Surfers Paradise and Byron Bay

Although I haven't traveled to many tropical destinations in my life, I couldn't have imagined that there are many places that are more amazing than Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast in Queensland. That was until we took a day trip South to Byron Bay in New South Wales. The picture to the left is an unedited photo of one of the beaches in Byron Bay. The water is as blue as any I have seen. The day itself couldn't have been better. We (Caryl, Loc-Uyen, and myself) decided that while we were already in Surfers Paradise for a long weekend we should take a ride one day to visit Byron Bay which is another 90 minutes South heading towards Sydney. Byron Bay is to Surfers Paradise what Provincetown is to Hyannis. Although both places are tourist destinations and beautiful in their own right, Byron Bay is relaxed, laid back and almost untouched. What other town do you know of that people tell you to 'follow your nose to find Byron Bay' referring to the overwhelming smell one would find of marijuana being smoked by the locals who live life by surfing, relaxing, and taking part in some of natures natural stimulants! Although there was no smell of pot in or around Byron Bay the overwhelming sense that we had ventured into a Greatful Dead community was all around us. In every shop you went you could buy something with a VW Bug or Van on it. Each shop was run by laid back shop owners who you felt you may be bothering by asking for their assistance. There was a sign on the walkway up to this lighthouse that said Byron Bay is one of the few places in the world where you can sit in a rain forest and look out over the Pacific Ocean (or any ocean) and listen to the breaths of humpback whales. We didn't go to the rain forest but we did see a humpback whale in the distance breaching from the lookout point at this lighthouse.

Prior to heading down to Byron Bay we spent a day and a half at 'Dorchester on the Beach' which is a 19 story apartment building directly on the ocean. After driving for 1.5 hours and then getting lost for 20 minutes within a half mile of our destination we were blown away by the condo we had lucked out in renting. The condo was one of those places where you could only smile from ear to ear upon entering. It was at least 2000 sq feet, had all white marble tile floors, sliding glass doors from wall to wall, 3 big bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a balcony that overlooked another turquoise blue ocean that went on for what seemed miles! When looking at my pictures I realized that I was so impressed with the view from our condo I never took any pictures of it! I did take plenty of pictures from our balcony.

Surfers Paradise and the Gold Coast in general is similar to Miami Beach. There are dozens and dozens of high rise apartment buildings as far as the eye can see. One of the buildings is billed as the tallest all residential building in the world! The nightlife is second to none and every day and night of the year is a celebration in beach living! We ate at some good restaurants and enjoyed the nightlife also. At one of the restaurants we ate at the waiter recognized our accent only to find out that his wife, who was also working there, is from Dorchester originally! They had been married recently and were traveling the world working until they saved up enough money to take 3 months off to travel the country they were in. Nice way to live!

On my last day at Surfers Paradise I got up at 5:00 am to board a BK Fishing charter at 6:00. Although I gave it my best shot the only thing I caught was a red snapper that came in about 2 inches short of a legal keeper. It was a great half day of fishing even with out much action. The other people in the boat had better luck but overall it was quite. One thing that I was excited about that Australian locals are used to was a bottle nose dolphin that hung out about 10 -20 feet from the boat all morning waiting for us to throw over our half eaten bait fish. I was afraid the dolphin would go after the fish with the hooks in it but I was assured by the Captain that dolphins are much too smart to go after a fish with four hooks and a weight tied to it! And he was right. The dolphin at one point met up with another dolphin and they put on an acrobatic aeriel show for us for a few seconds. Of course it was just short enough of a show for me not to be able to capture it on film! In the slide show you can see the fin of the dolphin though....

Laughter Is The Best Medicine

Two of the first people I met upon joining the CitiStreet Australia team were a set of twin brothers named Peter and David Bissell. These two guys were the first ones to get up out of their seat, extend their hand, give me a pat on the back and say 'welcome mate'.... I kept thinking to myself what nice guys they are. I soon realized that these two brothers were special but they also looked as though something could be wrong too. I had no idea what it could be or put my finger on it but something was different. Boy was I right. After talking to Peter, or maybe it was David, I still can't tell them apart, I learned that both of them have had Cystic Fibrosis since birth and several years ago both of them underwent a double lung transplant. I was blown away by this news but at the same time had such an admiration at how they handled life. I also realized at this time that for them working at CitiStreet was purely to pay the bills. Their true passion over the last 7 years has been to spread joy and laughter as Peebo and Dagwood....clowns! Now I know that some people have a fear of clowns or just generally don't care for them but these two are different. They are two of the funniest guys I have met either as clowns or not. The way they feed off of each others humor and their timing can only be attributed to them being identical twins. It's as though each of them know what the other is going to say before they say it. They are like George Burns and Gracie but with better timing. When talking to Peter about his transplant it was then that he said he and his brother love being clowns because they feel that 'laughter is the best medicine' and I couldn't have agreed more.....

Several weeks ago a project manager was leaving CitiStreet so we had a nice morning tea for her with a mini show by whoelse...... Peebo and Dagwood! Being a new guy in the office I was a prime target for both their jokes and a magic trick they do. Hope you enjoy the pics!

The Hub Apartment.... my home away from home

I moved into my one bedroom apartment in Brisbane several weeks ago. It was one of ony two apartments that I looked at before making my decision. I knew that although I could get a bigger place I couldn't get a place that is in the middle of everything and a view of the river and the Story Bridge. The apartment building is across the street from the Brisbane Marriott, a five minute walk to two train stations, and a 5 minute walk to two major shopping, restaurant, and nightlift districts. Here is a slide show of what it looks like:



Let me know if you are having trouble with the slideshow feature and I will upload the pics the previous way I was!

Time To Get Up To Date

After dealing with Telstra and Bigpond since I moved into my new apartment in the middle of August I finally got my DSL installed today! Going forward I will be updating my blog on a regular basis to keep everyone up to speed on my goings on in Brisbane!

Recently I went with my two co-workers to the Australian Zoo. This is the zoo that Steve Irwin (aka... the crocodile hunter) was affiliated with. The zoo is about 1 hr north of Brisbane. It was a great day overall.... check out the slide show!



After the zoo the tour brought us to a farm stand that had some of the best fruit and vegetables I have had in a long time. Macadamia nuts are native down here and taste amazing compared to what I am used to in the States. I haven't tried any native fruit or veggies yet... I have stuck to the traditional ones you can in Boston.

Oh yea, the non native eating is only applicable to fruits and vegetables. I did cook up some kangaroo meat last week. It was delicious! I marinated it over night and grilled it out on my balcony. It tasted like a very lean fillet of beef. I had to keep reminding myself not to think about it being a kangaroo, the same marsupial that I was hanging out with at the zoo one week earlier.

Joan Rivers is right.......

The other night I decided to check out some of the local flavor within the gay community beyond the one place I had already gone to. I decided to go into the Spring Hill area to a bar called The Sportsman. I was surprised to find that it was bigger than I first imagined and that it had a good range of clientele. There were younger guys, older guys, straight guys, straight girls, gay girls, and yes......... drag queens.....

Here is one that I had to get a picture of. She was with a straight female friend and I found out they were from 'the bush'... not knowing if they were playing around with me or not I did find out that by 'the bush' they meant about 30 minutes outside of Brisbane. They told me that they have kangaroo's jumping around as common as we have dogs! When I mentioned that she looked like Joan Rivers, and never knowing what response one will get when telling a drag queen they look like Joan Rivers, she was thrilled! I made her night. She didn't know who Joan Rivers was other than from word of mouth but I wasn't the first one to tell her this. She asked if she could have a copy of the picture and after going through the various means of how one would get a picture to her (email, mobile phone, friends email etc....) she asked if I could print it out and drop it off at the bar! Ummmm yea, I am sure my new co-workers would love to see this on the printer!

I did meet a few nice guys (mates) who mentioned to me that there was a Sports Club in Brisbane which runs all of the gay and lesbian leagues. I was happy to see that there are over 12 different clubs that have various sports. I am going to try my hand at 'touch' Australian Rules Football. Not that I am in any shape right now to be running around on a field that is about 2x the size of a football field but it will be cool to give it a shot. Check back for updates.





As I was leaving the Sportsman Bar to head home the lights went down and the next thing I know there is a full on drag show. I was wondering to myself 'where do they get the music that the drag queens lip synch too?' They were not dance songs or any type of show tunes but songs that only 3 or 4 drag queens could sing and dance too....











This week is a short week with Wednesday off for a public Holiday. Its the annual Ekka celebration within Queensland. This is a celebration of the Queensland agriculture that dates back 100's of year. Most locals stay away from the fair but being a non local it sounds like fun to me.

Finally.... Internet connecton

With a little help from Microsoft and their new Vista operating system I was able to get an internet connection in my hotel room! So let the blogging begin!

This is my second Saturday here in Brisbane. Still no rain and barely a cloud in the sky.

The picture to the left is the view of the CBD (Central Business District) I have from my hotel room. The hotel (Central Cosmo in Milton) is about 2 km (I have to learn metrics so you will have to also :-) ) from the CBD. I decided to take a walk along the river on one of my first days here in Brisbane. The River is the heart of this city. They have great walk/cycling/rollerblading paths on each side. In the morning and evening the river is full of people on bikes either out for exercise or more likely commuting to work.

Here is a pic of the path way that runs to and from the city.

Also along the way I wandered through a mangrove section of the river. This is literally in the center of the city!

Now for some of the fun things..... getting a lime for you drink down here is very difficult. For some strange reason they can grow lemons but not limes! When you order a Corona they give you a lemon slice. If you do get a drink that normally would have a lime or two in it they use fake lime juice. Talking about Corona, the Aussies love it! As much as they are beer snobs and put their nose up at any ale brewed in America they love Corona! I was in the bottle store (their name for a liquor or package store) last week to check out the prices on beer and wine. I was laughing to myself when I saw the following signs:

Yes your eyes are not playing games on you! $48 for a case of Budweiser and $54 for a case of Corona!

I move into my apartment next Saturday! I will have more posts this week. Work is going good so far. There is a public holiday on Aug 15. Ekka. Its a celebration of Queensland's agriculture industry. Sort of reminds me of one big Topsfield Fair!

I will be putting pictures up on the web via Picassa which is a Google on-line picture hosting site. Check your emails!

I am going to be doing more of the tourist things in the upcoming weeks so come back and look for updates!

This is the view from the other side of my hotel room. The XXXX beer is the Queensland local beer. As I was told no one drinks Fosters down here. I haven't even seen it. The main beers are: Towhey, Victoria, Hahn, and XXXX.

For the 'Tip A Canoe' group.... check out this place:

A Week In The Life - Brisbane Style

If New York is the 'city that never sleeps' then Brisbane can be called 'the city that loves to nap'. As soon as 7:00 PM hits everything comes to a stand still except for restaurants and bars. Stores and malls close down..... and people are no where to be found. That is Monday - Thursday. Come Friday and the Aussies show why they have been labeled a country that likes to play hard. Friday means cutting out of work early, heading to the pub with your co-workers and enjoying the 'happy hour'! I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun this city is come the weekends. Overall it has been great. I start work tomorrow, Aug 6. Today I am heading off to Suncorp Stadium which is across the street from my work to see the Brisbane Bronco's take on the Sea Eagles in a Rugby match. It should be great! 50,000 fans which I heard take their rugby very serious. I can't wait to soak in the atmosphere and more importantly to learn about this sport.

My internet connection is still down so that is why there are no pictures yet.

I was told not to be a 'pika' on Friday night by a co-worker when I mentioned I may head back to the hotel.... a 'pika' is someone who takes off early or blows someone off. Needless to say I ended up staying so not to be labeled a 'pika'. Another person gave me directiosn and told me to 'take a right and follow your nose straight up the hill'.... put an Aussie accent on that and it sounded really cool.

The toilets have two flush modes for water conservation. Half flush and full flush. Pretty good way of doing things to save water.

I am no longer jumping out of the way of cars in parking lots thinking they are coming at me without a driver only to realize the driver is on the opposite side. I must have looked pretty funny jumping in my skin! If that doesn't give me away as a 'Yank' than nothing will.

I found an apartment. Its in the heart of the city in a neighborhood called Spring Hill. Within a 5 minute walk I can be at either of two very popular destinations - the Queen Street Mall area or Fortitude Valley. The 'valley' is the hotspot for nightlife. The apartment is small and expensive but I couldn't pass up on the location. Rental's are very scarce in Brisbane due to how fast this city is growing......

I will be moving in on August 18th so stay tuned.

I will put up pics etc once I can get to an internet cafe.