The Latest from Down Under

Wow, hard to believe it's already been a month since my last post. I'm sorry but if you want to know what the past month has been like then you just have to reread the last post below... Honestly, there hasn't been much change and the days are a blur. Every time I think about doing my journal, I open it to find I'm a week or so behind. Catching up isn't hard as the entries go something along the lines of "I'm still alive but in a zombie-like state waiting for something to happen."
It's now been over 2 months in Brisbane doing very little. I have had some near misses on some jobs and the best I've done is maintained a state of poor-man's equilibrium doing the night reception job, winning the weekly pub quiz to get my free steak and just hanging around.
I still meet up with Ben as regularly as his schedule allows. The most interesting thing I've done in Brisbane was the other weekend when Ben and I went to an Into Africa festival that was part of the bigger Brisbane festival which I'd mentioned last time with the fireworks. I can't believe it's already been 2 years since Africa and Ben and I were looking forward to having another taste, literally! It was raining (we've been having an uncharacteristically wet few weeks lately) and therefore not on a big scale, but they had some African food in the food tent. Some of the horrors that come to mind when I think of African food could not be served in Australia but they did have Ethiopian injera (which is really good, but better in Ethiopia), a Moroccan chef and, shock of all shocking flashbacks of the day, the weird green stuff (potato-leaf based) we were eating in Liberia in the, surprise surprise, Liberian food section. I couldn't bring myself to eat it again and stuck with the injera but I did have a good laugh out loud when I saw it. They also had some live African music which brought tears to my eyes as I realized that after 2 years I'm ready to go back and do some more travelling over there. So many place to visit in only one lifetime and here I am wasting my days in Brisbane....
Ok, so here's the deal. I am going farming again starting next week. That will make me even more out of the loop than I have been lately but will get me earning some money again. I've already started on some plans for next year, some of which involve going to a wedding (not mine, heaven forbid...then again, you never know...) but all of which involve new countries to visit so there is still hope for me in the long run.
It has been an uncharacteristically wet spring thus far in Brisbane (the wettest in a decade at least) which has delayed my going farming. The good thing about here is that even though it's raining you can still run around in sandals and shorts if you really wanted because it's still at least 20C during the day. Not that I am wearing shorts yet, but I am getting a little more acclimatized than I was in the beginning though I'm arguably still the biggest cold temperature wimp in the hostel. I'll leave this post with a handful of photos from around central Brisbane.











Marcus, John and I, the core pub quiz team are in the last photo. They both left last Sunday so there is even less for me to do now. Please farming, come to me now...
Ammon