Home from Home.

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I knew Australia would be good as soon as I was handed a menu onboard our Qantas flight. Great food, comfortable seats, a near empty plane and good movies made our flight to Australia the best yet. Our accomodation for the first two nights was sorted thanks to Oli's cousin Amy. Her hospitality and mothering made us feel right at home and eased us into yet another time zone change. We were given fresh croissants and juice in the morning as we woke to another sunny day in Sydney.

Amy drove us to Bondi beach once we had risen from our crypts and the sea was clean and the sand white. We explored the local area and then took the bus into Sydney city centre. The city was vast and was a shock for our wallets to tell the truth. Prices are cheaper in London by quite some way. We had a good look around before heading down to the Syndey Opera house and the Harbour Bridge. We were all extremely impressed by both attractions as we admired from a distance. It was surreal seeing some of the most famous photo opportunities after 1 day in Sydney and there was a lot to take in. However, we didn't dwell on them as we knew we are returning to Sydney for a week before our flight. We ate out and bought Amy some flowers and wine to show our appreciation for all that she has done. My knowledge of the appropriate flowers for the occassion helped by Mum's floristry skills and wine from Dad's ability to consume wine (please don't hurt me when I return Dad)! She thanked us and refused to accept we had already eaten and we were fed again.

In the morning, Amy once again prepared a great breakfast for us and then took us to the airport, she's certainly getting a good review on Expedia.com! Weary of flying we boarded our flight from Sydney to Brisbane.

We arrived in Brisbane about 4pm and Oli's friend Amy Porter (confusing I know) gave us a lift to our hostel in the city centre. The hostel was clean and pretty much what we expected, although slightly pricey. There was no time to dwell on our living conditions, it was a Saturday night and we had to get ready to check out the night life! thank goodness a bottle of Hardy's wine comes cheap because beer certainly doesn't! We had a good night in Brisbane but we aren't planning another anytime soon, its rather costly! We then had a free day to relax and do as we pleased, a rare occurance on this highly organised trip! We headed to the local park to play two-on-two football in our football shirts we had aquired from a market in Bangkok. Myself and Zach wore Inter Milan Shirts whilst Oli and Alex wore Athletico Madrid. Sadly Inter Milan lost 10-6 to Athletico Madrid. But I can assure you this will all change in our next game!

Rumour had it that the Foo Fighters (famous band for the information of older readers) were playing in the park that evening. We decided to shower and take off our sweaty football shirts and head down to watch. After realising there was no was of getting in for free we stood outside to fence about 100 metres from the mainstage and listened to them play which was good fun as well as free! We got a fairly early night in the knowledge that we had to check out at 10am the next morning. Sadly the hostel had other plans. At 2am we were woken by a loud alarm and Alex shouting at it to stop! We laid waiting for it to stop, sadly it didn't. Alex was nominated to get up and look outisde our door to see what was happening. Everyone was running around frantically and we qucikly realised a fire alarm was sounding. We have never thrown on clothes so quickly and decided to leave our passports as they were locked away and it would take time to free them. We ran downstairs and found the rest of our hotel outside. We lined up and soon 2 fire engines and a police car arrived. We were all certain a fire was somewhere in the building, although our main conversation was how to get a refund in the morning! It turns out we didn't get the excitement of a fire and a girl had trapped herself in a room somewhere in the hotel and pressed to fire alarm to bring people to free her...can't see the logic myself and her bill won't be pretty I'm affraid.

We left in the morning and I navigated the one mile walk to our next hostel which had great ratings. We weren't dissappointed, especially when we found we got a free upgrade from a 20 person dorm to an 8 person en-suite! We are staying here 10 days. Our stay was nearly sweeted as we came agonisingly close to winning a $300 campervan rental voucher in the quiz.

We have been realxing and enjoying our time in Australia and planning our next moves. Although, yesterday we decided to fork out for a trip to Australia Zoo. We had a great time and we weren't dissapointed, seeing some great shows and amazing animals. Crocodiles being my favourite predator and Australia Zoo being the home of Steve Irwin's family, I was thrilled and amazed by their enclosures. I was also amazed to see Steve Irwin's picture everywhere. It was almost religious and his family seem to be making a collosal amount of money with both his wife and daughter having clothing ranges and his 12 year old daughters tv show reatiling at $30 per series. I was extremely close to spending $99 on buying a bronze statue of Steve and his family four our mantel piece at home...however, something stopped me (sarcasm is difficult to get accross via blog)! All in all, we had a great day that we will all remeber, especially Zach's numerous attempts to grab a photo with a Kangaroo that resulted in the animal running away.

We then moved enjoyed a game of bingo last night and Alex and Oli came 1 number off winning a $50 bar tab, we will win something eventually! Notably, we managed to eat for $1.30 last night by heading to Woolworths (a massive supermarket chain out here) and buying a kilo of pasta, sauce and meat. We then cooked it at the hostel and it went down a treat. Eating in quantity and for low price is a rare treat.

We are in Brisbane until the Sunday 3rd April before we move to Oli's Aunty in the country which will be a nice break. Rumour has it we have a room each! We have all really enjoyed Brisbane but it really isn't a place to go with kids or for sightseeing, there isn't much to see! However, we have learnt a lot living outside the tourist areas and have become well acclimatised to Australia. Something which has surprised us all is the amount of homeless here. Something I didn't see in Singapore and barely saw in Thailand. Even more shocking is the fact that all homeless are Aboriginees. They all show signs of massive drug amd alcohol abuse and are extremely hostile to us being white.

On the whole we are having a great time out here and the peace and quiet of Oli's Aunty's will be a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of city life. Australia really has been home from home for us and we have settled really well here.

Love Jonathon

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