Ringing In The New Year

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Happy new year everyone!
We've just arrived in Brisbane after detouring to Surfers Paradise where we rang in the new year. We stayed in a lovely campsite just outside the town which was a great spot, very commercial and touristy quite like your Majorca's of the world but it had real character and most importantly a fantastic beach.

One of the nicest things we did there was go to the beach cinema. This was a great publicity stunt or community sponsorship programme as us PRs would call it, by Optus one of the two leading Aussie telephone companies. In a move to create brand awarness and improve their image they erected a huge cincema screen on the beach right in the centre of town and played a different family film every night for a week in the run up to new years eve. Big kids that we are we got to see Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Lion King under the stars and over the noise of the crashing waves with free icecreams thrown into the bargain....def a nice way to spend an evening.

We did ofcourse find entertainment outside of the beach....a trip to Dream World a Disney-esque theme park on the outskirts of the town and a couple of great nights on the town were had before we left Surfers for Brisbane.

We've just checked into a trailer park (please no jokes) but treated ourselves to a hostel last night and wow did we get our moneys worth. Matreses, bed sheets and a TV room are a real novelty to us at this stage and half of us took full advantage of the couches and telly and stayed up most of the night watching DVDs while the other half made the most of the beds and slept from dinner time through til check out.

It seems like a nice city, an awful lot smaller than Sydney which suits me coz I was forever getting lost there. It's the first city we've hit since we left Sydney which was just massive, overwhelmingly so, but after Surfers which was such a lively place it seems relatively quiet...so far at least. Like Sydney (and Surfers come to that) its very high rise but in an almost structured way which I like.

I'm not really sure of what happens me next. The others are all going to start looking for jobs and accommodation in the morning coz they're all staying here a few months. My plan was to leave at the settling down point but its hard to imagine leaving just yet with so much more to see.

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Comments

[Roisin]

Happy New Year! Looks like you had fun ringing in 2007! Enjoy therest of your travels! Ro

[mary ashe]

last e-mail returned
Dear Emer, dont know what i am doing wrong, but the mail I sent to you within the last 2 days was returned.

[Mary D]

Happy new year
Well Emer, Sounds like a wonderful time you're having. I received your Xmas card on the 5th. thanks for thinking of me. Weather lousey here, suppose lovely and hot in Oz. Will be thinking of you. When you thinking of coming back?

[Karen Higgins]

Happy New Year (better late than never)
Hey Emer Just been catching up with your adventures, you are having such a great time, I can only imagine how hard its going to be to leave. I lived in Brisbane for a few months worked in an Irish Bar, think it was PJ's or some other really originally named pub! Anyway all is well here, I am off to Florence next weekend thanks to good ould Ryan Air! Have a friend livng out there so have somewhere to stay which is great and we are going to try and take in Sienna for a day as well. Suzy is getting married in May, she was in NYC for NYE (another surprise) and they are going to Cuba on honeymoon! Myself and Emma are thinking of travelling around Eastern Europe in June for about a month I have to see if I can swing a month off work... Au revoir for now, and happy travelling. xx Karen