Recoup

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  Brisbane, Australia
Saturday, November 24, 2007

So, since my departure from Wallaby Creek, I have taken some much-needed downtime to recover mentally and readjust to city life. Over the last week or so I have been getting up early to go surfing (read: embarrass myself while getting pile-drived into sand banks) in the morning. I have discovered a new respect for surfers- tanned folk with sun-bleached hair, an annoying prediliction for terms like "rip," "thruster," and "Mal," who have nevertheless had the sense to start learning such a brutal and arcane sport as surfing from the age of five. For those of us who have long past the days of showing our age with a single open-handed display of fingers, getting picked up by a cresting wave as it stacks up on a sand bank, and riding it into shore on a hollow fiberglass plank is actually not as easily accomplished as Keanu Reeves would have us think in Point Break. Granted, I did not have a bodacious surfur bird to teach me, but what I'm saying I guess, is that I would just have liked to see Keanu watch some twelve-year-old school girls in a surfing class catch a wave set and ride expertly, giggling about riding fakey and trying to flit back over the crest, and then attempt it himself, only to receive an open-handed smack in the ego by the next wave and come up to receive a brutal salutation from the nose of his board. I mean, not that that happened to me or anything...but, I'm just saying, it would've been more realistic.

Anyway, my (lack of) surfing prowess aside, I have to say the past several days have been phenomenal in the way of allowing me time to recenter myself after a very emotionally straining experience.

Playin ball in Caloundra

I have passed the time not spent surfing hanging out with my aunt Jane and uncle Neil, and my two cousins, Heath and Ian (The Rosses). Also, I have at long last discovered a liking for Apple computers. A longtime PC user, I have, in addition to a new-found appreciation for surfer culture, developed a liking for the standard suite of user-friendly, yet powerful software that comes with every new Mac. And, specifically the program called iMovie. I've spent many hours in the past few days learning how to use every little facet of this program and found that it is really amazingly simple, but allows even a novice user to produce some fairly smooth editing effects. Here is a little example that Heath, Ian and I posted on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLku0RE96Ig Called "Gnome", it is a story of tragedy and terror, the duality of gnomekind, and depicts many of the great archetypes of medieval of contemporary struggles between-ah, just kidding. It's about two minutes long, and it's about this little gnome that haunts my little cousin Ian. Anyway, it was fun to make, and just goes to show you that even though you're 23, it doesn't mean you can't not act like your age.

So, today, I am in fact, in Brisbane, at Jane and Neil's friends, the Duggans' house. Yesterday morning we packed up everything from Jane and Neil's place and returned much of it to the friends from whom they had borrowed it, and brought the rest here, where we will be staying for a few days, before Jane, Ian and I go on to Sydney.

Heath, Ian and Brendan in Caloundra

Last night, we all went out with the Duggans, their three kids, and the Bretts, whose garage I was staying in at the beginning of my trip. We went to a Turkish place in downtown Brisbane, where we sat on cushions in a U-shaped table arrangement under a velvet canopy and ate a delicious banquet of Mediterranean cuisine and drank wine until everyone was giggling and stomach-sore from the effort of eating so many courses of lambchops, rice-stuffed vine-leaves, Turkish bread with hummus, babaganush, steamed vegetables with tzaziki, and Turkish delight and coffee for dessert. It was incredible, and as Robyn Brett noted, "A huge departure from what [I] had at Wallaby Creek!" At one point the belly dancer (there was a belly dancer) got Ian out of his chair, as she did to someone at every table she went to and tried to show him some moves, to the delight of Heath and the rest of our group. I felt like I was in some family version of "Kublai Khan." It was a hilarious and delicious and belt-stretching experience, to be remembered.

But for today, the Ross clan, except for Heath, and the Duggan clan have gone to see the littlest Duggan play cricket. Heath and myself have declined the invitation to watch a little-league version of what is certainly the most esoteric and boring game on Earth, to instead go sight-seeing in Brisbane, a city I have not yet explored. We hope to stroll along the riverfront and maybe see a couple museums. It's all very convenient because the train station servicing Brisbane and environs is two blocks from the Duggans'. So for now, I'll take my leave. I've got to leg it to beat the rain. Pictures to follow.

Matt

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Ian pops a wheelie on the ripstick	Heath and Ian at Noosa	Ian in a tree at Kondililla Falls	Heath climbs a vine at Kondililla Falls
Heath Jumps out, Ian prepares at Kondililla F	Heath swinging out at Lake Currimundi	kite surfers at lake Currimundi	The release- Lake Currimundi
cool spider on the electric cord of a dryer	Jasper's racing pigeons having a bit of a tussle	Jasper (Neil's dad) showing Heath his pigeons	Pigeons returning from a short flight
Ian learns how to belly dance	Brisbane skyline	to drink or not to drink?--look at the sign	Not to drink?
On the South Bank of the Brisbane River	the South Bank Park area	Ibises acting like pigeons at the food court	From Brisbane Museum: skyline & blue tongue

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