Fun on Sunday. Work on Monday

It's getting hot in Australia. Locals say it's late spring but it really feels like mid summer to me, which is great because I love the heat so much more than the bad ski weather back home. Yesterday was just fantastic! We got up rather late again (Sunday's fun!) and decided to check out the artificial beach on the Brisbane River called South Bank. It is on the other side of the CBD from Fortitude Valley but still only about half and hour walk away from home. As I only got my camera on Saturday, we decided to go for the obligatory photo shoot as well. Well done, girls! We got home with 80 pictures :) We passed Queen Street Mall, the now so homely main street of Brisbane's CBD, to get some sushi we had discovered the other day for the lunch on beach. We also found our next favorite in Australia - fresh orange juice bottled in different size: 300 ml, 500 ml and 1 litre. Half a litre for as little as $2.50 :P Queen Street Mall ends with the Victoria Bridge that takes you over the river to the South Bank Parklands. Right before the bridge is a little square with the Conrad Treasury Building, where I saw them putting up a big Christmas tree today :) Right after the bridge is the beach. What they call a beach is actually a set of swimming pools surrounded by heaps of sand and palm trees. It's amazing! You can actually see the skyscrapers right on the other side of the river, but when you lay down on the white sand it really feels as if you were away for a dream vacation, and the only sounds that you hear are the people splashing in the water. What a chill out! (H) But be aware! Mr Sun is stronger than usual on this Continent and gets your nose red as soon as you forget to spread your 30 SPF on it. So we got up soon and continued our Sunday walk in the City Botanic Gardens, which is practically a big public park where some of the rare trees and bushes have been planted extra to give it the name Botanic Gardens. Palm trees here, palm trees there, palm trees almost everywhere :)

So far, so good. Today we actually did some hard stuff, too. So it's not all fun, fun, fun :) We met Härmo and Anni (the 2 Estonian friends of us) the other night and had a little discussion about the job opportunities they've come across. So we thought we'd better give it a try and start as early as possible to find some decent income, or our Australian Dream will end as short as that. First Monday, first employment applications. We started with the hotels in CBD: Hilton Brisbane, Conrad International, Holiday Inn, Marriott, etc, etc. The Brisbane's TOP 10 (H) 8 hours of walking with a continous 'keep smiling' - let's see if we have any luck.. so you could hear stories about Reception Kairi and Catering Ann pretty soon :) Anyways, the job search ended with the Marriott right on Queen Street corner and the only other stop we made on our way back home was at Woolworths to get some food. 'LOW PRICES you can count on, everyday' it says.. Hey guys, stop joking! The banana was already $10 per kg a few days ago, and today it was $11.98. I counted on $10! Alright, no worries, you have attached an explanation next to the price tag that says: "The cyclone in North Queensland will result in severe shortage of bananas. We are working closely with our growers as they work towards their recovery." Poor bananas, not only is there a shortage of them but they are actually short, too. Anyways, forget about the prices and you might actually feel as if you were at Rimi or Prisma or any other Estonian supermarket, because it's no big surprise you meet 3 other fellow countrymen on their evening shopping at Woolworths. 'Hello, Estonia! How's it going?' :)