Brisbane- days 4-7

Days 5-7:

Sorry we have taken so much time off from our last entry. We had allotted 21:00-21:30 for you, diary. Unfortunately, we are finding ourselves quite sleepy at 19:30 where we vow to write our daily entry from the comfort of our pillows…….that hasn't worked yet!

Your first question may be…"What happened to day 4?" Well, when you are in a state of perpetual motion like we are- day 4 seems like an eternity ago. We also didn't want to set the precedent that every day would get equal coverage. The only thing I will say about day 4 is that it was the day when we wanted to take a tour of the XXXX (Forex) beer factory (For the curious, the price of admission of $20 for an 1hr 15 min tour includes 4 glasses of beer at the end-can't beat that!). As we were ordering beer at the brewery bar in an attempt to kill 10 minutes till the tour started, we were told apparently you can only drink their beer after the tour and cannot consume any alcohol before the tour in case the factory catches fire and in your drunken state, you decide to shelter yourself from the fire in a vat of beer. This was an actual explanation…… Unfortunately for the brewery we were really thirsty at the time.

Day 5 started out with an early interview for Cory.
Gotta love the question, "What is your greatest weakness?" Should one reach into the answer bag for the excessive drive & ambition? No, too obvious- how about the tendency to work too hard or the lean towards perfectionism? Needless to say- impressions were made, positive or negative, and I guess we will find out when the offers start flying in…. or we log on to research unemployment applications in Australia.

Since Cory was already in a full suit and there happened to be a mortgage auction on the 17th floor of the same building, we felt compelled to try our hand at finding our dream home amongst the rowdy gathering of locals. Hey wait, I guess we are a local! We held docket # 537…..c'mon lucky 537!!! We just need 1,500 sq. ft somewhere in the city- preferably on a river high-rise building with amazing views with modern/contemporary styling and underground parking. We were willing to go as high as….wait let's check both of our pockets…..yep, $1,150. Any higher than that and we'd be pushed right out of the bidding. The first house was just what we were looking for: high ceilings, spacious kitchen- the mention of granite or marble was made on many occasions- perfect! We were ready to get the bidding started at $500, but were trumped by another man in a suit who got the bidding underway with a bid of $1.2 million. Uh-oh- guess we'll have to wait for house #2. The pace was fast and frantic, but we found it funny that the auctioneer would say going once, going twice….and then crack a hilarious joke right before declaring the house sold in an effort to make bidders jump back in and place a bid. It really eased the tension, but seemed unnatural.


I would be remiss if I didn't mention the chicken kebabs- the aforementioned day 4 ended with a failed kebab run, but we would not be shut out twice. As day 5 (Friday) drew into evening, we picked up South Bank kebabs and sat down by the beach to enjoy one of the finest creations this side of the equator. I don't know what we were thinking when we brought the kebabs into a neighboring bar- "We have our own kitchen, mate" the security guard told us. We think they were just jealous that their kitchen didn't make something nearly as fabulous. Kebabs in tummy, we reentered the bar to enjoy an eerily similar version of Jason Castro playing live. Maybe he and Michael Johns are already on tour here in Australia.

Day 6 ushered in the Greek festival in West End. It was like the New Mexico State fair except with Greek food, a nice grassy area, huge video screens, Ouzo…okay it was nothing like the New Mexico State Fair, but it did have a bunch of "fair games". Cory decided to try his hand at the sledgehammer pound game (I think there is a more technical term for this game). The object is to try and pound the ground with a 20 kg hammer and see how much force you can generate. Cory scored a 114 (out of 150 possible) and was the highest of the evening that we witnessed. There were some poor 6'4" 250 pound men registering a mere 82. What did we get for this accomplishment?? A little blue stuffed dinosaur that we decided to call Mr. Popodopolous, in honour of this great festival.

Side note> We actually saw this on a menu here in Brisbne: fajitas (fah-hee-tuhs)- got a chuckle out of the two of us!

Day 7 was a monumental day. We finally received the keys to our new place and moved out of the hostel. If you have ever tried to move all you belongings across town via city bus, then you can appreciate what we went through on run number one of transporting everything we own to our new house. After making our first run, we decided that a taxi would be a better option for the remainder of the stuff and by 11:00 we had relocated permanently. The place is beautiful in the suburb of Toowong- Ma Dawgs joked that it was Toowong a drive for her to be able to come down……I would agree- WAY outside of her familiar quadrant. Walking distance to absolutely everything, including the park and the river. Anyway, we are renting a two bedroom place at which the landlord also resides. She is away in "bush country" so we have the place to ourselves. We will enclose pictures later as the place is currently a mess. We intend to call this home for approximately 3-6 months and we are on a month-to-month lease with NO deposit- what luck! That is impossible to find anywhere near the city centre so we are very fortunate. We have our eyes on some beautiful places to buy, but we don't want to put the cart before the horse- an annual household income of $0 AUD doesn't look to good to the mortgage underwriter. On the flip side- we have calculated the taxes on this income and are very pleased with the figure. I'm not sure if unemployment would be the best tax strategy.

We woke up early on day 8 as Olga had her first big interview in the city. Cory decided to walk her down to the boat stop to catch the 5 minute ferry into town. The position is for an accounting recruitment consultant in a professional firm and would allow her to thrive in what she does best- make contacts and talk with people. Some excerpts from the brochure are:

Interviewing candidates on a general basis and for specific roles
Managing job offer process and negotiating salary packages
And Olga's favorite:
Organizing and attending regular client entertainment events-including sporting events, wine tastings and other entertainment activities.

Basically we'll need to hit up a lot of bars and hotspots to meet these potential clients- Cory has offered his assistance. We're also preparing for the HUGE game tomorrow! It is the State of Origin 1 between Queensland and New South Wales rugby match. It is the equivalent of the Super Bowl in the States, but the matches are a best of 3 played between Sydney and Brisbane that take place between May 21- August 16th. The match is the talk of the town and we will hit up a local pub and cheer when they do and yell at the referees when everyone is not cheering!
Cory looked up rugby rules on Wikipedia and they are starting to make sense.

Well, we gotta run to the gym. Gotta go burn the 603 kilojoules that we just consumed this morning (is that bad?)- dieting is going to be impossible down here.

20 May 2008

Brisbane- days 1-3

Dear diary.....

Wow, what an activity-packed 3 days we have had! We have visited some incredible sights by foot, bus and boat. We are probably averaging 5 miles on foot per day and our poor tootsies are longing for a well-deserved break.

You know how sometimes fate just throws some obstacles in your way just to make sure you find yourself at a coolest bar ever celebrating overcoming those obstacles? Early part of

....DAY 1...
was filled with "holy cow, we are finally here! Somebody pinch me" screams of joy! In the morning we explored the river and a walk to the heart of downtown. The city is absolutely drop dead gorgeous and much more breathtaking than we ever thought, and our expectations were pretty high :) The chain of obstacles started with being turned down for a bank account by a Bank of Queensland because of the ol' recently government passed "no permanent address-no bank account" rule which as we later found out was just a part of the whole "no obstacles-no beer" plan cooked up by fate, but at the time it was enough to get us bummed out. We then tried to purchase a mobile phone to which we were told we needed a job and an address....what is it with these people. I thought that was why we retired....to get away from these jobs. Down on our luck we attempted to make some pay phone calls, but could not figure out how to ring anyone using our new calling card. After a couple of suggestions from the locals we finally made our first call from Brisbane! Yey! We attempted to take a look at a rental, but were unable to get in touch with the landlord because it's hard to leave a return number to call us from the payphones. Oh Geez... By 6 PM, we realized that it was 2 AM body time and it showed. We dragged our pride back to the hostel and were greeted with the greatest party this side of the P-Diddy's VIP Grammy celebration. We laid down our weary heads to the thumping and screaming of the partygoers......and slept like babies!

Our luck turned on....
Day 2- a day that started with wide eyes at 3AM ready to begin the day. We are here to state for the record that jet lag is a real and serious affliction that affects many airbourne travelers. We popped out of bed with the enthusiasm of a student on his last day of high school. We took a jog around the river into South Bank and the fresh air was amazing (not to mention the 60 degree weather at 6 AM in the beginning of a supposed winter season). We then set out in search of a phone- to our delight a nice man at Vodaphone was able to give me the sleek black cell phone that Cory's inner child has been longing for. An ancient aboriginal burial ceremony was held for the vintage gold cell phone that was fortunate enough to see Reagan sworn into office. Being true to Cory's self he selected the cheapest model available at the store, but as we all know this is the only kind that will survive the global warming. We then set off on foot to check out some nightly hot spots (only we saw them in the day so we could remember how to get there and back after throwing down a few!) We checked on a gym membership that really made us appreciate the benefits of having Ma Dawgs as a tenured member of Defined Fitness. A total of $150/month for the two of us to lift a bunch of weights, throw out our backs and run ourselves into exhaustion....all in the name of fitness I suppose. We then saw a sign for Commonwealth Bank and decided to see if the government imposed permanent address rule was still in effect. To our surprise the requirement was miraculously lifted sometime between May 12th @ 3:00 PM and May 13th @ 2:00 PM.....what luck! We opened an account and dumped all the U.S. dollars that we had inconspicuously been carrying around with us for the last 36 hours. What a relief....let me tell you diary, when you are carrying around that kind of cash everyone looks like a criminal in the making.....even that seemingly innocent toddler on the plane whose cries were just to divert our attention from the cash envelopes. So, with our pockets empty and our money safe in a non-FDIC insured bank, we decided to do some more exploring. We hopped on a city river cat (boat) and toured the river and exited at Southbank for some celebration with our hearts light and pockets empty (thank God!!!). An interview was landed at noon on day 3 so Cory decided to prepare and study up on Australian business law and taxation. Again, we decided to call it a night at 8:00, while the party raged a mere 10 meters from our window.

Even more good luck was had on....
Day 3-what a crazy day- we start out every day by sending out e-mails in hopes that we can go out on the town in the morning and come back and have some replies (this applies to job enquiries (yes I spelled that correctly in Australian) and rental enquiries). Well, now we have a mobile phone # to leave and this particular morning Cory recieved a call from a recruiter who wanted to squeeze in another interview on day 3. Well, might as well knock out 2 interviews with one suit......oh, what I forgot to mention, diary, was that while Cory was cramming for these interviews his amazingly talented and beautiful wife was down ironing his clothes while frateranizing with the turkeys. We have a family of brush turkeys hanging out by the hostel. Anyway, picture this- a man full suit/tie sprinting through downtown Brisbane trying to make a good first impression by arriving to the interview on time. Sweating like a pig, the interviewers must have thought Cory was pretty nervous, but on the inside.....cool as a cucumber. After that interview, a mad dash was made to interview # 2 where Cory dazzled them with interview tricks learned a mere 3 hours earlier. As Cory was sprinting from one interview to the next, his beautiful wife, currently in the posession of the phone was receiving calls from people wanting to discuss job opportunities with Cory-that can't be a bad sign :) That out of the way, the couple headed out to the house they knew they would call home for the next 3-6 months. It was a beautiful 6 bedroom mansion on the river and it would be just right. As we arrived, we were greeted by Lindy Chen and the rest of her sweatshop brothers and sisters. Was this really the house we saw online? There were partitions to separate corners of rooms to turn them into income-producing pockets of space in the house. We would have times posted to clean the toilets and knit her some Chinese scarves and shawls that Lindy would, in turn, sell online and retain the profits. She was all too eager to induct us into her cult and the looks of the faces of the other roommates told us all we needed to know....."GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!" We hopped on the nearest bus and arrived back to our hostel a little shaken from the experience. We didn't let it slow us down though. After a quick 5 minute nap we headed out to see our 3rd house of the day. We met a couple who let us into a quaint little place in Toowong. It is a beautiful and one of the most highly sought-after suburb only 4 km from downtown (CBD). The owner is a psychologist who is on a mission in Alice Springs (as outback as it gets) to help children who are suffering from alchoholism. Bottom line is that she will only be home 10 days a year and the place will pretty much be ours while we save up money. It was amazing and we knew that our rental search was drawing to a close. We dined with the fine couple who showed us the place (friends of the landlord) and we were so fortunate to have them show us around a little part of the city. They drove us up to Mt. Coot-tha, which is an amazing lookout of the entire city....wow, we took some pictures, but none that do the view ANY justice. Those pictures are sold separately and you must be present to win....he, he! Well, diary, we are now on day 4 and we'll see how that goes- I hope it holds many more exciting things in store. STAY TUNED!

-15 May 2008