Mother's Day

8 May
Brisbane
Cloudy and light sprinkles
10910 steps

I just finished a letter to my mother, so I thought I'd write for a moment about Mother's Day in Australia. My impression is that it's taken pretty seriously here; all the restaurants are open and holding Mother's Day specials -- I think that means that they add 10% to their prices. It seems that families are out and about a lot, and you see many women holding small bouquets, surrounded by their families. It is very touching.

Today was a free day, so I spent the day mostly scouting. My colleagues and I think we have a good course going, but we are always eager to find new things to do, so I cast about looking for things.
Brisbane has been a hard city for me to warm up to. The first year of the course, 2000, found us in a dump of a hostel on the south side of the Brisbane River. It was loud, the patrons were unruly, and it was located far from anything interesting. It probably has colored my perception of Brisbane since.
But this year, I've found more and more that Brisbane is in fact a very nice place, after all. Today, I visited City Hall, which also houses a city museum and art gallery. The city hall has a clock tower, of course, at the top of which you get a great view of the city -- and numb ears when the bells ring! The museum is brief, and deals mostly with the building of the City Hall. The central rotunda was taken over today by promotional booths of many historical and cultural societies, and I was able to make some contacts with a couple of Aboriginal groups that I hope to turn into experiences for students in future offerings of the course.
We are planning another group dinner for the students tomorrow night, at a riverside seafood place called Oxley's. I walked over there this morning -- probably accounting for about 4000 of the steps above! -- to get a menu, find out about prices, and about how to get there. We like the group meals, as it gives all of us a chance to find out what one another has been doing in a relaxed setting. We saw this restaurant from the water as we sailed on the Mirimar cruise yesterday, and started thinking about it as a possibility.

In the afternoon, my senior colleague and I went off to the South Bank Parklands, one of the best areas of the entire trip. There's a short rainforest walk, an inland beach (one cannot swim in the Brisbane River, as it will have sharks from time to time), a performing arts center, an outdoor amphitheatre stadium, a Nepalese peace pagoda, many restaurants, a weekend fleamarket, and long sidewalks along the river. A very enjoyable gathering place for much of Brisbane -- the inclement weather did not seem to stop the families out for the day honoring their mothers.

Tomorrow, we go to the Australian Woolshed for a look at the sheep industry. Tuesday, we leave for Moreton Island.