A Happy New Year from Brisbane

A belated Happy New Year to Germany! I spent 4 days in Brisbane after Byron Bay and celebrated the new year there. Brisbane itself is not the biggest city and originally I had planned to stay here for only 2 days, but since my booked tour was cancelled, I ended up spending the other 2 days here as well and they were definitely some nice days!

On the evening of my arrival, I met Aarti. She is from India but studying in Melbourne and she was also in Brisbane for 5 days to work at the Brisbane International tennis competitions. It's sort of a preparation tournament for the Australian Open. With her, I took the free ferry to the city to look around and buy some food 😊

On the first day, I went out to explore the city, but Brisbane is really not big, so it doesn't take that long. My hostel was one of the "luxurious" ones a bit outside of the city, at Kangaroo Point, from there I walked along the river to South Bank, which is a large public park with playgrounds, rainforest, beach, pools, a ferris wheel, and so on. It's really nicely done, but it's always overcrowded on hot days! So it's not really the ideal place to relax in peace. From there, I continued walking to the city center, which somehow ended up with me shopping for the rest of the day (successfully). In the evening, I went out to the city again with Aarti and had dinner.

On the second day, I took the bus a bit outside to Mount Coot-Tha, which offers a wonderful view of Brisbane! From there, I walked to a mini waterfall (and when I say mini, I really mean mini-mini!) and had my lunch there, then I went back to the city. After a visit to the town hall, I walked back to the hostel through the Botanic Gardens. However, the Botanic Gardens in Brisbane don't have as much to offer compared to the ones in Melbourne or Sydney! I spent the rest of the afternoon comfortably on the rooftop lying in the sun.

Unfortunately, I've been feeling a bit sick since the 28th. So on the third day, I took a little break and went to the Gallery of Modern Art in the morning with one of my roommates. There was an exhibition by a Japanese artist who creates all her artworks, whether paintings or installations or sculptures, using dots. It looked really interesting. There were also mirror rooms where everything was reflected infinitely, which was quite confusing with the dots. But then I went back to the hostel and spent the rest of the day relaxing on the rooftop, reading a bit, planning my trip, etc. It's also necessary sometimes 😊

And then it was New Year's Eve 😊 Most people in Australia try to celebrate it in Sydney, where there is a big fireworks display. 1 billion people watched it there this year. They set up tents at 8 in the morning just to secure the best spot! Crazy. I was glad to be in Brisbane 😊 In the morning, I went to the Koala Sanctuary with Aarti. We petted and fed kangaroos, watched a herding dog at work, saw platypus, birds, crocodiles, dingoes, and lots of koalas. And I even got to pet a koala! After that, we had dinner at a Malaysian restaurant in the city and then went to the Brisbane Internationals. Since she was working there, she got 2 free tickets for the 31st and took me with her 😊 It was my first ever professional tennis match. And it was really a good match that we watched. Schwartzman (Argentina) against Dolgopolov (Ukraine). I didn't know either of them, Dolgopolov won, but I was cheering for Schwartzman. In the evening/night, we went to South Bank with a blanket and watched the fireworks there, which was really beautiful for me! I'm now looking forward to 2018 and what other experiences it will bring.

Happy New Year and greetings to Germany,

Your Julia