I next walked down through the botanical gardens that held tons of tropical plants, birds, and giant lizards, and proceeded to QUT which is immediately adjacent to it. Here I got plugged into free internet and began the painful task of getting acclimated. The first huge adjustment was the phone system - to make a local call costs a minimum of 30 cents (even from a home phone) and if you need to call a mobile (and you will, because no one uses land lines here) it's going to run you about a buck a minute; this was a bit of an irritation since I would need to make about 300 phone calls in the next week. At the accommodation office, they provided a list of a few hundred options in several dozen different suburbs that I could neither locate on a map nor pronounce. After a few days of walking around to random spots, I discovered a house in the neighbourhood of New Farm; this was a quiet spot a hundred meters from the river that was only 5 minutes by jet boat from the city. Since property values here are rather high, I shared the property with 29 people from various walks of life; it's an interesting environment, since each day when I walk through the door I meet someone new; on two occasions, I met someone on the ferry only to discover shortly after that he/she was living in my house.
Brisbane roughly resembles one of those futuristic utopias from sci-fi movies; modern office buildings and apartments spring out of lush, tropical jungles. Super-fast catamarans speed along the river, moving the residents from the bustling urban centre to the peaceful suburbs. At night, hordes of giant bats glide overhead while runners and bikers move along the seemingly endless riverside walkway, and climbers scale the illuminated, rocky cliffs of Kangaroo Point. Tourism guidebooks have for years overlooked this quiet country town, and chances are, before coming to this site, you couldn't place it on a map of the world; I think the comfortably spaced, 1.6 million residents would prefer it stayed that way.
The classes in the uni here are a bit different than back in the States; each class has one 2-hour block once a week, and there are virtually no tests, homework, etc. until the final written test in the month- long exam period at the end of the semester. Naturally, I arranged to have a 4-day weekend; it seems that everything is really far away in Australia so thus far I've struggled a bit in finding things to do. The school offers a wide range of student organizations; unfortunately, they don't have the same absurdly- funded student government over here, so all the activities cost money and none give away free food; I didn't sign up for my usual allotment of 30 but had to limit myself to the rock climbing, underwater, and surfing club. I'm also tempted to go out for the medieval club where you can apparently dress up in your best suit of armour and beat the crap out of people with archaic weaponry.
Australians never seem to turn down an opportunity for celebration and have an endless supply of festivals; getting into the spirit of things, I was the first person in the country to shave my head for "National Shave Your Head Day" at 6:30 in the morning, kicking off the drive to set the record for the largest number of heads shaved in a 24-hour period. I also attempted to get the free pancakes offered up for National Women's Day, but an un-advertised requisite of getting these was to give one good reason why there should be such a holiday, and my hastily devised "because pancakes don't make themselves" was apparently not sufficient.
The weekend before classes started, my school prepared a high-priced trip to nearby North Stradbroke Island. Around 120 international types (60% American, 35% German, handful of Scandinavians and others) were put up in a hotel right off of a long sandy beach. We spent three days surfing, partying, hiking, partying, and chasing down kayaks in a pitiful attempt at 2-person surf kayaking. The trip was led by a guy named Merlin who was apparently a major celebrity from Australia's "Big Brother" reality show and our tour was frequently mobbed by local middle school girls wanting pictures and autographs. Our meals were held at what appeared to be the only dining establishment on the island - the local Bowling Club (bocci ball, petanque, lawn bowling - that game that all the old people play back home) which offered live music by an aging band that played entirely American songs and donned fake dreadlocks at one point in the act to do their rendition of some of our reggae hits; next door was the "Local Bar" where all sorts of interesting characters spent their nights - the women in our group were strongly advised not to fraternize with any of the locals as they were all huge losers.
I bought an old racing bike from the classifieds and used it to aimlessly speed around town. There are apparently upwards of 500 kilometers of dedicated bikeways around town and for many destinations it is possible to go 10km or more along well-maintained pedestrian-free paths without ever having to cross a road - they often run along highways and have a similar exit system. These are major commuting arteries and during rush hour, one direction will be packed with suit-clad, laptop-backpack toting cyclists - no carpool lane as of yet.
The ever-popular Valentine's Bridezilla competition
I have raised sloppiness to a high art
Why didn't I just stick with public transport...
Only in Oz
They've even got these critters running through downtown
Lamington National Park
Climbing into the tree tops
Feeding random birds in the middle of the woods
Glass House Mountains
Australia Zoo
At 174, Harriet is a seriously old turtle - originally a pet of Charles Darwin
A really big komodo dragon
Weird amphibious things
Mucking with the crocs = death
The ferocity of any animal can take a major hit when you see it drink from a baby bottle
Freakish 6-legged, 2-tailed kangaroo
Tasmanian devils - these things never stop moving
Weighing in at a bone-crushing 2kg, this was perhaps the deadliest croc on offer
Quite inexplicably, this roo just couldn't jump.
Freshwater croc - completely harmless - until it bites your arm off