NOOSA!

How it Happened

So not long after starting work we decided that one of the people we definitely had to be good friends with was Lisa. Yes, I know that sounds confusing seeing as how my awesome roomie is named Lisa. But have I mentioned that there are five…yes you heard me…FIVE Lisa’s on our Human Capital team. That doesn’t ever get confusing (shakes head yuh-huh). This Lisa – our soon to be BFF—is Lisa Scott. She is a fabulously fun Irish gal. Lisa Gulick got lucky enough to be on a project straight away with her (and another Lisa – an entire project-pronounced PRO-ject here- made of Lisas).

Any who, we have become friends with Lisa Scott and she was overly kind and invited us to her amazing wedding. It was a beautiful intimate affair of 35 from around the world. Lisa had family and friends from Ireland and her hubby had his friends and family from India and they had a few Australian and British friends sprinkled in and then us two token Americans.

We arrived Friday night and got to attend the Hen party which included a delicious dinner on the beach and an hour of girly dancing at a club that we had to ourselves until the Bucks joined us and the club got quickly crowded. It was a fantastic night of dancing and drinking and taking in the beach air.

Saturday we got to enjoy the beautiful beach and peruse adorable shops and boutiques. The entire beach area and town may have stretched a quarter of a mile long but was bustling with people and animals. Lisa and I had a fun roomie date night with drinks on the beach at sunset a fab Italian dinner and delicious wine and dancing after.

Sunday was the big day. We headed out to meet the but around 1 and rode about an hour to the nearby mountains where the vineyards were. From the vineyard you could see the ocean on one side and mountains on the other. It was breathtaking. So without further ado – I will inundate you with lots of pretty pretty pictures.

 They swear that as long as you swim between the flags where Beach Patrol can see you, you wont get munched by a shark. We survived this time...

 And then there were "bush turkeys that were wondering the vineyards looking to sneak some wine.

 And finally, there were random wild turkeys wondering around the town looking for scraps. Another case of a large bird that seems to go unnoticed by the locals because they are so common. Brave of the turkeys to be out in the open so near Thanksgiving. Guess they didn't count on Americans being in town. MMMMM....

Dating the City

Things I Love

The Scenery

I have to say that there is not much that can compare to walking to and from work along the river. Its peaceful and beautiful. Not to mention that the weather is hard to beat. Its always warm and sunny and while we are in the “rainy season” of spring, it’s a lot like Florida rain – it rains hard for about 20 minutes then clears up and is sunny again.

The Cat

The Brisbane city cat is one of the main forms of transportation. It is a highs peed boat that shuttles people around the city. There are stops at most prime areas of the city, its affordable, and it offers indoor and outdoor seating. If commuting through the crowded DC streets drives you mad, then move to Brisbane and enjoy a peaceful boat ride to work. And keep an eye out, you just may see a small shark jump out of the river. Yep – that’s right, a shark…in the river.

The Bars

Cloud Land

There is no way that I can do this place justice. Its what I imagine it must be like to be high out of your mind and walking through a dream world. The roof retracts making the whole bar out outdoor courtyard with four walls. There is a waterfall on one side, and stone art with living vines crawling up in on another. There are live trees growing out of the floor. There are human size bird cages suspended from the walls for lounging. The second floor has fishbowl portholes where you can see the people below. There are pastel carousels that are tables and chairs. Even the bathrooms are a surreal hall of pink mirrors and green floating sinks. You have to experience it.

We wandered in on a Sunday afternoon, lured in by the sound of live music, and enjoyed a few glasses of very nice wine in the lovely spring weather. However, I warn you from personal experience that on the weekend nights it turns into…well…Vegas. Girls are in super short mini dresses covered in sparkles donning 4+ inch heals and the men..or uhhhh 20 year old boys are dressed to the 10s in suits – mind you the suits that the men here some to love with the points that we refer to as girlfriend pants. Just like when girls wear boyfriend pants they tend to be loose, baggy, and comfy, girlfriend pants are the reverse – men in super tight skinny pants that hug every curve mostly too tight.

The Laneway

We went to the Laneway Bar for Lisa’s birthday. It is actually a small bar suspended above an alley between to buildings. You have to walk through a restaurant and up the back stairs to get to it so its not a place you stumble on-you have to know about it. I guess that’s part of the mystic that makes in one of the trendy posh bars in Brisbane. The drinks were fantastic. The company was good. And they project old movies (think the TMC lineup) on the building across the alleyway all night.

The Lark

The lark is an adorable bar in Paddington that our new friend, Lisa (the irish one) took us out to. Filled with velvet couches and boudoir décor, it offers designer unique drinks and a delicious grazing menu with traditional Aussie foods like Wagu sliders. I had a dandelion (drink) and it was one of the best cocktails I have ever had.  The Wagu was fantastic too.

Fridays

Despite Google maps labeling it TGI Fridays, the real Fridays which sits next to work is an outdoor bar with one of the few happy hour deals in the city. On any given Friday night it is where all of the young professionals from every major firm congregate. And if you can talk a partner or director into tagging along then the firm may pick up the tab!

Uncle Deloitte

Every Friday starting around 4:30, the firm rolls out a few buckets of ice cold beer, wine, Champaign and mixed drinks and encourages everyone to stop working and catch up with one another. It’s a great tradition and the team often heads out together after. It’s a great and fun way to network and get to know everyone.

Things I Miss

Food

Black Beans

Crescent Rolls

Pita Bread

Ranch Dressing

Rotel

Bacon

Cookie Dough

Semi Sweet baking chocolate

Vanilla

The Products

Stick Deodorant – they only have liquid here

Allergy medicine – its spring here and their allergy meds are weak

Tampons – that’s right ladies, they have them, but not with applicators

Store Hours

Apparently, in some ways, Brisbane is still stuck in the 50s. All the stories here close by 6 (most by 5) during the week. I was astonished and confused and asked our Partner who is from the states and he sarcastically said “Oh, its because naturally you have a stay at home partner who tends to those things while you work.” I guess one way to force work life balance is to force people out of the office by 5 so that they can buy food and other necessities.

The Variety

To Australia’s credit, it has most things. However, they have very little variety. Most things only come in 1-2 brands. And there are few stores to choose from. For instance, in all of central Brisbane, there are only two brands of grocery stores.

Funny Phrases

Trading hours – store hours

How you going? – How are you?

Good on ya! – Well done/Good for you

Mate – any acquaintance

Happy – ok with

Good – Great

A bit of… - some

Pack – a small deck

Bubbles – Champaign

Fairy floss – Cotton Candy

Coming Soon…

Our guaranteed to be awesome trip to Noosa/my first ever Hens Party.

Photo tour of our apartment

 And our upcoming Thanksgiving party for the Aussies!

Until Next Time! ~B

The Look and Feel of Brisbane

When I pictured Australia, I envisioned the outback—a dry desert like climate, few trees, and heat. Other than the picture of the Sydney Opera House that most are familiar with, I had no sense of what the bigger cities would be like. I was pleasantly surprised by the look and feel of Brisbane. It’s the third largest city in Australia and is the capitol of the state of Queensland. While it isn’t the size of a large city from an American perspective, it is not small. They also label parts of the city differently. So the downtown area, or central business district (CBD) have an address in Brisbane, anything outside of the business district have address of their suburb. So areas that are less than a 10-minute walk from the heart of will be labeled as a different city, but still socially considered part of Brisbane.

The architecture is fantastic. A little bit of background here – its seems as if Brisbane has been growing significantly in the past 5-10 years, and so a large portion of the buildings built in the recent years have an ultra-modern feel to them and are often accented with bright happy upbeat colors – bright oranges, blues, reds. Mo- you would love it here. In contrast, the original buildings have a very old historical feel to them and are spattered throughout the city. So you end up getting pockets where you have the two right next to each other living in contrast of two very different economic and social eras of this one unique city. Its beautiful. This is true of both business and residential buildings. And because Brisbane is situated on a winding river, you have bridges all over bringing you from one distinct neighborhood to the next. Each bridge looks quite distinctive in style. Our new apartment and work over look the Story bridge.

It also seems as if they don’t plan their communities here as we do in the states. While the CBD is on an identifiable grid, as soon as you get out to the first layer of neighborhoods you notice that the plots seem to be fairly random and on no distinguishable grid. You don’t see rows of homes or streets, you see houses and yards scattered about in no particular line or order. We have also heard a lot about the traditional “queenslander” style home which has a very deep south feel to me. They tend to have intricate woodwork around doors and windows, wrap around porches, and often have tin roofs.

Apparently one of the biggest downfalls of this traditional style is the frequent infestation of opossums. Yep, you read that right. Apparently, they walk along the power lines into the tin roofs and attics of these houses and scurry about at night. Now consider the sound dynamics of a tin roof – it magnifies and echoes sound throughout the entire house. So a small rodent scurrying through at night (they are nocturnal after all) sounds like rapid fire weapons attacking the home. 

Finally layered on top of the beautiful architecture, you have the natural features. The river for one is a lovely site that the city seems to be purposely built around. Each neighborhood is lined along it and has its own view and park along it. Generally on each bank you will find cafes, restaurants, shops, and parks. Throughout the city you have an array of tropical plants-palms, palm trees, fig trees. The most distinctive of this spring season is the jacaranda – a bright purple tree that is everywhere. Apparently, as the seasons change equally colorful red trees take over the city in summer, followed by yellow trees in the fall.

Peculiarities

Random Sculptures—throughout the city there seem to be randomly placed sculptures with no apparent them or explanation. They just pop up in front of you as you explore the city.

Sugar free—the city seems to be particularly health conscious with gluten free, vegetarian, and vegan options labeled on most menus. There also appears to be a lot of nonfat/low fat and soy options. But oddly, very little comes in a sugar free variety. Splenda is also hard to find. Likely this is due to high import taxes and the fact that sugar cane grows naturally here and is readily available.           

To City—As you travel along the highways here you will notice signs directing you to “City.” They don’t mention which city, they just assume you know where you are going. So if you travel to Oz, be sure to get a navigation system.

Things I Miss

Unlimited Internet – You pay by your usage here. And it goes fast. After 4 days of only using it at night to write emails and Skype, we exceed our allotted 1500 MB, which cost $40. So we may not be online as much as we used to L            

Phrase-ology

Partner – there is no reference to boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife. Your significant other is referred to as your partner across the board.

            Made Redundant—let go/laid off

Pot-Scooner-Pint—these are the three sizes of beer and they change depending on which city you are in. In Brisbane, you can order a pot of Gold and receive a small XXXX Gold (pronounced Four-Ex) beer which is brewed locally.

            GFC—Global Financial Crisis. It comes up a lot in everyday conversation so they have taken  
            to abbreviating it.

The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

On Saturday we decided to do some good old fashion site seeing. Armed with a fistful of tourist brochures from the hotel, we ventured to coffee and a breakfast pie – a surprisingly delicious mini pot pie of sorts filled any and everything and topped with mashed potatoes, gravy, and smashed peas- at Pie Face.  We initially were going to go beer tasting at a local brewery but sadly they were all booked so we moved on to our other top option—The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary—Boasting 130 Koalas and unique experience.

I have to say that it was one of the coolest things that I have ever done and will definitely be dragging all of my visitors to experience it. I am already looking into an annual membership.

 

 

Birds

When you first walk in you are immediately greeted by free flying lorikeets and various parrot-ish bright colored birds. They are no enclosed in anyway but I suppose hang around for the free food. They were not at all disturbed by our presence and were more than happy to pose for a few photos. Throughout the sanctuary, there were all sorts of Aussie birds – most of which I cant recall the name of so I will just post cute pictures.

Kangaroos

The next stop was the Kangaroo field. That’s right, its exactly what it sounds like, a very large field of Kangaroos. And you get to walk amongst them, feed them and pet them. They are enclosed but in a very large space. Much like the lorikeets, they did not mind us in the least. The ones that were ready to nosh actually approached us hoping to be fed. Kangaroos are funny funny creatures. When they are not in a hurry, they walk on four legs –leaning forward quite a but to put their little arms down and move themselves forward. Think of an old 90 year old man hunged over with a cane and you’ve got it. And they move at a similar pace. However, when they have somewhere to be (aka when someone drops a feed bag and they sense a large food supply) they hop which is a quite agile and speedy movement –much more graceful and athletic. But perhaps the most surprising behavior was their proclivity to lounge like, well, like we do. The lay down on their sides, legs long, and prop up on their elbows as if they were posing from some seductive boudoir photo. Its hilarious. And when feeling particularly secure, one will roll on its back, all four legs up in the air as if playing dead. They’ll stay like that for a minute or two and then return to the aforementioned lounge position.

Wallabies

Wallabies are like mini kangaroos – shorter in stature and narrower in build. They also have different color markings. To be completely honest, we didn’t even know it was a wallaby that we were meeting until well after – I just assumed it was a baby or special kind of kangaroo. It was not. So my apologies go out to the wallaby kind for mistaking them. They were cute but way less personable than the Roos. In fact they were quite shy and seemed fairly anxious.

Wombats

All I want for Christmas is a Wombat. So I have to say, before I came here I declared that I wanted a pet wombat. I showed people pictures and met lots of skepticism when I tried to convince everyone that they are cute loveable animals and not overgrown rodents. Admittedly, they look like a smaller version of that forest monster rodent in the Princess Bride but in an incredibly cute way. Both Lisa and I melted at the site of them. They look friendly and innocent and you just have this urge to give them a huge hug. They are about the size in width/girth of a small pig and the height of a small-medium sized dog. Sadly, you could not pet the wombat at Lone Pine. But I am not giving up my quest to adopt one. And after meeting them, there is no way I could eat one.

Koalas

They weren’t kidding –there were LOTS of Koalas-at least 130. They were organized into little Koala huts out in the open with small rails keeping you from climbing in and taking one home –foiled again!  The huts grouped like koalas together- there was the Kindergarten Koalas, the Girls Club, the Boys Club, The Bachelor Pad, The Brides to Be, The mums and bubs, the Retirement Home, and probably several more that I am forgetting.

 Some were sleeping, some were climbing, some were playing and others were voraciously eating.

They were adorable, slow moving, laid back creatures who seemed not to have a care in the world. 

And the best part…wait for it…you can hold one! They rotate a small group of the koalas with the best temperament into the holding line. They weigh about what you would expect a child of that size to weigh, they grip you tightly so they don’t fall and they just sit, content in your arms. Their fir looks like it would feel wooly but they were actually quite soft – their fir really felt like a stuffed animal. We didn’t buy the commemorative photo this time but stay tuned for a future one.

Tasmanian Devils

These guys were just as cute as I expected them to be. They were a little bigger than expected – about the size of a small dog. They seemed sleepy and didn’t do a whole lot but were still worth seeing.

 

 

 

Dingos

All you dog lovers out there be prepared. These pups are gorgeous! They have a regal feel about them while still being raw and strong  - they were somewhere between a German Shepherd and the wolves from that old Kevin Costner movie. GORGEOUS.  I want one. It will just have to live in a different room than my wombat because it is apparently true that they hunt and eat anything – small mammals, bats, any animal smaller than it, small children. Yup. But I still plan to tame one.

Fox Bats

We almost skipped the bats all together. I have never been a fan of bats and it was the last thing on the way out, but I am so glad I didn’t. These guys are adorable.  Picture a fox shrunk down to the size of a kitten with wings. They come in black, grey, and red and are very furry—surprisingly loveable. I couldn’t get a good picture of one so I found one online.

There were endless amounts of fascinating new creatures to meet and in the excitement of it all, I have to admit that I don’t remember them all. To them, I apologize. 

Now that you have met all of my new friends, you have a little insight into the adventure you will experience when you come visit! Lone Pine will definitely be on the must see list.