of the year. What makes all this even better is that it's all free. And you know what I like just as much as free WiFi? Other free stuff!

My Hostel is the orange one way in the background

For my last day in the City I really only had one task that needed to be accomplished. And that was to buy cheese. Seriously, I was given this task to bring cheese to the good people of the SWIM base in the Solomons. And upon learning that there is limited access to cheese in said country I knew that I must bring some for myself as well because life is just not as good without a little cheese in it. I was decently far from my hostel and decided to buy this cheese in the evening as there is a supermarket close by. On almost any other day this would have been a fine idea, however I forgot that I am no longer in North America where things tend to be open later no matter the day. So alas, this day was a Saturday by the time I had returned to my hostel it was past 5 o'clock and all the supermarkets in the city were closed.

I feared that I would fail my quest for cheese. But thankfully I had noticed a number of 7-11 and NightOwl convenience stores in the area and thus headed off to these locations hoping to find some tasty cheese. (And I mean that literally because there is actually a type of cheese here called "tasty." Just a fun fact for you.)

The first store I came upon left me thoroughly disappointed and slightly panicked.  However, my fears were relieved when I entered the trusty NightOwl store. I then proceeded to buy out the store of all it's cheese; which isn't saying whole lot for a convenience store, but still walking up to the till with 7 blocks of cheese is a little strange. In fact, the girl just looked at me and laughed out loud. But I wasn't phased at all because I knew that I was victorious in my pursuit, and that felt pretty good.

A boat. Pretty self explanatory

Now, I've left out another obstacle that stood in my way of completing my cheese mission. That is, by the time I began to head back into the city center hundreds of Aussies dressed in various forms of orange apparel were heading in the opposite direction of me.  The scariest bit though was standing on one side of the street all alone with about 100 people all geared up for a soccer game and all dressed similarly waiting on the other side.  My first thought was How the heck did I get to Holland? And then Is this a flash mob?! I was very excited when I thought this because I love flash mobs and dream of one day being flash mobbed myself.  (if you don't know what a flash mob is, google it, because it isn't what it sounds like. Just so you know.) Funny thing is that just at that moment a bunch of guys in the pub nearby starting to sing and I for a brief moment I seriously thought my dream was coming true. But, sadly it was just a mere coincidence. But hey, I still got my cheese. So it's all good.

I have to note that I am currently writing this as I'm sitting on the "rooftop lookout" of the hostel overlooking the night skyline. It's pretty amazing. One of those "Wow. Life is pretty awesome" moments. Also, since coming up here this is probably the first time in the past 12 hours that my feet aren’t sweaty. So that's pretty awesome too.

Well, tomorrow morning I am off to the Solomon Islands! I really don't have much of an idea of what to expect there, so we shall see what happens! Please pray that I learn lots and grow and can really get to know people while I'm down there. THANKS!

A fantastic dinner; riverside, good book, coffee with ice cream and whipped cream, greasy fries and a juicy burger