Rugby

This weekend is special in Brisbane. On Friday there was the semifinal in National Rugby League and today it will be the riverfire, huge fireworks which constitutes the ending of the Brisbane Festival. I´ll tell you about that tomorrow.

Back to Rugby.For a Scandinavian the interest for this game is a little bit difficult to understand. I mean, I would guess the final in the Swedish Rugby league (I'm not sure it even exists) would gather 50-100 people from which 99% would be friends and relatives. To be honest most swedes would consider Rugby in general as something oldfashioned that was played in English boarding schools and forgotten about 50 years ago.

But here in Aussie it's huge. They even have three variants: Rugby League, Rugby Union and Australian Football.
So yesterday it was semifinal in Rugby League, Brisbane Broncos vs Sydney Roosters. Me and William decided this is a must in the Aussie culture and decided to go. We were not alone. The Suncorp stadium was sold out so we shared the experience with 51 800 people.
Mighty!

Before start there were interviews, fireworks and cheerleaders and you could feel the expectations in the air.
And then the game begun....  and we understood nothing. I mean the basic rules you pick up quite quickly but the tactics... Why don't they pass the ball instead of just running straight in to the first opponent they see?

When someone does something good and scores it's called a "try". But not immediately. Each "try" must obviously be preceded by at least 5 min referee video scrutinising. When you get your "try" you also get a free kick for two extra points. And here comes the next strange thing. When the player performs his free kick noone else on the pit cares. He is left on his own and neither his team mates or opponents seem to even bother watching.

Did I mention that after each "try" for the home team a horse with a rider came galloping around the arena!
Another interesting thing is that coaches obviously are allowed to be on the pit during ongoing play. They sort of run around with a towel and water bottle serving the players while playing.
A strange game it certainly is!

Cheers!


ps Broncos were totally superior and won by 31-12.

We have an apartment!

Finally we have an apartment! I was almost beginning to prepare for a life on the streets as time is flying and our current contract expires 29/9.
However on Friday afternoon I received an email saying we were approved by the owners for one of the apartments we had applied for.
It's not going to be cheap but we will have stunning river and city views for breakfast :). For me it will also be just 5 minutes walk to the office.

We were actually also looking at two apartments significantly higher up in the same building but found surprisingly enough that the lower situation were better due to less noise from the traffic on the Story bridge and closer water feeling.

My colleagues find it a little bit strange to want to live that central but our thoughts a that we have lived 25 years in a Swedish suburb so we don't need more suburban life and commuting here.
Anyway we look forward to that urban city life!



                                                                                                                             
So on the 29th we say good bye to Kangaroo Point and our Dockside apartment which has served us well for this first month.

Cheers!

Kangaroo Point

What would be the coolest address you could imagine when moving in to an Australian city?
Something like Crocodile Creek or Kangaroo Point?! Yes, you´re right. Our address right now is Kangaroo Point!!




It's a part of Brisbane located on a narrow peninsula close to the Central Business District but with the winding Brisbane River in between.

This means I actually start every work day with a nice river cruise :)





To the right you see my  "bus stop"

And to the left is my "bus"










Cheers!

The Journey

Now we have been two weeks in Brisbane. There has been so much to do and the first week a jetlag to cure so I haven't really been able to write any blog posts. But from now on I will shape up!
Since I have a bit of a backlog this first post will cover the journey and the coming days I will try to catch up with happenings and observations until today.
We started the journey on Monday 3/9 at 06:50. The weekend before was frantic. I can only say that we underestimated the work left with cleaning and removing personal stuff from the house big time. The night between Saturday and Sunday we only slept a few hours and the final night we eventually never went to bed at all!

Anyway we treated ourselves with some Aussie wine, provided by my former boss (thanks for that!) on Saturday night to start adapting to Australia.



On Monday morning after first having left our car for storage (Yes we left home 3:30) we arrived to Landvetter totally exhausted. And the journey hadn't yet even begun...
The flights went well. Air Berlin took us to probably the worst airport of Europe, Berlin Tegel. Then to Abu Dhabi where it was +40 at 11pm! , strange experience. The final leg was a 14h flight with Etihad in a Dreamliner, the new airplane type from Boeing! Quite ok I must say. Nice staff and nice food.

And most of all on the entertainment system they had the MECCA POINTER!!! This service provides, at any time, the direction towards Mecca in relation to the flying direction. It is of course a little bit difficult to kneel in that direction onboard the plane but maybe it is enough to just have it in mind.



Finally we arrived to Brisbane airport. Except for some queue to the passport control the border crossing went smoothly and not at all as in the TV show.
Taxi service was perfect and at the apartment Kathryn met up with keys and a welcoming kit, thank you!  We went for a short walk, took below first picture and fell into bed totally exhausted...