garden | fedOZsenko

I rose before the sun, at 3AM. What was meant as an afternoon nap turned into a 12 hour sleep. Chris rose at 4AM. We drank hot lemon water and ate raisin spelt toast, waiting for the city to wake up and let us into the hotel gym. I cycled while listening to Girl Talk, a familiar exercise soundtrack. It felt good to move and sweat after days of sitting and waiting.

The day was punctuated with delectable meals. First yogurt, muesli, honey and strawberries. Second avocado & tomato plus Camembert & pear on olive bread. Third teriyaki Tasmanian salmon, garlic potato mash, corn, and apple & tomato over greens. The fare was bought from the Wednesday farmer’s market and Woolworths, which we visited for the second time this morning to browse the aisles with ease and attention. I was happy to see a large Dutch import section, complete with stroopwaffles and Speculaas cookies, even King mints!

So far we’ve found that Brisbane is full of attractive looking business people, tasty food and beautiful greenery but completely lacks free Wi-Fi. Our hotel charged us through the nose for our two hours of access this morning. Starbucks charges $3 an hour. To avoid ridiculous charges, we promptly visited Dick Smith’s, Australia’s version of Radioshack. Now that we’re equipped with Virgin USB internet access and power converters, we’re back on the interwebs to a) keep in touch and b) get all our Australian ducks in a row. By ‘ducks’, I mean registering for Tax File Numbers, Medicare, Bank Accounts and so much more.

Taking a break from business, we visited the City Botanical Gardens where we marveled at giant Fig, Palm and Mahogany trees, not to mention the flowers, birds, iguanas and a huge outdoor stage which hosted sound-check for the Aussie band ‘The Wombats’. I’m looking forward to returning to the Gardens to run and cycle.

Walking back to Oak Charlotte Towers, our hotel, we made a serendipitous visit to Folio bookstore. Chris picked up The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery and In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka. I picked up The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera and Emma by Jane Austen. I wrote down quite a few titles to return for, including:

Make Hey! While the Sun Shines by Pip Lincolne
Creative Walls by Geraldine James
The French Cat by Rachael McKenna
Nano House by Phyllis Richardson
The LIBERTY Book of Home Sewing
It’s Lonely in the Modern World
Unfolded by Peter Schmidt and Nicola Stattmann
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
The writing of Sylvia Plath
The writing of Haruki Murakami

Lucky for us, the rain came while we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in our suite. The weather shifted from shorts and tank top worthy to my current attire of leggings and a sweatshirt. No more balcony lounging today. It’s time to crack open our new books and drink cups of ‘Bushells’ Australian tea.