July 11, 2009
Brisbane
Brisbane is..well…Brisbane. It’s no Sydney or Melbourne, but a city that creates its own fake beach because it doesn’t have one and that has a hostel with fireplaces in the rooms and a rickety wooden elevator, has got to be endearing. What I liked about Brisbane was its outdoor eating, cafe culture. The main attactions centre around the river, where there is a lagoon and a man-made beach and park where all the families play and eat ice-cream on a sunny afternoon. There’s also an outdoor market selling things like jewellery and clothes.
I stayed in both Base hostels- the first was Palace, known as the Party Palace and I loved it. It’s in an old building (well as old is a building can be in Australia) and in my room there was an antique fire place which made me feel like I was in a Victorian boarding school. The lift (or elevator to you Americans) was a tiny rickety wooden thing with a brass shutter that you had to slide closed by hand- which had a very slightly sinister horror hotel feeling about it. But this hostel is huge and great for partying. Beneath is the Down Under bar which is a typical backpacker lets-get-wasted bar. I then moved to Base Central because Palace was full, and this hostel is on the other end of the scale, much quieter and smaller but it still has an outdoor terrace where all the Jagerbomb drinking happens.
My main reason for visiting Brisbane was to meet distant relatives of mine Trevor, Elaine and their daughter. It’s a long story but the Brewood family is the only one of its kind. You will not find another in this world and in fact, that makes my name a completely unique name in the world. We’re a crazy bunch of oddballs, and if it weren’t for a relative of mine doing some digging and some ancestry research, and the beauty of facebook, I would never have had to meet any of them…just kidding!!!It turns out there are Brewoods scattered in Britain, Kansas, Oz and New Zealand and I was the first Brewood to bridge the divide and meet our Ozzie relatives.
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