What to say about Brissie? An awful lot of concrete and skyscrapers from the booming 80ties and 90ties (hence the -vegas), tropical flowers, sunshine... Early spring is superb, not yet too hot and right-out pleasant. And in contrast to Sydney everything is much slower, far less vanity, too. And although the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast stretch south and north from here, respectively, Brisbane itself has no beach to speak of. There is, however, a tiny artificial beach in one of the parks with thousands of people squeezing in the sand and water. The popular Ibiza beaches are nothing compared to this.
Yesterday Clare and Gordon took me to an exhibition opening of the National Museum on the Miss Australia contest that had been run nationwide since 1955 until 2000. I thought that this was totally hilarious, but in the course of the speeches and from the exhibit I understood, that this was not just a common beauty contest. It included an educational quiz and was much about a female role model for society. Apparently this annual event had been a major part in Australia's quest for its identity during the last century. The catering was perfect; curry eggs, prawn salad, cucumber sandwiches and very good Lamingtons - just the food you would have expected from an Australian housewife in the 60ies and 70ies for an afternoon tea party.
Clare and Gordon live in a very airy "old" house, a lot of wood, spacious terrace, palm trees and tropical flowers all around. Very near is a big arts center, the Powerhouse, around which the funny signs are set up which you can see
here.
