1:30 am Washington, DC // 5:30pm Brisbane
February 18, 2005

Spring Hill Gardens apartments
Spring Hill, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Dear Everyone!

Good morning and hello from paradise! I am so tired from the past four days of traveling that I fear this may not be entirely coherent, but I shall do my best.

Right now I am sitting on the balcony that is attached to our new living room. We are on the second floor and overlook a small garden with a variety of palm trees, fronds, and other tropical climate flora. The past day I have greatly wished I had a large botany background, as I am at a loss for nearly every name of every plant I have seen. Hopefully I\’ll learn soon, as it\’s a bit maddening (to me, at least) to be surrounded by plants with no knowledge of them whatsoever. Okay, skipping the botanicals for a while…

Our flights went well. We flew out of Dulles (Virginia) at 5:55pm Tuesday and arrived in LAX about five hours later. After boarding the next plane in L.A., we sat on the runway for about an hour as some passengers had decided not to board the plane, and their luggage therefore had to be removed from the containers below. This caused our fourteen hour flight to Sydney, Australia, to be delayed, which of course meant that we missed our flight to Brisbane. (Stupid University of Queensland travel office as they could have booked us straight to Brisbane,but somehow failed to.) We flew standby on the next Brisbane flight, which of course meant that our luggage did not come with us. It was delivered at 7:30pm that night, which was Thursday. This meant that we spent an inordinate amount of time being incredibly stinky and thus, cranky. The privilege of class, or perhaps, the burden of social skills in a post-development country, means that when we are cognizant of smelling bad, we hesitate to mingle with other people of similar backgrounds for fear of insulting them with our noxious odor. Funny how sweat has become such social anathema to those in the Western world with money. But again, I digress.

After landing at the Brisbane airport, Will\’s boss picked us up and drove us to the hostel in downtown Brisbane, which is referred to as the CBD (Central Business District). Like any hostel, the place was overrun with students, hippies, and the occasional older European traveler. The hostel has been open in the same building for a long time – not sure how long, but at least fifty years. The building dates back much further, possibly to the 1930s or earlier. While the indoors has mostly been renovated (now featuring such luxuries as electricity and indoor plumbing!), the exterior remains the same. I\’ll have pictures when I have real internet access. For the time being, think of one of those nice New Orleans style buildings from the turn of the twentieth century; the type with turrets, molding, wire accented but non-functional balconies, picture windows, etc. I forget exactly what the architectural style is, but it\’s rather Parisian with a warm climate twist.

I should note that Will hated the hostel. It is very quaint, and of course, very “hostel” in nature (quoting Will: should it be called hostel or hostile?), which means lower standards than what we\’re used to. It\’s not truly so bad, but it wasn\’t very relaxing after 30+ hours of travel. Our room was on the fifth floor. The vintage lift (elevator) is the kind with the heavy folding doors that must be manually opened and closed. The lift only runs to the fourth floor, and past that one must walk another flight of steps. The ground through fourth floors (including the bar in the basement) are air conditioned, but once walking up from the fourth to fifth floors, it is most decidedly not air conditioned in the least. In fact, access to the rooms on the fifth floor requires stepping out the door onto the roof deck, crossing the length of the building, and then entering an outdoor hallway (much like a motel with outdoor room access). These bedrooms are cooled only by the high powered ceiling fans. Not so bad, however, there was no lock on the window, so in order to get a cross breeze one had to expose one\’s belongings to the high potential (the rooms come with very explicit warnings) of a thief climbing in the windows from the fourth floor. Not good. Oh, and to get to the bathroom on the fifth floor, you have to exit the hallway where the rooms are, cross to the other side of the roof, climb a set of steps which are built over part of the building cooling unit, and then step down into a unisex bathroom. Two toilets, two showers, and two sinks for the approx. eighteen people lodged on that floor.

Given the above, Will started literally hitting the pavement (he has yet to apologize) to find an apartment. The rental market here moves very fast with most prime units being gone in a matter of hours, which means the management agencies rarely return phone calls and almost never return e-mails. If you\’re not there in person, you can forget about it. After looking at many places (I forget how many, exactly, but upward of six), we found the place we are in now. It\’s to be a temporary home as it is a bit out of our price range for a long term stay, but as the lease is by week, it is a perfect new home until we are able to move into a longer term place. (The ones we are looking at become available March 1 and 2).

The place we are in now is fantastically nice. It\’s a garden apartment on the second floor. The garden is more like a well managed hydroponic rain forest. All the foliage is native, and it is just green, green, everywhere! We\’re surrounded by palm trees. The window in our shower gives us a lovely view of the southern sky, blue and slightly dotted with clouds, and framed by enormous palm fronds. Our bathroom is in the upstairs of our apartment; the bedroom next to the bathroom has its own wee balcony with a breath taking view. Downstairs is the equipped kitchen (the rental includes everything including cutlery and an electric kettle), living room/dining room combo (with a dining table, imagine!), and the large balcony. The balcony here off the living room has full wooden slatted shutters if we want to close up for privacy; otherwise it has a lovely view up the hill to the Spring Hill neighborhood. There\’s no gym at this complex, but there is a lap pool with covered shade – and no life guard, which makes me deliriously happy, as it means we can use the pool with no one staring at our every move (very uncomfortable).

This is very much like being on an extended working vacation. The luxury of the apartment, which is located in a fantastic neighborhood – slightly post-artsy-fartsy by about ten years, perhaps, less than a block to a shopping center with a grocery store. By the way, Mom will be interested to know that the grocery store is a Woolworth\’s, and I think it is apart of the old American chain by the same name. (There\’s also a Target in the center of downtown, and this thing called McCafé, but I\’ll get into that all another time.) Right outside of the gates to our apartment building is the Brisbane School of Photography and Art. Around the corner is a scooter shop (we\’re eying a Mia – I want the pink or red one and Will of course wants the black or grey one), some bars, some shops, some doctors… good stuff. It\’s not noisy here and I\’ve seen no evidence of crime: no bars on windows, no crazy security cameras, no litter, no broken windows or abandoned buildings. It reminds me a lot of Greenwich Village but with a southern climate.

The climate, by the way, is incredible. It\’s summer here, of course, and February is the hottest month. It\’s also the rainy season but we have been here a little over 24 hours and it hasn\’t as yet rained a drop. The temperature is around 30 Celsius during the day; I\’m not sure what that is in Fahrenheit as I\’m poor with conversions, but I think it\’s around 80. It feels like DC in summer, or Florida in the spring, but with no humidity. No humidity whatsoever. It\’s very pleasant. High atmospheric ceilings, clear skies – no visible air pollution at all, no smog. I\’m amazed, truly amazed, that here it is in the height of summer and the sky is a vivid blue instead of a dull grey.

Oh, as a quick aside – not sure where else in this letter to put this – I saw my first live Australian animal yesterday: a kiwi. I was excited. It\’s a fairly large bird with a long curved beak; this particular one was dull in color, a sort of off-white, so my guess is that it was female. It was simply walking up the middle of Ann St (a fairly busy street downtown), acting like it owned the place. No one paid it a bit of attention. Seems as ordinary here as a pigeon to us Northeasterners. Thing is, apparently the kiwi birds can get quite aggressive. When there are a lot of them about, people dining alfresco are in a very real danger of losing their meals straight off their plates. Apparently they\’re scavengers, though I\’m not sure what their diet would be like in the wild. (Another side note: despite walking through downtown yesterday and passing the river front and garbage bins, I did not see a single rat. Not one. They must be here somewhere, but things are very clean and tidy here, so I\’m not sure where I\’ll find one. We have, however, seen bats, which are enormous and squeak a great deal.)

I\’m tired. The laptop is hot and my brain feels as fried as eggs. More later on architecture, food shopping, public transport, Australian toilets, and teaching Will how to use the dishwasher.

8:18pm Washington, DC // 12:18pm Brisbane
February 25, 2005 (still Feb 24th in DC!)

Frisco Apartments
Spring Hill, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Well, as you can tell by the header, we have moved into our new apartment already. I haven\’t written in over a week, and you can blame that on the thorough exhaustion. Not just the jet lag, but also walking about in the heat and sun, plus all the hard work I have been doing (don\’t ask). Will seems to have acclimated to the time difference, but I\’m not sure yet if I have or not. I wake up around 6-7am (the sun comes up at 5!), get out of bed and start my day, and if I don\’t take an afternoon nap I am exhausted by 4pm. By 6pm I feel like it\’s hours past my bedtime. Thing is, I\’m the same way at home, and just like at home, if I get 2-3 hours of napping in the day then I\’m basically good to go until 11pm or so, sometimes even later. Guess that\’s just the way I\’m built, versus actual jet lag.

Anyway, about the new apartment! We are literally across the street and a few buildings down from the garden apartments we were in before. The one we are in now is the one we will be spending the next six months in. It\’s a mid-rise, and we are on the top floor (the 10th) in a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment with a balcony that is quite literally large enough to hold a yoga class on without moving the six-person dining room table in chairs. It\’s huuuuuuge. It also has a lovely northern view; we can see all the way out to Moreton Bay as well as Mt. Coot-ha (yes, that is its real name, and yes, it is a mountain, but sort of like the Maryland Appalachians are mountains – very small and worn down, and very ancient, but more on that later) to the west. In between there are the rolling hills of some of Brisbane\’s suburbs. It is not as nice of a view as some of the other places we looked at, but the floor plan is much larger and we really like the neighborhood.

On our first night in the temporary apartment across the street, we discovered a neighborhood essential – the local bar. It\’s just a brief walk up the road. There\’s actually a few up there, but this one is close to our hearts already. It dates from the early 20th Century and has many of the older fixtures still in use. The top floor of the building is a hotel and the bottom three floors are devoted to theater, performances, bands, djs, dancing, art exhibits, karaoke (all depending on the night, of course), and drinkin\’ and eatin\’. True to form, the back of the bar is a restaurant where you can get nearly every meal served with chips (french fries). They\’re not as good (in my opinion) as the chips in Britain, but then, I\’m partially to brown sauce and not mayonnaise as my dipping sauce! Will had rump steak there two nights running — $8 for a delicious, tender, juicy steak! — and I had a delicious bowl of steamed vegetables and something else I don\’t recall. Anyway, the food there is cheap, the drinks there are cheap (and decidedly Australian, for the most part), but above all the best part is the people. It\’s very much like stumbling onto the Isle of Misfit toys, which is, of course, what we look for in an evening hang out locale. From the young punks bartending to the business men who drop by on their way home in the suburbs and all the way to the older clientèle who look like they have lived in their neighborhood since it took off 80 years ago, these people are all weird. Really, they\’re odd. Everyone mingles despite age, work, education, economic, or racial. Each person is very friendly, and though voices are raised it is always good natured, unlike a lot of the bars closer downtown, where the rowdy drinking culture is prevalent.

What to tell you about next? I have been mentally composing letters over the past week but have generally been too tired to write them. Now that I\’m writing, I can\’t decide where to start. How about back to the view from the apartment, and then on to the building? Okay, good plan.

Our view is quite interesting. Up here from the 10th floor you can see the airplanes as they all come in for their landings up at Brisbane international airport, which is about 15 minutes to the north of us by car. I haven\’t seen any take offs, yet, but just watching the landings makes this place feel very much like home, as at our apartment in DC we can see the flight paths into National airport. Also like in DC, up here on our balcony we can see the multitude of cranes scattered throughout the city. Brisbane, much like DC, is currently going through an economic boom. “Downtown” is the place to be, and like downtowns throughout the industrialized world, young people are flocking in and settling down in droves. This is radically changing housing values, product availability, entertainment options, public transport, congestion, and more. Despite all that, Brisbane is still considered by Australians to be the “most livable city” in Australia, as well as the cheapest city. At 4 million people, the population is smaller than Sydney and Melbourne, but unlike those cities the economy here is booming. Sydney may still be the culture capital of Oz, but there is still massive amounts of great offerings in Brizzy (alternately also known as Brisbane, Brisvegas, Brisdisney, and Briz.) Oh yes, and it is pronounced “Brizbin” or “Brizbuhn,” not “Brizbane” the way Americans say it. “Queensland” is also pronounced with better enunciation; “Queen\’s land” instead of “Queenslind” as the Americans say.

Getting acclimated to the Australian accent has been fun. My impressionable ears have been hijacked, and if I am speaking directly to an Australian or have just heard one on the television, the next words out of my mouth immediately come out with a pseudo-Australian accent. Sounds the same as my British accent except it\’s spoken faster and has the Australian lingo. I\’ve already caught myself saying “g\’day,” and “mate” a few times; Will keeps saying “no worries,” which I\’ve heard used frequently in British culture but it seems to be much more prevalent here. In terms of language it is very Queen\’s English, including the current UK slang. It is, however, spoken faster – almost like a hum in some instances – and locals trail their voices upward toward the end of most sentences. This was a habit my mother tried very hard to break both my sister and I of when we were younger. My teachers played a large role in that, too. If I recall my sociology, in American society the upward trailing, which is generally indicative of a question or an inquisitive statement, is considered to be a sign of low self-esteem, particularly in the people most guilty of it in the states – young women. The raising at the end of the voice indicates a non-declarative sentence, and as such, in US society, when one speaks in that manner, it is generally accepted as a thought that is looking for acceptance or assurance. For example, someone may say, “I thought the Steelers were going to make it the Super Bowl this year.” If the voice carries an even canter, it is very much a solid opinion and a statement. However, if one\’s voice is slowly raised throughout the sentence, it becomes inquisitive even though it is a personal opinion being expressed; “I thought the Steelers were going to make it to the Super Bowl this year?” It becomes a question looking for an answer of some sort, whether that be agreement, assurance, or what have you. Follow? The difference here with the Australian way of speaking is that the trailing up of the tone of voice is not in any way associated with a question or a wavering opinion. It is instead considered to be an attitude of an easygoing approach. For example, the statement, “Have a good day then, and thank you for choosing us!” is spoken with the voice raising into a higher pitch toward the end. Definitely not a question, though to the uninformed American ears, no one is sure of anything around here!

Mattie specifically asked me how Americanized it is here, so I\’ll try to give it a bit of a rundown. (I have deviated from the idea of describe the view and then the apartment, I know, but I\’ve never been good with outlines and have always been better at with my spacey train of thought. Oh well.) Television here is positively saturated with American programming. Other than the news, reality shows, and everyone\’s favorite serial, \’Neighbours,\’ there is very little Australian programming on the basic five networks. A large percentage of it is British shows such as \’Little Britain\’ and \’Shameless\’ (which Will has shamefully fallen for), and nearly the rest of it is American shows. \’Joey\’ (about the guy from \’Friends,\’ not about a kangaroo, unfortunately) is currently the most popular show here on television. All the crime dramas such as CSI, Law and Order, Medium, uh… and like, six others, are also shown here. Lots of bad American sitcoms and reality television such as “American Idol,” which is weird (why does Australia care about \’American Idol?\’ can\’t they get their own?). Australia does have their own version of \’Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,\’ \’My Restaurant,\’ and the general home makeover shows. Um. And they have a LOT more commercial breaks here. We haven\’t been watching that much tv, but with the complete saturation of ads in the breaks (and all five networks break at once), we suddenly know a lot about Australian television programming.

As for movies and music, American offerings still dominate that category, though there are a lot of British, Bollywood, French, Italian, and various Asian selections as well. American movies are released months later here; on average I would say two to three months for most. \’Hotel Rwanda\’ starts here today, finally, whereas a 2004 Scottish movie, \’Young Adam,\’ that had already come out on DVD in the States and had been released to UK theaters in early 2004, is only being released to the screens here next month. Pop culture here in general seems to be big among the general populous, much like it is in other industrialized nations. I guess when you stop feeling like your job is interesting or matters, you start getting involved in following the lives of people who seem to have much more fun. In terms of music, the dominate genre in the clubs seems to be house and hip hop, just like… everywhere else in the world. There are, however, an astounding amount of small clubs here that have live bands every night. Some of the listings I have seen include live dub, funk, rock, punk, jazz, live sound mixing, acoustic, etc. For you young music geeks, some of the offerings here in Brisbane for February through March include: Holly Go-Lightly, Pan Sonic, Trans Am, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Tiger Army, Moving Units, Bright Eyes, The Black Keys, Mark Knopfler, Violent Femmes, The Jennys, The Dears, The Boat People, Gazoonga Attack (the new incarnation), Y Pants (original line up), the Doors 21st Century with Ian Asturbury on vocals (ew), Lampchop, Death from 1979, Luka Bloom, Gomez, Chicks on Speed, Black Dice, Sunn O))), Gang Gang Dance, Kevin Drumm, Sir Richard Bishop, OOIOO, Dead C, Damo Suzuki (ex-Can) with David Shea, and Neil Diamond. There were also a whole lot of shows the week before I got here that I wanted to see, but I don\’t recall offhand what most of them were. Oh, and none of this includes the annual Big Day Out lineup.

There are also other American influences. For example, thanks to the lovely Prime Minister John Howard, who is now in his fourth elected term as head of state (actually, technically Queen Elizabeth is the head of state, but she\’s sovereign and has no real power, whereas the Prime Minister is more or less like the President), Australia is the only major country besides America to not ratify the Kyoto agreement. Howard\’s direct statement about that was “Australia doesn\’t need to do it, it will ruin our country.” Considering the outback managed to disappear for unknown reasons in the last century, the Great Barrier Reef is dying out, Tasmanian devils are facing the very real danger of extinction in the next ten years, rising water and air pollution problems, and the continual drought (something like five years and running) problems here, he\’s right – environmental measures will indeed ruin the country, particularly if something is not done to save the country from the environment! Skin cancer is the number one killer here, and as the ozone deteriorates, that rate is only rising. But Australia basically follows America in all things. Just this week, following the US\’s lead, Oz sent more troops to Iraq. The majority of Australians supported that action, but only by about as many of Americans voted for Bush (the first and second times). Barely half.

Here in Australia, the history of war time is a proud one. Australians are particularly proud of their role in WWI. In terms of ratio (I read this in a newspaper here in the past week, but of course, I can\’t find the actual paper to five you the precise quote, nor do I have internet access at the moment to cross check, so bear with me, please), Australians lost more people in WWI than any other nation other than Germany. In WWII Sydney, Australia, was bombed by Japan, resulting in the loss of a lot of people and industry; this prompted the Oz entry into the war. The Anzac battle is still something commonly referred to here, and there are memorials named after it in every city. Here in Brisbane, there\’s even a shopping mall named after it. Personally, that turns my stomach. Australia also contributed a lot of soldiers to Vietnam, Iraq (the first and second time), East Timor, and I don\’t recall how many other places. Bosnia, too.

If my memory serves, according to the article an act of war has not taken place on Australian territory since the Sydney harbor bombing in WWII, and yet Australia has joined nearly every pro-Western armed movement since. Sociologically there are many reasons for this, but two of the main ones seem to be the following:

· Australian citizens, on the whole, enjoy their personal freedom but believe in following the rules, mores, orders, etc. Military academies have large voluntary enrollments. It is very weird to me; as a society that prides itself on being descended from convicts, individuals will not do something as trite as jay walk against a traffic light when there is literally not a vehicle in sight for well over a kilometer. They really like rules and order. Also, the stereotype of police here is one of violence – not nearly as bad as Indonesia, granted, but it is not uncommon here to catch on video police physically assaulting unarmed and non-violent people. So the authority seems to go to their heads easily, plus, there do not seem to be harsh penalties for such behavior for the police, nor for commoners. There is not the rate of gun violence here like there is in the US, but violent crime and assaults in the form of beating is common, and for the most part, the jail time is not nearly as harsh as in the US.

· Australia\’s government and people still seem to feel the historical alliance with “the West,” though the face of that alliance is changing. Despite being a former British colony and despite the majority of the population having voted less than ten years ago to not declare Australia an independent state and to instead continue to have the Queen of England as a monarch, Australia no longer makes the majority of its international decisions based on Britain\’s decisions. Instead, Australia is aligning more and more with the US. This is due to the vast amount of trade done between the two countries. (The US-Oz have a free trade agreement.) Despite the cultural imports, little trade is done between the UK and Australia, and almost none in comparison with the rest of Europe. As the UK aligns itself more with the US (even while making arrangements with the EU to be part of one Europe while still retaining the UK pound, which is RIDICULOUS), it occasionally sides with the EU on some things instead of the US, such as the EU sponsored Kyoto agreement. Australia, on the other hand, often goes against the UK in order to support US plans. Even with the continuing UK-Australia connection of government, the Australian economy is much more linked to the US economy. If the US economy tanks, Australia will face a recession or depression as well. Australia, more so than any other country, it would seem, is heavily reliant upon the US. I find that to be incredibly disturbing as Australia easily has enough land, financial, and people resources to be much more economically independent. The natural resources here, despite the drought, are overabundant. Food, water, and land plentiful. Education excellent. High skills among workers. Good social security programs. If you take the history out of the equation, I just don\’t understand why Australia can\’t let go of the US.

Now that I have probably angered more than a few people with my obnoxiously liberal point of views, I\’ll discuss something a little more neutral, like the household. The only person this will anger is Will, and that\’s his own fault for being A Typical Americanâ„¢. The first thing that threw Will off is the “funny money” (his words, but I recall those being exactly my words when I first saw Scottish and British currency eight years ago). The system here is dollars and cents, but as in many other places, there is no paper currency for “1” ($1 in this case). There is a $1 coin and a $2 coin, but Will thinks that\’s ludicrous. (I\’m sure he\’ll change his mind when he sees how much easier it makes many things, such as bus fares and train rides.) He was appalled to find there is no “quarter” piece, and that there is, instead, a 20¢ piece and a 50¢ piece. Instead of going into detail and getting his ire up, here\’s a brief list of things whose technology differs than the US equivalent, and as a result, has caused a Dr. Will Outburst of Impatienceâ„¢: phone numbers, walking and driving on the left hand side, left drive vehicles, electrical sockets and the power plugs that fit, power converters, stove tops (an enormous point of contention), lack of dryer sheets (gels, not sheets), having to dilute cleaning products at home, chips served with every meal (not technological, but still a point of contention), television is broadcast in HDTV which we don\’t have so all the pictures are cut off on the ends, salt water pools, Olympic size lap pools instead of “proper swimming pools,” no air conditioning in most places, ceiling fans in most residences instead of air conditioning, smaller dishwashers with symbols instead of words on the controls (“What does squiggly mean? What does the other squiggly mean?”)… he\’s transitioning, of course. Things he does like: remote controls for the fans and air conditioning where available, smaller refrigerators and freezers, much smaller dishwashers, more produce, fresher food, cheaper food, smaller cars, heavy water pressure, strong disposals, and his new mobile phone. Things he doesn\’t like: all the shops close early like in Europe and there aren\’t enough train or bus lines. Things I don\’t like: the diesel exhaust on all the cars.
Random bits: there are no ads for prescription medication on television (yet, at least). We are free from Viagra! The apartments here are really quite modern and relatively cheap. The weather is spectacular. People are very laid back and friendly. Toilets do not flush counter-clockwise; they are all smart water toilets with two buttons, and they spray water straight down the toilet instead of swirling it – use caution, or you might get splashed. The grocery stores have a huge selection of fresh food, much of which I had never heard of before. For packaged goods they have a lot of British products, but no Tizer or brown sauce, and of course it is too much to ask for that wonder of all nasties, Irn Bru. I have not actually seen anyone buying or eating Vegemite yet, but I hear it is done on the sly. We bought “cheerios” from the deli at the grocery store last night; not the breakfast cereal, but little links of mystery meat that were quite like hot dogs