Hunting for Hipness

Today, I was an official ex-pat writer.

A friend of a friend turned me on to the Queensland Writers Centre here in Brisbane. I looked them up on line and they seemed worth a look-see, especially since they are just across the river on the South Bank in the Queensland State Library.

(note: in case you are wondering about me jaunting back and forth across this river and wondering just how big this river is, it's about like the Potomac as it passes by DC. A jaunt across the bridge here in Brisbane is about like walking across the Key Bridge or the 14th St.bridge. You know, in case you were curious.....)

So, I jaunted across the bridge and found the writers centre upstairs in the library.

(note: the library has some great free services. Free wifi with dozens of electrical outlets [all at the level of the dozens of couches scattered around the lounge]. Free internet access, some time-constrained, some not. Affordable printing. Free kids play room. I think they even have a park-your-pram service. Not to mention a really nice bookstore and cafe.)

There was a presentation going on in the front area of the writers centre (free with your centre membership) so we had to be vewy vewy quiet but a lovely young lady came around the counter and gave me the low-down.

For a writers centre membership, I get access to workshops (some free, some low-cost) in publishing, writing, and editing; a monthly magazine; help with digital media; contact info for publishers and literary agents; access to specialist services (copyright and legal advice, for example); a small discount on a copy of Australian Writer's Marketplace; etc.

All for $60. Yes, I plan to join.

One of my other burning questions was "Where do I find the kinds of neighborhoods where self-employed and writer-ly types hang out in coffee shops to combat the isolation of being self-employed and/or writerly?" The young lady understood my question immediately and pointed me to a near-by (walk-able) neighborhood and recommended two bookstores along the way!

Now that's a writer's centre.

So, off I strode. As soon as I got into the neighborhood, I encounted a young man in a red shirt with a skinny black tie, tight black jeans, and pointy-toes shoes with silvery buckles walking jauntily across the street. The very essence of hip-ness.

I was in the right neighborhood. I stuck out like a sore thumb but I was in the right neighborhood.

The West End has a lot of young people (teens and 20-somethings and you know they just ooze hip-ness) in it, heaps of cafes and little shops, two very good bookstores, rolling hills, and what looks like some pretty cool residential areas. It's on the point of land just across from the CBD and just behind the "arts zone" that houses the Queensland State Library, Queensland Museum, Modern Art Museum, and a performing arts space.



Can you say "artsy-fartsy central"? While I didn't actually see any laptops in those cafes (the sure sign of the self-employed/writer-ly type with cabin fever) I did see a lot of casual coffee-sipping and general relaxation.

I plan to go back and drag Jeff along to see if we can find any good restaurants.

(Yet another side note: there are shit-loads of cafes around here. At least one, if not 3 or 4, on every block. But they all close between 3 and 4. What I haven't seen much of is bona fide restaurants. You know, sit-down-at-a-table-with-menu-service kinda places. Some very over-the-top restaurants but not a lot of the sort of thing I'm used to on H St. NE, 14th St. NW, 7th St. SE, 17th St. NW or even 7th St. NW in DC. There's got to be some, right? Still looking. )


It was a lovely day, an excellent discovery, and oh-by-the-way I ducked into a little shop and got my nails done. I knew you'd want to know. ;)

Goin' Up The Country

I've been out of touch for quite a few days but that's because I've......gone country!

OK, to be specific, on Wednesday I took the train up to Eumundi, about 140 km (90 miles) north of here to visit our friends Ben and Andrea Risby-Jones. I'm working with Ben and Andrea in the business -- Life Essences. Specifically, I'm helping Ben write a book and I'm helping Andrea find places in Australia to really get their products out there.



Because, ironically, while they are well-established in Europe and have a growing presence in the US (thanks to Kitty Southworth, LMT), they have virtually no presence in their home country! No workshops, no speaking engagements, no shops carrying their product.



So, on Wednesday I caught the 10 am train out of the Central Station, a whopping 15-minute walk from my apartment. I was so proud that I had figured out which train when straight through.....except that when I asked which platform I was supposed to be on, she checked my ticket and informed me I'd be switching to a bus for the last hour of the trip.

d'oh!

Oh well, I've done it before and it's really not bad. Ben picked me up right on time and we headed back to his house.



Ben and Andrea own 120 acres in a tight little tropical/rainforest valley next to national forest. Heavily wooded, they are working to return the land to natural rainforest vegetation while producing the bulk of their electricity from solar panels on the roof, growing a lot of their own herbs and veggies as well as chickens and the occasional pig, and running their cars on vegetable oil.



Yes, fairly crunchy green granola.

Ben and I spent Wednesday afternoon reviewing what we wanted to do with the book. We've been talking about it for at least 2 years. He's finally ready for it. We've had an outline for a while but now that I'm here, on the ground, we can make it happen.

While Ben has a fully-formed philosophy he wants to communicate, he's not a writer. We were pondering trying to do this long-distance but it makes a huge difference to be present together.



We spent a couple of hours on Thursday and Friday.....writing. Well, more specifically, he talked and I typed......while making observations, asking questions, and doing some editing on the fly. I'll do more editing / filling out now that I'm back in Brisbane this week.

Someone said I was the "guard rails", which is not a bad analogy. I noticed that when Ben started to go out on a tangent, he would bring himself back and I think that's because he was talking to someone who represents not just editorial expertise but who also represents his target market, the kind of people he wants to write this book for.

So we may have only produced 5 pages but it was still a big week.

It was gray and chilly on Wednesday and Thursday, a little better on Friday, and gorgeous on Saturday and Sunday. I was sleeping in an un-heated room (OK, the whole house is un-heated, like most Australian houses, except for a wood stove in the living room/dining room) and slept under a pile of blankets plus a sleeping bag. I was really happy to see Jeff show up on Saturday!



Their land is heavily wooded and I took a long walk on Saturday back to a huge tree called The Grandfather Tree. The roots on these trees fascinate me because it looks like nature laid a blanket across the root system, making folds rather than individual roots.

The rest of the weekend was chock-full of social life. Andrea and Ben invited several families of their kids classmates over for a cook-out, bonfire and sleep-over. Not all the kids had met before but they were a riotious noisy joyous bunch. They had a grand time.

I loved getting to meet some new people. Each of the women I met were interesting. Ben and Andrea have a good network of friends, many of whom are also not native-born Australians, so being American was a big "no big". One woman was Australian but married to an American. Andrea is an American married to an Australian. Another woman was Swiss married to an Australian.

I felt so vanilla, just being an American married to an American!

We tried to do a bonfire after dinner down at their fire circle but everything was much too damp. Even with both diesel and regular gasoline added to the wood (and everyone standing waaaaaay back) we couldn't get it started.



So everyone trouped back up to the house and the kids made s'mores.....in the wood stove in the house. They melted just as well and there were stickly chocolate faces all around.

Saturday night Jeff and I stayed in one of the two cabins they've built on the property. It's up on a hillside and just as cute as it can be....and very very quiet. We didn't even hear the normal night sounds of the woods and slept like logs.

Now, if Ben would only add a working bathroom so we didn't have to wander outside in the middle of the night to take a pee......

Sunday was another full-o-families day. Ben and Andrea had invited all the boys in their son's class over with their bikes for a day of "guy bonding". As I've said, they've got 125 acres plus Ben has recently completely a motorbike track out in a front paddock (field). Let the testosterone flow!

While the boys were doing their thing, all the girls (plus Jeff and one guy who was too young for the bike-o-rama) jumped in the car and headed across the ridge to Mapleton. Now, "across the ridge" is generally unpaved, heavily pitted, and quite a bouncy ride.



I loved it.

Plus, it gave us a chance to see how the terrain and vegetatation changed with altitude change. Also discovered some trail heads so I'd like to do some hiking some time when I go back.



Mapleton is an adorable little town high up in the hills with views out to the ocean. We sat out on a grassy area enjoying the sunshine and breezes for a while before heading back to the house.

Ben's parents were there and I had a chance to do some great visiting with both of them. Marie has trained in acupuncture and we talked quite a bit about the meridians. I'd like to understand them better, without having to actually go to acupuncture school!

Ben's dad Peter was a shop teacher and knows heaps about building and repairing and everything hands on. He gave me a great overview of what it means for a house to be Queenslander style.

Queensland is hot, humid at the coasts and dry in the middle, and tropical or semi-tropical. A Queenslander house is set up off the ground, with deep verandas on all 4 sides, high ceilings (9-10 feet) with fans in the roof (not just ceiling fans) and often with the rooms clustered in the middle of the house in such a way to catch as much cross-ventilation as possible.

They're a very popular style.

Jeff and I finally pulled out about 4:30 and got back to our apartment by 6:30. I was ready for bed when I got home but I wanted to (1) eat and (2) get this blog entry out so you'll know I haven't been swallowed by a python!

Reason 4 To Watch Australian TV

The Gruen Transfer

This amazing show has a panel of 6-8 professionals commenting on advertising -- with intelligence, humor, insight, and perspective. They don't just comment on individual ads, the comment on trends in advertising, categories of ads, categories of products, etc.

And it balances being light and being intelligent and does it very very well.

I really really wish:

1. We had this show in the United States.


2. We had this show on my cable channels. I caught it at a friend's this weekend. :(

This is "winter"?

It's Tuesday morning here in the land of Upside Down Yanks. The temp says "61" but the way the flags are whipping around out there, I bet it feels a little cooler.

But just a little cooler. While August is the tail-end of winter here (think late February / early March in DC), it's not winter like I'm used to.



First of all, absolutely no snow. Brisbane is considered "semi-tropical" and it is simply not going to snow here. It doesn't snow in most of Australia. If you want snow, you have to go waaaay south and up into the mountains and, as one friend put it, don't blink.

Second, the flowers are blooming quite nicely. I spent an hour or two yesterday in a city park -- Roma Parklands -- and it was beautiful. A little gray because it was an overcast day but still beautiful. It makes me excited to see what it will be like in a month or two.

Third, the lowest daytime temps I've seen have been low 50s. Most days in the last few weeks have been in the 60s and 70s. Which doesn't mean I haven't seen people out in full-on winter coats. With scarves. No gloves but I'm sure they were tucked in a pocket, just in case.

While at the same time seeing plenty of people (especially manual laborers) wearing shorts. I gotta love a place where official uniforms include a "shorts" option. And there's some very decent legs roaming this city!

On the other hand, I fear January will be Hell on Earth. But until that happens (and can it really be worse than DC in August??), I'm loving this!

Stranger in a Strange Land?

(Monday)

This is not my first time in Brisbane. I was here a year ago as part of the Oz Adventures with Jeff and Kitty. I was here as a visitor then, on holiday. Is the city really any different as a resident?

In a word: yes.

A year ago, I only had a few days in Brisbane at the end of my trip. I was focused on what was Significant and Different. That's what sightseeing is usually about.

What is significant in this place? What is it famous for? What do I want to be able to say I saw when people ask? What things does everyone see? What will make people say "wow!"?

What is different in this place? What is not like at home? How can I experience something that will be different than anything I can experience at home? How can I permit this trip to challenge me, to change me even, to expand my worldview?

In practical terms, that means my travel is frequently about things like museums, landmarks, parks, the food (!), and people watching. In my case, it also means I go out of my way to not be too "different", to not stand out as a tourist.

It means I may notice the cell phone stores and pharmacies and hardware stores but they are just a passing part of the scenery. I may notice the grocery store and the bus stop. But I'm not trying to commit those things to memory. If I'm only going to be here for a few days, or even a week, I'm not going to spend the brain cells on really noticing that sort of thing.

I want to walk away with photos, experiences, and impressions.

Now, as a resident....

I don't care if I don't have an Australian accent. I think about what it's like to live in DC, where you can hear all kinds of accents every day. I'm just one more accent.

I care deeply about where the grocery stores, banks, pharmacies, office supply stores, and hardware stores are. I'm spending a lot of time walking around downtown to have that "body" experience of a place and so my feet know how to get me to the vital services I need.

When someone asks if I'm here on holiday (and everyone asks that) I say "no, I just moved here". I don't mention it may only be for 6 months. I live here, for however long, I live here.

I don't work at "fitting in". My thinking is "I live here. By definition I fit in." I'll soon learn the limits to that, I'm sure!

I pay more attention to community events (especially free ones!) and farmers markets and museum exhibits. I sprinkle them in my week as I find the time. Tomorrow I hope to make it to the Museum of Brisbane for their "Prejudice and Pride" exhibit about the contributions of the LGBT community to Brisbane. I have the leisure to focus on specific exhibits rather than accepting whatever is there when I also happen to be in town.

I'm paying attention to local theater. There's a big arts festival starting in two weeks -- the Brisbane Festival -- and I've already got a schedule.

I'm eyeballing where volunteers are being used because I'd like to be one. I need to find a way to tap into the local community and meet some people. Delightful as Jeff is, he can't be my entire social life. That's soooooo not healthy! It also means I'm paying more attention to local organizations and services.

It's as though my eyes have moved down from the skyline to the sidewalk. I didn't think I was a "skyline view" kinda traveller but the time limits of travel make that un-avoidable. But now I have a chance to experience this city -- and by extension this country -- at the ground level and I'm planning to enjoy it.

Reasons 1 - 3 to Watch Australian TV

1. "Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation". A game show featuring a pair of Baby Boomers, a pair of Gen Xers, and a pair of Gen Yers. Very silly and highly entertaining.

2. A commercial for a canned chicken product where the cans had chicken legs and danced around to "The Chicken Dance" music made famous by thousands of wedding receptions and drunk wedding guests.

3. Australian Rules Football. Hunky guys in short shorts and a game that never stops moving. I really like it and the game's pretty engaging too.

Elections, Elections II

Today is election day in Australia. Voting is mandatory. There are 3 or 4 parties in the running but it's really all about The Big Two -- Labour (left-leaning) and Liberal (right-leaning). It's been interesting to watch as an outsider.

Things Are Different Here Observation #4

One of the things that's different (and delightful) is that all TV political advertising had to end at the end of the day Wednesday. There's been no political ads on TV for the last two days.

Now, that meant that on Wednesday night, every other ad was a political ad. It was kinda overwhelming, especially since they kept running the same 2 or 3 ads, 20 or 30 times within one TV show.

Yikes.

Things Are Different Here Observation #5

They also have an interesting, and I think every effective, ad to encourage people to take voting seriously. Since voting is mandatory, people have come up with lots of ways in the voting hall to indicate that they'd rather not be there and don't give a rats patootie about politics or voting.

The ad explains -- in a very straight-forward and easy-to-understand way -- how to mark the ballots. You have two ballots. On the "white" ballot, you can number the candidates 1 - infinity based on your preferences. Or you can vote a straight party ticket by just checking their box. I forget what the options are on the other ballot.

Things Are Different Here Observation #6

Also, since the other 2 or 3 parties know that they can't win a majority of seats in Parliament, they're pretty straight-forward about being "spoilers" or about their role as coalition builders. It makes for much more interesting political ads.

Domesticity, Aussie style

It's a quiet, chilly (50 F), sunny Saturday morning in Brisbane. Jeff's having a ham sandwich for breakfast. I had eggs and toast. Sitting here on our amazing porch.

Last night was our first official House Dinner here. When Jeff and I moved in together, back in '98, a co-worker advised me to make a point of having at least one meal together each week. With our mis-matched schedules and eating habits, it would have been easy to never eat at home together.

I took her advice and we set up Friday nights as House Dinner night. We took turns cooking (this is what inspired Jeff to learn to cook, though I had to eat a lot of Hamburger Helper first). It turned out to be a really good thing. To cook together, to sit and eat together, to talk.

When Tina joined us, we ended up switching it up to Sunday nights since she so frequently works on Friday nights. We also added her to the cooking rotation.

So, it's been 12+ years that we've been making a point to eat a meal at home together. No TV, no books, just eat and re-connect.



Last night was our first House Dinner here in Brisbane. I made an easy spaghetti sauce and we had it over tortellini. Accompanied by green beans and garlic bread. Jeff picked up a bottle of red wine on the way home.

Now we really are home.

side note: beer and wine are very expensive here. An inexpensive bottle of wine is $15. A 6-pack of beer -- not great beer, just beer -- is also $15. Jeff is a little depressed about that.

Later this morning, we'll drive out to Moreton Bay to check out a sailing club Jeff might wnat to get involved with. Sailing season kicks off around here in late August / early September so Jeff would like to figure out his sailing options sooner rather than later.

This sailing club has a weekly "Sausage Sizzle" on Saturdays. Yes, it's a cook-out, sorta like the Sailing Club of Washington's Social Sail. Just a chance to get together and tell lies, er, sailing stories, have a burger/sausage, and drink a beer.

It's the thing sailors are most addicted to, right after sailing.

Along the way, we'll stop at some bigger suburban hardware stores and grocery stores to finish supplying the apartment.

Yep, it's BowTei Domesticity, Aussie-style. :)

Home Sweet Home

Ah.......we're in our apartment!

We moved in yesterday (Thursday) morning. We're on the 16th floor of a high-rise in the heart of the CBD (central business district). If you want to "Google map" us, we're at the corner of Elizabeth and Albert St.

We're also 1/2 block from a large Irish pub and 2 blocks from a Borders Books. How dangerous is that??

We've got a reserved parking space (!) for the car we only use on the weekends. Given my pitiful depth perception, especially in parking garages, I'm not even sure I want to try to get it out of the parking garage!



We've also got access to an outdoor "barbie" (BBQ/cookout area), an outdoor hot tub, 'playing around in' pool and an honest-to-God separate lap lanes pool, all outdoors. If it wasn't raining this morning, I'd be in it.

We need a special fob to get, well, everywhere in the building. This is more security than I'm used to, heaven knows, but I'll adapt.


The apartment is good. A real kitchen. It may look small in the pics but, trust me, it's 2-3 times bigger than what we saw in other apartments! A reasonable living room with a pull-out sofa (in case you're thinking of visiting), and an amazing balcony/porch/sunroom.




There are floor to ceiling glass doors that separate the living room from the balcony. The balcony is maybe 8' x 8' and it's where the dining room table resides. It has floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, overlooking downtown and giving me a view across the river to the south bank.

The top half of the windows slide open 100%! Without screens, bars, or any other kind of safety device. How positively un-American! I could throw a horse out that window (though I don't know what I'd be doing with a horse in my apartment, I don't think one would fit in the elevator, and why would I want to throw a perfectly lovely horse out a window??).

Now, I don't know what we do if the birds Get Ideas and decide to set up an aviary -- with accompanying mounds of bird poop -- in my apartment. I haven't seen any birds this high up but I don't suppose there's any reason they couldn't make it.


I think I'll just choose not to think about that, OK?

While I love the beds at the Marriott (mounds o' pillows, big fluffy duvet), it's so much better to be in our own place.

I have our luggage about 80% unpacked. I'll finish the rest of it today.

I need to go to the grocery store today. The kitchen is 100% empty. We have salt and pepper shakers, for example, but no salt and pepper.

I would like to pick up a few things from the Target-equivalent like little drawers for the closet. There is, mysteriously, no chest of drawers or drawers of any kind in the bedroom. Do Aussies hang their socks and underwear from clothes hangers? We could use a little stick-on shelf/basket in the shower.

We desperately need more adapters. And, if we ever intend to actually eat on the dining room table, I'm going to have to find a table for all the laptops and geeky equipment.

But it is ours and I am happy. Our address is:

1604 / 108 Albert St.
Brisbane QLD 4000
Australia

Yes, they put the apartment number in the front of the address, which I find strange but it's not my country so I don't get to set the rules.

10,000 Husband Points

Jeff just saved my life. Literally.

I was eating a meatball. It was large. I started swallowing before I'd really gotten it chewed up in little bits and it jammed half-way down. Just got jammed and all of a sudden I was choking.

In the heat of the moment, will you remember your first aid classes? Jeff did.

I stood up. Jeff asked if I was OK. I shook my head "no" and made the 'hands at the throat' sign for choking. He quickly came behind me, puts his arms around me, and started the quick squeezes to dislodge the stuck food.

It took two tries but he he got it out. Everyone sitting around us was very very impressed. So was I. (I'll probably have a good cry later.)

He said afterwards that one of his challenges is that I'm not built like the dummies they use in first aid classes. I'm taller than him and...ah....rounder than the test dummies. Getting your hands just under the diaphragm, from behind? Good luck with that!

Please award that man 10,000 Husband Points. And sign us both up for the First Aid Course at PMTI next time we're in town.

The google in my head

I carry maps in my head. I'm wondering if Google has somehow infiltrated my gray matter?? (And if so, why in heavens name did they pick my head? Clearly, they could have done better.)

For example, if you said "hmmm, I feel like going out for Italian tonight. Any recommendations?", I would get a map in my head of DC and areas with concentrations of restaurants -- Barracks Row, Dupont Circle, H St. NE., etc. -- would be highlighted. Italian restaurants would have little dots on them.

If you then said "....but I don't feel like going very far", I'd narrow my focus (sorta like that zoom slide dohickey on Google maps) and just show Capitol Hill, which would give me H St. and Barracks Row.

By now, we'd be down to a handful of places and you'd get my list. (You would not, however, be able to click on my forehead and get a link to each restaurant's website, no matter how often you poked me in the head.)

If, instead, you were visiting and said "I am completely out of underwear. Where can I go to get some more?", a whole different set of maps would show up (right after I pointed you to my washer and dryer and tried really hard not to imagine what happened to all your underwear).

You probably have a similar function in your head. We've built our maps up over time, learning our way around our environment, going shopping, discovering new places, getting lost (who, us?), etc.

I don't have those maps for Brisbane, not even for the Central Business District, yet.

Today, I needed clothes hangers. We're moving into our apartment tomorrow and I remembered that it had, oh, 4 clothes hangers in the closet. As you can imagine, we need more. But where does one buy clothes hangers?

In DC, my "household goods" overlay would show up on my DC map with the Target in Adams Morgan, Fragers Hardware on Capitol Hill, CVS on Bladensburg Rd., etc. Here....I don't even know the names of stores that carry clothes hangers, much less where to find them.

The CBD is chock-full of shopping. Just lousy with it. And virtually none of it has names I recognize. Oh, there's the occasional Starbucks (far fewer of them than you'd imagine and I know for a fact they don't carry clothes hangers) but no Target, CVS, Wal-Mart, etc.

I asked one of the girls (she's under 30, I'm calling her a "girl") in the hotel lounge here and she looked at me like that was the most unusual question anyone had asked her in a week. Her look said "Doesn't everyone know where to buy something as inane as clothes hangers? Is this American woman possibly deranged? She's got an awful lot of white hair, perhaps she's too elderly to be wandering out here on her own much less attempting to purchase household goods. I wonder if that nice young man I've seen her with is her son."

Or at least that's what her look said to me. Her reply -- "why, anywhere on Queen St." -- was not so helpful. I know for a fact that the copious cell phone stores do not sell clothes hangers. Ditto the coffee shops (also copious), bookstores, and news stands.



So, I wandered out un-aided today, after having packed the contents of our hotel room into 8 (count 'em: 8) suitcases. (See? We really are going to need more than 4 clothes hangers.) I wandered in shops somewhat aimlessly but managed to score on almost my very first try.

The Big W is somewhere between K-Mart and Wal-Mart and has an impressive supply of, you guessed it, clothes hangers. Wire, plastic, and wood.

I am saved! No thanks to the girl in the hotel lounge, thankyouverymuch. But if you come to visit, be assured: you will get a clothes hanger of your very own!

Side note: why is it that people who work in hotels often know less about their city, in useful terms, than even the scary-looking guy in the gas station? I have had more hotel desk clerks not be able to give me directions to their hotel because "I never come to work from the interstate" or something like that. Seriously, I can't be the first person to ask that kind of question! If I wanted to know how to get to the most expensive restaurant in the city, they'd be right on top of that. Need to buy clothes hangers....well....

On Yer Left!

If you bike on trails much, you may have uttered the phrase "on your left" quite a bit. It's a way to alert slower cyclists or pedestrians, etc. that you are about to pass and that's almost always done to the left if physically possible.

You do this so you won't spook them and have them run into you or run off the trail or have a heart attack or anything equally unpleasant.

Australia drives on the left. America drives on the right. It turns out, many day-to-day habits are influenced by the side of the road you drive on.

Escalators here tend to be "up" on the left and "down" on the right. You don't realize that you expect it to be the other way until.....you find yourself standing at the foot of a down escalator staring foolishly at the steps coming towards you and wondering "what's wrong with this picture?".

If you're familiar with the DC metro system, you've probably also learned the mantra "stand on the right, walk on the left". You may have even muttered it quietly (or not so quietly) to the person standing -- outrageously! -- on the left.

Yep, they stand on the left on Australian escalators.

If you approach someone on the sidewalk who's on the same track you are, which way do you shift? I'll bet most of you reading this shift to the right. Aaaaaaaaaand, you'll still be walking head-on into someone in Australia (though this is not as rigidly followed).

Yes, I frequently find myself struggling like a salmon swimming upstream on the wrong side of the sidewalk.

Another of the little life lessons learned here on the flip side of the planet.

Elections, elections

So, the Australians head to the polls, next Saturday I think, to elect a new.....prime minister? This is a parliamentary system and I clearly have much to learn.

Things Are Different Here Observation #1

The current prime minister, Julia Gillard, "officially" launched her campaign on.....Monday morning. Yesterday. 5 days before the election.

That doesn't mean that hasn't been heaps and mobs of campaigning. Just that it only "officially" lasts 5 days.

Officially, American campaigns get started when the candidates are "chosen" by their parties, usually in July or early August for the November election. That's still 3+ months ahead (even though they may have been campaigning up to 2 years already).

Things Are Different Here Observation #2

Her leading opposition suggested they have a debate. He put that out there....yesterday. The debate will be....tonight. They're still arguing over whether it will be a 30- or 60-minute debate.

Can you imagine two American presidential candidates needing, oh, roughly 48 hours to arrange a debate and work out the specifics?

Things Are Different Here Observation #3

Ms. Gillard is not married. Her long-term steady is routinely referred to as "her partner". Again, something I don't think we're as straight-forward about in the US. We're getting there but we still have strong expectations that our high-level leaders be clearly married or single.

The Botanical Gardens

I only have two goals in Australia: write and walk. These blog postings help meet the "write" mandate.

Since we're right in the heart of downtown (CBD), I'm also walking my legs off! No point in trying to drive (we have a car; it stays in the garage) since parking is a nightmare and everything I need I can get to within 20-30 minutes of walking.

So, walk I shall! I've been putting in 1-3 hours of walking each day, mostly running errands and figuring out where everything is. Yesterday (Monday) I gave myself a treat after running errands (phone, eyeglasses, dentist, bank) and found the local library and the botanical gardens.

The local library is a very busy place full of many city services but not so many .... books. If I still owned all the books I've bought in the last 20 years, I could rival their fiction section. It's a disappointment. I want to be swamped with books when I go into a library. I just love being surrounded -- physically -- by books.

There is also a "state" library just around the corner and I hope to visit them today.

Once I got over the library let-down, I headed a couple blocks over to the botanical gardens.

note: Brisbane's CBD is really not very large. I think it's roughly the same size as DC's if you measure from Constitution Ave. north to M St and then from, say, 7th to 20th. Max. Easily traversable.

The gardens are next to the parliament building (Brisbane is the capitol of Queensland) and to the QUT (Queensland University of Technology) (geek-central I presume). Sits on the end of one of the pennisulas of land formed by the loopy Brisbane River.

I loved it. It's not necessarily plant-intensive like some but there are long lovely strolling paths and plenty of open spaces full of sunning people and just danged pleasant. I'm still a little freaked out that I live somewhere that palm trees and bamboo are native but I'll probably get over that.

Next time, I may bring a blanket.

What the heck am I doing here?

Just to bring everyone up to speed. The story so far.....

Husband's company asks him to work on a contract in Brisbane Australia for 6 months. After much negotiation (some between he and I, lots beween him and his employer), we agree.

He gets here late July. I arrive mid-August. We will be here till at least late February. The contract may be extended. We're willing to be here longer if everyone likes everyone.

We're currently staying in the Marriott in the CBD (central business district = "downtown"). We'll be moving into a corporate apartment within a few days. If we stay longer than 6 months, we'll look for something more "on the economy" (a phrase from my days as an Army brat living in the Netherlands). Something more in a neighborhood.

What will I be doing while I'm here? Not massage. At least not if we're only here for 6 months. I'll re-consider if we're here longer. I'll be writing. (I do have a degree in journalism, y'know, and 20 years under my belt as a technical writer before I become an MT.)

Several projects scheduled:

1. Help my friend Ben Risby-Jones edit his book. He lives about 90 minutes outside of Brisbane and he writes....um.....like English is his 3rd language (it's his first). Lovely person. Great ideas. Good speaker. But, yowza, the written word is not his greatest gift. So I'll be working with him to edit / co-write a book to support his healing work.

2. A book on the business of massage. I taught business practices at my alma mater, Potomac Massage Training Institute, and have written a column on the business of massage for 4 or 5 years for the DC professional association. I want to turn that source material into a book.

3. A book to support a (non-massage) workshop I teach, "Create A Relationship User Guide". I've had soooooooo many people say "you need to turn this into a book!", so I'm going to.

I'll also be doing a professional blog to parallel this one and still writing my column for the DC chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association.

And then there's my Facebook posts, letters to my mom, e-mails to friends and family who just can't deal with FB, etc. I'll be busy.