The first day was spent mostly laying around. I had flown from San Fransisco to New Zealand, where I had a four hour lay over, before flying from New Zealand to Australia. It made for an extremely long travel day. We figured out that, in the end, I had been awake for 35 hours. You would think that I would have slept in that first morning. Unfortunately, my body was still on California time and I was up at 4:30 a.m. (10:30 a.m. CA time) craving a cup of coffee. I decided that I would get out of bed and watch the sunrise on my first full day living in Australia. Little did I know, the sun rises early in the southern hemisphere and I had already missed it. No worries. I got up and sat on the front patio, which overlooks the Brisbane River, and watched the river boats cruise by.
Over the next several days we unpacked everything and got the apartment organized. Ryan had been living with my boxes dominating his office space for about a week before I even arrived. I'm sure that he was happy to get his office back. Although, now his office is home to my project table and art supplies, as well! We've not only taken a trip to Ikea to buy bookshelves, but we also went to several nurseries to buy Tuscan style planters that will soon have fruit trees, tomatoes and herbs in them. Our balcony is overlooking the Brisbane River in one direction and downtown Brisbane in the other direction ~ a perfect setting for a garden. It took a few days, but our apartment is finally "OUR apartment".
The view from the front balcony:
The side view off the front balcony ~ looking over the Story Bridge toward downtown
We hosted our first dinner party a couple of nights ago. Ryan's boss, Howard and his wife, Marg came over for shrimp salad and BBQed ribs. Marg, described the apartment as "less bloaky", which when translated means his bachelor pad has clearly been taken over by a girl. We both smiled at Marg's description since that was our goal ~ to make it one happy home where we both feel comfortable.
We ended the week with a trip to Mooloolaba, a beach town North of Brisbane, where we swam in the ocean and relaxed on the beach. Summer time in Australia can't be beat! We watched the rain clouds as they slowly approached and once they did we headed to an outdoor cafe and ate tiger prawns and baramundi cakes for lunch. My first week in Australia was fantastic! It's slightly surreal to think that this is now my home. But, what a sweet, sweet home it is!
New Year's Eve in Brisbane 2010
