Day 8: Visiting Brisbane

Location: Brisbane, Queensland

I momentarily felt bad about kicking Courtney out of her bed (though brief it was a genuine feeling bad, I was prepared to stay in the van), but then I realised I was in a real bed and the guilt disappeared. Besides, it was Courtney's warmgloo (a warm igloo for the non twitter people) so it was pretty cool.

Most important thing I learnt about Courtney this morning – when she gets up she looks like a Sesame Street gangster, with her Elmo pjs sticking out from UNDER her tracksuit. Well... there were other things, I could tell you about how cute she is but she doesn’t like that and then threatens to hit me *ducks*. Courtney’s older sister is getting married soon and so she and the family went off on some family errands while I headed into the city. Though looking back now, knowing that Courtney had to try on HIGH HEELS to go with her DRESS, I clearly made the wrong decision. (Yes I’m openly taunting you now Courtney).

She walked me to the station (still as the Elmo gangster – score!) and I jumped on a train to go into the city. I wanted to visit the museum while I was in town – mainly because I’m a nerd and thought it would be fun, but also because I’ve never actually been to a museum and, as a nerd, isn’t that a little bit sad?

I did enjoy the museum quite a bit, with the highlight being a huge dinosaur skeleton – a Muttaburrasaurus, if you’re interested. I also enjoyed and was freaked out (in equal measure) by the large number of mounted animals on display. While the OCD part of my brain really liked how they were all aligned in order of their height, their glassy eyes were starting to get to me. I felt like I was being hypnotised by an army of zombie animals...

After the museum I explored the state library for a little while (yes, I did say a LITTLE while) and considered visiting the state gallery also, but by then it was well into the afternoon and, since I’m not overly familiar with the Sydney rail system let alone that in an entirely different state, I decided I’d better head off back to the station. I did stumble across a huge chalkboard on the side of a building on my way back however, to which of course I added.

And that’s sort of where my trouble started. You see, I asked the kind man at the gate which train I needed to be on to get back to Courtney’s place – I had a fair idea, but wanted to be sure. He directed me to the platform and told me the next train on that line would come in twenty-two minutes. Okay, no problem. Except there also came a train at twenty-minutes, and would you know it, that’s the one I got on. Luckily for me I managed to realise by the time it made it’s first stop and so fixed the problem pretty quickly. And if I hadn’t gotten on the wrong one I never would have seen the cattle train which was pretty cool.

Before I had left Courtney’s house, her sister had been kind enough to lend me her keys so that I could let myself back in if I bet them home. No problem. I sat there and read my book and was perfectly well behaved. Until mum rang.

"What you doing?" she asked.

“Oh nothing much, just sitting here all alone in Courtney’s house... it’s kind of weird actually.

“Oh really,” she said. “You should mess with her room.”

“But... okay, like what?”

“I don’t know, something mean. Oh! Steal her Amanda picture.”

See Courtney. I told you it was all mum’s idea!

I didn’t exactly steal her Amanda photo... but I did take it off the wall and hide it. Up high. Really really high so she couldn’t see and had to get her sister’s boyfriend to eventually retrieve.

Courtney is now yelling at me.

I regret nothing.

Kilometres travelled: none in Fish (1, 341)
Bridges crossed: 1 by train (149)
Number of times hitting head on campervan: 0 (11)
Number of road workers whom returned my wave: 0 (12)
Number of times James completely freaked out because he thought we were bush bashing: 0 (4)