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?