Bonkers in Brisbane

Okay, it would be really lame if I posted my events of the past couple of weeks AFTER my trip. I have a few minutes so I might as well get it done. The flight was pretty long to get “Down Under”. I thought my 14+ hour flight from JFK to J-berg was long. This one wasn’t quite 15 hours. I flew first to Sydney and then on to Brisbane. The best part of the trip was that Qantas lost both my bags. Darn! I travel enough that I wasn’t worried about it. The Qantas folks were VERY nice about it and besides give me a toiletry kit (complete with underwear) they also gave me $100 for the trouble. My bags eventually showed up the next day.

I spent the first afternoon in Brisbane at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary . This is the world’s largest and oldest koala sanctuary. It was pretty cool to feed the kangaroos and hold a koala. I hung out with my good friend, John Doherty. He is THE king of automated parameter estimation.

The next 4 days were spent teaching a groundwater modeling class to students mostly from Australia. It was a big group and the course went really well. I stayed in a hotel overlooking the Brisbane River. The city is quite beautiful and so is the climate. I would normally wake up around 5 in the morning and would exercise for an hour or so. There are VERY nice jogging/ridding paths along both sides of the river. I am amazed at how many people are up and about at 5:00 in the morning. Lots of runners and bikers. Who can blame them, however. Soon I discovered South Bank Beach. This is a fake beach that the city has built right next to the river. It is a great place to swim. I even went and purchased a nice pair of Speedo goggles. So most days I would run a couple of miles and swim a ½ mile or so. So nice!

One morning, Norm and I ran over to the Brisbane LDS Temple. A small but very nice temple overlooking the city. I’m sure that the Church paid a pretty penny for that piece of property. I was actually hoping to attend a temple session but I got too busy and I didn’t make it a priority. Funny, while writing this post, I happened to check the official Church site and I read that clothing rental is NOT available. So, my intentions were good but I wouldn’t have been able to attend either way. I brought my running shoes and my scuba mask but I did not bring my temple clothes.

The breakfasts have been similar to what you would find in Europe: lots of breads, cheeses, cereals, fruits, and yogurt. I found a great smoothie place called Oasis. I am addicted to the Bahama Banana (Bananas, Honey, and Passion fruit). Dinners have been most excellent with lots of seafood. The best is a local fish called Barramundi.

Well this is the first post. Instead of writing one big long thing, I’ll break it up. My first week in Brisbane. Not bad. Snowy, cold, and crappy weather in Utah but nice here.