Busy in Brisbane

Last weekend, my dearest and I headed to Brisbane, Queensland to attend the wedding of one of his friends.  It was my first time in Brisbane, and his first visit since he attended the World's Fair there in 1988. We had a great time.  Even on our quick, focused visit, we had a fantastic time.

We flew from Melbourne on Friday.  My dearest, always a little boy in airports, had a great time taking pictures from the Melbourne airport.

After an uneventful flight on Qantas' low-cost/no-frills airline, JetStar, we landed in Brisbane just in time for Friday evening rush hour.  (My one comment to JetStar -- it would be nice if I did not have to pay for beverages.  Free water would not seriously eat into your bottom line.)  Our hotel was in a suburb of Toowong and we assumed that it would be no problem to get a cab from the airport to the hotel.  That was a mistake.  I have the worst luck with taxi drivers.  I can never seem to get one who knows where he is going; it usually end up that I have to direct them.  We should have suspected something when the driver asked us which way did we want to go to the hotel.  I should have suspected more when he finally programmed the address into the GPS console and did not follow the blue arrow marking the path to the hotel.  By the time the cabbie stopped and called for directions, doubled back to the airport and began again, we knew we were in for an interesting ride.  More than half an hour and over $60 later, we had the cabbie drop us at the bottom of the hill, close enough to walk the rest of the way to the hotel.  It was to the point that we were ready to give it up, have him drop us anywhere, just to be out of the car.  Friday nights in Brisbane are not the best for being trapped in an over-warm taxi with a driver who has no idea where he is going.  After that adventure, checking in was a breeze.

We had an explore of the room, a quick rest, and then we headed out to find dinner.  Finding dinner is always an adventure with us.  We usually walk to the restaurant area, make two or three circles of the blocks and discuss the merits of each place we pass.  We ask each other what we feel like eating, and then usually agree to get something that is in no way related to what either of us declared we wanted.  After our usually discussion, we finally agreed to test out the Sizzler we found across the street from a rather interesting looking pub -- it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a working man's watering hole or an upscale wine bar.  And since we couldn't decide which of those we were, we decided Sizzler was just the place for us.  The meal was straight out of middle America, complete with free drink refills and an all-you-can-eat salad/soup/dessert bar-- I had steak and fried shrimp with mashed potatoes; my dearest had chicken cordon bleu without the ham and french fries.  Following trips to the dessert bar for ice cream with sprinkles, we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.