eigsienaustralie

    With my housemate and my colleague we visited a bit around Brisbane. As the very famous beach of surfer paradise is close to our place, we chose to go and see this monument of the Australian way of life.

    Surfer paradise is only 40min from Brisbane by car.So we had a journey of 2h30 with public transport (by an "express train". I do not want to think about what could be the time of the same journey by a "non-express train").

    We left Brisbane early on Saturday morning and we arrived in surfer paradise at about 12a.m. We decided first to book our accommodation. Luckily, there’s a counter in the transport centre with free phone call to backpacker hotels.

    We booked for ourselves and a German girl met there. A shuttle came and picked us till the Trekkers hotel. It’s about $27 per night with a breakfast. We share the room at four with the German girl. Maarten and I shared a double bed (1.20m, 1.80) and the two girls shared a bunk bed. In fact the room was completely pink, with pink sheet and pink mosquito screen above the double bed. I don’t understand why the girl found us so gay...

    Since the transport centre we were with two Italian girls who went to the same hotel. We let our luggage at the hotel and went to the main beach. After some swims we went back to the hotel, took a shower, and ate some sausage and a rice salad made by the hotel employees. The night was nice. Every Wednesday and Saturday 7 backpacker hotels organize “the big night out”. For $30 are include entrance in 4 bar/club with a drink in each, pizza and the transport from the hotel to surfer paradise “city”. We were almost 100 backpackers who roamed in Surfer Paradise by night, almost all drunk after the second bar. We spent almost all this party with the two Italian girls.

    We went back to the hotel at 5a.m and we started sleeping quickly. We woke up at 8.30… early in the morning. Took a shower, ate a breakfast and check out at 10 a.m. Until 5p.m we just sprawled on the beach and walk a bit around surfer paradise but not too much… we were very tired.

    After 2h30 of public transport again we arrived at home. The following night was quite long…

     It was on.... I do not remember exactly when, but it was at the end of the last two weeks I’ve mentioned, and she was the first housemate I had met. She is a strange girl who comes from Malaysia. Her addictions are coffee and hitting people around her, especially when I just stand nearby her. But I realize that she helped me a lot. She was the first person who willing to talk to me, in fact who was trying to understand my bad English and strong French accent. Thanks for your patience mum.
We spoke for several days about everything but not included serious topics. Within these days was my best progression in English. The proof is that I was able to understand and to be understood after four days of English conversation, as long as the discussion is in Basic English. Even now I still converse in simple English but it is still the beginning of my stay. Come and evaluate my progression in English at the end of this blog in August.

Brisbane. First weekend
I arrived on the 1st of February with my brother in Brisbane. First challenge: going to the real estate office. It's easy as we just needed to ask for a map from the information office in the airport. But they didn’t have any map except those with restaurants, museums... so it’s not useful to find our way to the office. So we asked the translink office which nearby the airport. Translink is the public/private transportation company of Brisbane. But they don’t have any map either. Yes you have got this right, the translink office doesn t have any map of its network. So we decided to catch the train to the city. After the city we found a bus station. We looked at all the sign to find the word of Annerley (The suburb of the real estate office). Finally we found bus to Annerley and arrived in the real agency office 2 hours after the landing. So we signed all the administrative stuff (1 hour) and went back to the public transport to go to my new house. Another 2 hours. So, we decided to buy some food. As indicated by a pedestrian, we started to walk to a shop. But after 2 hilly kilometres we asked another pedestrian and he explained to us that there was no shop along this way and thus we needed to take the bus to go to a mall, which was 4 kilometres away from our current location. After more than 8 hours on public transport we bought 2 bottle of wine and some beers. We truly believe that we deserved them.

The next day we visited the city during the afternoon and wanted to find a pub or a hotel for the evening but failed. Next my brother went back to Sydney and left me alone.