The city of Brisbane

Wikipedia:
"Brisbane is the capitol and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, as well as the third largest city in Australia, with a greater metropolitan population of just under two million. It is a city set close to the Pacific Ocean, and is situated beside the Brisbane River on plains between Moreton Bay and the Great Dividing Range in south-eastern Queensland."


In the following is a few pictures of Brisbane, just to give you an idea of what it looks like down here, and to show you some of the places we have been during our stay this far. First of all, Brisbane is a really pretty city. It`s very different from any of the larger European cities I`ve visited. Maybe becuase the city and it`s buildings are not as old as the European counterparts I`ve been to, like Paris, Prague and Munich. Personally I think larger European cities tend to be a bit gray. Not so here. The arcitecture seems "lighter" and more colorful, and everything looks very fresh, new and well coordinated in a sense. And the flourishing tropical trees, flowers and wildlife all over the city, make it very different from any other place I`ve seen before. Well, enough of my thoughts, here are the photos! :)


The dot marks the spot. 63/19 Dixon Street, New Farm, Brisbane.


On our way to the CityCat, through New Farm Park.


The "Willow tree" in New Farm Park. It`s BIG!



The CityCat, quick, comfortable and easy public transport on the
river.



Some of the fashionable houses along Brisbane river.



Skyline.


More skyline.


The Performing Arts Centre and South Bank Parklands.


Downtown and the Riverside Expressway seen from South Banks.


The Riverside Expressway.


More South Bank Parklands.


A big tree at the Botanical Garden.


An open space...


View from Steins appartment.

Inside 63/19 Dixon Street

For you curious souls, who have been wondering why there were only pictures from the outside of the building in the prior Dixon Street post -here is your salvation! Don`t mind the beds in the middle of the livingroom floor, or the clutter elsewhere. We haven`t had time to get things sorted since our arrival from the Whitsundays yet. More on the Whitsundays trip in a post soon to come. As a teaser I can reveal that tropical storms, flooding and being fucked up the ass by an Australian low faires airline company will all be part of the story... But now for the pics of the interior of Steins appartment:



The hall


Kitchen (OK, I admit to tidying up a little bit prior to taking the photo).


The livingroom as seen from the kitchen.



Livingroom. The handsome young man in the pink shirt is the
Skittlesbucket himself, for those of you who don`t know.


TV set and poster of the Brisbane Broncos 2006 grand final rugby
squad. For you skandinavians out there; note the bottles of
Gammel dansk on the shelf. Property of the danish room mate
Peter. Skål!



Bathroom. Not much to say really. Basin, toilet, tub/shower,
washer and dryer. Pretty much all you need.


Stein`s room. Btw: Stein is playing WoW at the time the picture
was taken. No suprise to anyone perhaps, all though he claims to
have cut down dramatically on his gaming since he sold his WoW
caracters on E-bay for 1600kr ($200). Amazing what you can sell
these days...


The porch. Frequantly used for drying towels and surfer shorts
after refreshing sessions in the pool.

The Longest Day Ever part 2

Since hardly anything was open in Brisbane when we landed, Sara drove us straight to Steins place to unload our gear and let us check out DUT'07 Head Quarters. The drive from the airport was about 20 minutes and was kind of surreal;

• The fact that it was Monday morning kept popping in to our heads even though our brain said it was late Saturday



• We constantly felt we were about to crash since they drive on the wrong side of the street



• The humidity, temperature and vegetation were a bit overwhelming compared to what we left earlier in the "day"



• HQ's welcoming committee consisted of one big ugly spider......

After getting acquainted with our new surroundings, we went down town to buy some necessities: boardies (swimwear), thongs (slippers), sunnies (shades), hats, sunscreen (SPF 30), groceries, liquor and beer. Brisbane is a beautiful city (like a smaller version of Chicago, but in a tropical climate) but since our internal clock was a bit messed up, we didn’t get to appreciate it fully until the next day (more on this later). However, after securing some consumable liquids our morale was on the rise. We headed back to the HQ, had a dip in the pool and started to prepare our first Aussie barbeque. Naturally, the menu consisted of kangaroo. Steins kangaroo mince was converted into some delicious burgers which we washed down with some XXXX Bitters (our favourite local brew thus far!). When the barbie was over, the clock had somehow gotten close to midnight and it was time to check out the Aussie night life. Even though Brisbane’s population is the same as the population of Norway, it turns out that Monday is one day of the week no one goes out! Not that the rest of the weekdays are anything special either. The night life is surprisingly dull for a city with such a populace. Anyways, The Down Under Bar came to the rescue. There’s a backpacker in the floors above, so this is the one place you can rely on to be open and be fairly crowded any day of the week. We pounded down some Bundy (Bundaberg Rum) and Coke and had a really good time. Fyken, Casper and Sara went home around 2am, while Peter, The Village Idiot and I stuck it out til they closed around 3am. When we came back to HQ we basically collapsed on the mattresses our host provided for us. Thus our 60 hour “Saturday” came to an end…

63/19 Dixon Street

Our home during the stay down under is Steins penthouse appartment in New Farm, Brisbane. It`s a three bedroom appartment that he shares with two of his friends, Peter and Tom. For us norsemen the place is quite exotic with a beautiful outdoor area that includes a salt water pool, sauna, fountain and barbeque facilities. Nice going Stein! Here are some photos to give you an idea, though they really don`t do it justice. It`s even prettier in real life..

The front of the appartment complex.

The rear of the building. Our oppartment at the top.

The view from the porch.

View from the porch again. The pool is situated behind the trees

at the botton of the picture.

The fountain. There is actually fish in it, but I could`t manage to get

a good picture of them.

The pool.

More pool, and the barbeque area at the back.

The Longest Day Ever part 1

Saturday January 27th at 1300hrs we meet up at Gardermoen as planned. I came in from Tonsberg that morning. Dagfinn and Arne came from Oslo. There were almost no traffic at Gardermoen, so checking in and security went very smooth. That gave us some extra time to do some last minute duty free shopping and enjoying our first beer of the vacation.

Arne and Dagfinn after check inn at Gardermoen. Let the Jurney begin!

The flight from Gardemoen to Paris was about 3 hours and flew by. Arne was occupied with his Soduko puzzle while the rest of us read all of yesterday’s news papers. We were all somewhat prepared for the 6 hours at Charles de Gaulle however it was still tough to get the hours to go by, considering it is probably the worst airport in the world (Europe at least). First of all, it is very unorganized and half the time we do not know where we are or where we are going. Some check points you can go both ways, however they do not inform you of this. After a few hours walking around and finally locating our gate we sat down at an “English” pub had a quick snack and a few pints.

The scheduled flight from Paris to Singapore was on time and expected to take 12 hours. Right after take of around midnight they gave us a quick meal before they turned of the lights. We were all dead tired at this point, so catching some shout eye were going to be easy, so we thought. All in all, we got about 4 hours each. You feel like you are half a wake all the time. Its very strange. When we were not sleeping we were fortunate enough to get a plane that had individual monitors where movies and music went in a loop. Not only did Arne get the bitch seat for this flight, his monitor did not play movies either. We tried to get him a dvd player that they sometimes have in business, however the stewardess were not very helpful.

We arrived Singapore 1840 on Sunday evening. Considering the fact that we just woke up, this made no sense. We had “only” 3 hours in Singapore, of which we spent most of the time hanging out at a piano bar listening to the Asian version of Burt Backarack.

From Singapore to Brisbane we flew Quantas Air, which to my surprise was the nicest company I have ever flown with. The service was exceptional and not only did we have individual monitors, there was an “on demand” feature which means that you can pause, fast forward, rewind etc. This made up for us not sitting together on this flight. I ended up sitting a few rows back from Arne and Dagfinn, nevertheless I enjoyed myself, watching movies and drinking rum and cokes all through the night.

Arriving somewhat tipsy in Brisbane Monday morning, there was a huge line to get through immigration and then another line to get through “agriculture” customs (lack of a better word and understanding) where they scan our brief case looking for exceptional foods. Once through, we got the chance to change to shorts before Sara and Casper picked us up.

The boys enjoying a cold one at the Piano Bar in Singapore, while Mr. Backarack is taking a break!

A taxi driver making a fashion statement at Brisbane Airport. Got Mullet?

What to pack?

That is the debate I have every freaking time I’m going on vacation. Sometimes I pack too much, other times I pack way too little. Either way I always find myself forgetting something, This time around, I started writing a packing list way in advanced, so now I feel quite confident that I have not left anything out. At least I have remembered the essentials……

The weather in Kongsberg

As promised by Skittlesbucket earlier, I bring you a couple of pictures from K-town to illustrate hell frozen over. These pictures were taken friday afternoon, and it's not nearly as cold now as it was earlier in the week. A mere -3 degrees Celsius. A walk in the park for us Vikings. Just bring it on Thor, bring it on! ;)
In about half an hour I'll be on the train on my way to Oslo, and so my trip towards the land down under has begun. Sweet mate! :)


The view from my livingroom window in Svartåsveien 18.


"Lågen", the river running through the centre of Kongsberg.

The Weather in Brisbane

I thought I should upload an image of how the weather is down under. As you can see, we are in for a very excting time. This is not like anything we have back in Norway:)

Hell has frozen over

At least it feels like it here in Norway. We're talking 0f temperatures between 10 and 20 below zero. And that's Celcius degrees for all you non metric freaks :D Thankfully, reports from Down Under speaks of temperatures above 30 degrees!! \o/ It's gonna be a shock for our
pale viking bodies, but we're really looking forward to it. Tune in later for a visual report from
The OC, TC and K-Town.

The Travel Route

Oslo-Paris (Jan 27 15:45 - Jan 27 18:10)
Paris-Singapore (Jan 27 23:15 - Jan 28 18:35)


Singapore-Brisbane (Jan 28 21:10 - Jan 29 06:55)