Mark Smalley

Sunday, 6 Mar - Brisbane
Breakfast is good, a homely affair with plenty of yoghurt's, fruit and juices. The other occupants are mostly older women, not surprisingly I suppose as it's a Country Womens Association property.
Although their focus is on tours with private coaches we pick up some information on public transport at the Transit Centre. A walk across Merivale bridge takes us to the Southbank area, the cultural centre. While visiting the Queensland Museum & Sciencentre we get a text message from an ex-colleague of Marijke who lives in Gold Coast. We arrange to meet up at 1500 at Central station.
The museum is very well set out but the exhibits aren't very exciting. This sums up our first impressions of Brisbane: high on presentation but low on content.
It's partially clouded and 31c today, a bit hotter than average, or so I am told.
Southbank Parkland is a mix of green and concrete areas with plenty of eateries and some stalls with handicraft, Chinese medicine etc. Plenty of people milling around.
This reminds me of something that the NYPD detective told us. He said the if you observe a crowd of people, you'll see that most are either coming or going. After a while you develop an eye for people who don't fit in to this category. They're the ones to watch.
In one of his more memorable cases he'd identified such a suspect and had been trailing him for a couple of hours without anything much happening when he saw a car pull up outside a store. The man got out to buy something, leaving his wife inside and the engine running. Most crimes are opportunistic jobs and this was the chance the suspect was waiting for. He jumped into the car, holding a gun to the womans head and forcing her down on the floor, and sped off. A long chase followed, using police cars that are disguised as cabs, and the good guys won.
Back to Brissie, we cross the river by the Goodwill bridge for pedestrians and cyclists, which delivers us to the Botanic gardens.
My lack of sleep the past few nights is getting to me and I push off 'home', leaving Marijke waiting for her friend. Killing time, she visits the Museum of Brisbane in a big and impressive looking building focussing on the social history, visual arts, craft and design.
Back home I watch the last 15 laps of the Grand Prix in Melbourne, Fisichella winning from pole, and then sleep for 4 hours.
Marijke returns sixish, having had a great time with her friend, who loves living in Australia. They eat at the same place as yesterday, the food court that they were aiming for having shut up shop at 1700 on Sunday.

posted by Mark Smalley @ 4:22 PM