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Published: July 18th 2017
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Geo: -27.4676, 153.028
Here we are, all settled in a new location. Our airport shuttle picked us up in Sydney where we caught our flight to Brisbane which lasted and hour and a half.On the train to our hotel we befriended a couple from Australia. They were getting off at our stop and offered to head us in the right direction before catching their connecting train. We had an informative conversation about government and news in America which he follows daily on TV. When we arrived at our stop his wife waited for him while he walked us out of the station and headed us in the direction of our hotel. He advised us to use certain streets to avoid some hills. It's always great to meet nice local people to converse with. We soon arrived at our hotel and they had a room available for an early checkin.. Here we met another friendly person at the reception desk. Eva is from Eastern Europe and has been here three years. She gave us some good suggestions as to how to begin our exploration of Brisbane so after getting our room we set out to see some sights.
St. John's Cathedral was our first
stop. The guide in the Church asked where we were from and was very excited when we said the U.S. She quickly led us to a beautiful stained glass window of the American Eagle and an American flag. It was put there to honor our helping the Australians in a war.
Eagle Street Pier was our next destination. It was in the Central Business District on the Brisbane River. There is a boardwalk which runs along the river which we followed for quite a distance before turning off to move on to the Queen Street Mall.It's an outside mall with a promenade for pedestrian traffic only. There are plenty of shops and restaurants throughout this area and you often come across an entertainer of some sort, a musician, an artist, a magician. and others.
After a short stop to revitalize a little we went to the South Bank area of Brisbane. It also has a promenade on the other side of the Brisbane River. On Friday nights a street market is held where artists and crafters sell their products. There are also several street performers and the bars have entertainment. These bars all have open air seating areas so the
musicians are outside for the pleasure of all. the atmosphere was very festive.
Our return trip to our hotel took us back through the Queen Street Mall area where we stopped to watch several people, probably 50-60, were taking Latin dancing lessons from a guy on the street. He had a disc jockey with him providing the music. They were learning the cha cha, the salsa and several others. After the lessons concluded the disc jockey continued to play music for the crowd to continue dancing. It was quite entertaining. He said they do this every Friday and you could tell by the dancers that they do this regularily. Some were very good.At this point we decided to call it a night.
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Amy
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Looks like tons of fun!