True Life... Arrived in Brisbane

Since the 24th of June, we've been in Brisbane. Here we want to spend the Australian winter and replenish our travel budget a bit. Brisbane could probably be called the little sister of Melbourne. A river in the middle of the city and great architecture with huge skyscrapers.

Here in Brisbane, too, it's great what's offered for free. Of course, we also took part in a free city tour here (directly on the 26th of June). Unfortunately, we understood the older lady who gave the tour quite poorly, so we went to one of the free concerts in City Hall at 12:00 pm, which take place every Tuesday. We got to experience a great 50 minutes of a rock 'n' roll concert and not only the band members on stage, but also the audience really enjoyed it.

There are also free open-air concerts in Southbank on Sundays, but in a smaller style than on Tuesdays. In the city center, there is a ferry that you can use to cross the river for free. This way you can get a good overview of the city from the river. We took advantage of this offer directly on the 25th of June.

There is also apparently a free bus in the center, but we haven't tried it yet. We use the city's share bikes instead. For $5 per month, you can use the bikes. The stations are spread throughout the city. The only "problem" is that a rental cycle is only half an hour and you have to go to a station afterwards.

The tower of the City Hall is also accessible for free. Here you can get a nice overview of the city center, even if this tower is not the tallest building in the city by far. But there was a great view directly from an elevator in a building where Kenny had a job interview.

We spent our first week in Brisbane at the Brisbane Backpackers Resort. Here we could sleep in our car in the parking lot for $15 per person and even got breakfast. The only problem was that it was quite noisy until late at night and our car was parked directly under the balconies of the rooms and so it kept getting hit by garbage and cigarette butts. Here we also watched one of the glorious Germany World Cup games…

During the first week, our main task was to find a room for a longer stay. Meanwhile, we have been living in a sharehouse or flatshare since the 30th of June. We live here with two female students from Nepal and an Australian woman, although we hardly ever see the latter. There are also 2 rooms where Airbnb guests are accommodated from time to time. Our landlady Punam is also from Nepal and she owns the Tibetan restaurant above where we live.

Even before we signed the lease for 3 months (until the end of September 2018), we were invited to her restaurant for a delicious meal and a lot of wine. We just wanted to take another look at the room on the 28th of June. That evening we met two of her friends in the restaurant, who treated us to even more wine. The evening ended with the couple being drunk, loud tango and salsa music playing in the restaurant, and us dancing together, because our landlady is currently taking a salsa and tango dance course. At this point, she had definitely won Krissi's heart. The following Saturday, we went to sign the lease and there was another delicious lunch.

In the first week in our new flatshare, we had a great dinner with our flatmates. We didn't expect them to cook for us so deliciously. They made typical dishes from Nepal, so rice with various curries. We ate dinner with two Airbnb guests from China that evening, who contributed a typical egg and tomato salad.

We have our own room here with a small kitchenette, but for cooking we have to go downstairs to the communal kitchen, a great sunny terrace, plenty of space for yoga, great wifi, and a communal bathroom. The only drawback is that we don't have a door. Kenny wants to take care of this issue soon, though. Currently, we can still hear quite well what's happening one floor below us in the kitchen and living room.

Punam, our landlady, is totally convinced of Kenny's craftsmanship. On Saturday, the 21st of July, we painted some walls in the apartment and on Sunday, Kenny repaired a faucet, so we could earn a little pocket money on weekends as well. We also had sushi as a reward. :)

On the 15th of July, we actually managed to explore our neighborhood a bit. Right across the street, there is a small park and a few meters further, the Roma Street Parklands, lots of greenery and water to relax. On this Sunday, of course, everything was crowded again, as Australians always meet for a BBQ.

Since we have our apartment, we've been looking for jobs in Brisbane. At first, we tried to find jobs as engineers or event managers, but were not successful.

Since the 10th of July, Kenny has been working as a tiler. Despite getting up at 5:20 am and usually working more than 40 hours a week, he's quite happy with his job. At the beginning, he only sorted tiles, but now he also grouts and occasionally even lays some tiles himself. Let's keep our fingers crossed that he'll keep the job for a while, as the money and the colleagues are also great.

Krissi had a sales job for 5 days starting on the 11th of July. She went from door to door and was supposed to sell boxes from HelloFresh. A great product, but unfortunately, she hardly sold anything, which is rather unfortunate for a commission-based job. So she stuck it out for only 5 days to at least receive the minimum salary for one week. The great thing about this job was that all employees received the HelloFresh food boxes for free and Krissi got 2 per week, which secured our dinner for 2 weeks. By the way, she is still waiting for her wages.

On Wednesday, the 18th of June, she then had a trial shift in a burger joint, where she has also had a casual job since Monday, the 23rd of July. The daily routine here involves preparing shakes, taking and packing orders, and also preparing the ingredients fresh.

Since Friday, the 20th of June, she has also been working casually in a dining bar, mainly behind the counter. Great job and great colleagues. Now we have to see how we can combine these jobs to get as many hours as possible.

On Saturday, the 28th of July, we finally met up with Francis and his family. He is a friend of Kenny's parents and emigrated to Australia in 2008. We were invited to a delicious lunch with noodle soup as well as rice and curry.

By the way, we currently have dinner downstairs at the restaurant almost every evening - for free. On Sunday, the 5th of August, our landlady Punam invited us to have lunch at her home. We sat together with her friends - mostly older couples - as well as her two daughters and another tenant. After the super huge lunch, we went to a pub with her daughter Claire, where we got to meet some of her friends.