I HEART BRISBANE

Well, well, well..... that was another weekend in paradise:
- sunshine without side effects ie the burns - I’m getting so good at avoiding them it’s unreal
- sightseeing til legs/feet are sore
- rugby - Reds v Crusaders.. not for the faint hearted. 14-8 for the Reds at half time, looked like they’d win when they were 21-8, then along came Dan Carter. A try here, two conversions there, final score 27-21 for the kiwis. Just brilliant.

Aaaah ..that’s the way life should be… On Sunday I took the train to go to Ipswich, the oldest city of Queensland, about 30kms south west of Brisbane, but 1 hour on the train-that-stops-at-every-station-on-the-way.

The town is known for its heritage buildings (heritage in Australia means post 1850s) You can certainly enjoy everything the place has to offer on weekdays, I obviously chose the wrong day, and when you have a car, which I don’t .. not even one chauffeur-driven.

It’s probably fair to say : I’ve been there and it is unlikely I will go back. Unless they have another Global Gnome Competition

And now a poetry moment… Just found this poem by this Bulgarian born/citizen of the world author/poet called Kapka Kassabova from her book Geography for the Lost, that I have not read but should. How did I hear about her? Her novel Reconnaissance (picked up in Christchurch) kept me company during my Brisbanian week end ..


I want to be a tourist

I imagine my life as a city
somewhere in the third world, or the second.
And I want to be a tourist
in the city of my life.

I want to stroll in shorts and baseball hat,
with laminated maps and dangling cameras.
I want to find things for the first time.
Look, they were put there just for me!

I want a room with musty curtains.
I want a view of rubbish dumps and urchins.
I want food poisoning, the dust of traffic
in the mouth, the thrill of others’ misery.

Let me be a tourist in the city of my life.
Give me overpriced coffee in the square,
let me visit briefly the mausoleum of the past
and photograph its mummy,

give me the open sewers, the stunted dreams,
the jubilation of ruins, the lepers, the dogs,
give me signs in a funny language that I never
have to learn. Then take my money and let me go.