Take a Tour of Our Neighborhood!

Street View has come to Google Maps Australia.  The advent of a feature that has been available in the U.S. for quite a while has generated some controversy here.  In the past few days, the Aussie newspapers have been highlighting privacy issues (e.g., "there was the man caught leaving his lover's apartment" or "people have been photographed sunbathing topless").  Today's Courier-Mail article included this link to the Streetviewfun top 100 photos, which includes a photo of an accident that occurred just as the Google photo van was passing by.  I think Street View is absolutely cool.  I have explored my old neighborhood in Atlanta as well as my brother's in Illinois.  Now you can explore our neighborhood here in Toowong, Queensland. To get you oriented, that's our two-story apartment on the middle of the picture (behind the pole).  Then continue exploring our street in the Google window below the picture.

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Home

I have started a photo album of pictures of our home and the immediate neighborhood. You can find the link under "My Photo Gallery" or you can click here. We live in Toowong, which is one of the suburbs that make up Greater Brisbane. We are very close to the city centre (about 3 miles/4.8 km), and even closer to my work (1.5 miles/2.4 km). Toowong is great for public transit because there is a major train station, a major bus junction, and a ferry stop here. There is also a sizable shopping and restaurant district about two blocks from our place. The neighborhood is made up of mostly large apartment and condo complexes, and is heavily populated by university students. Now that we're in the summer holiday period, the place is almost a ghost town. I'll post some more pictures from our place once we finally get rid of the boxes on our upstairs veranda (4 months late).

Mixed Tapes

V. and I had a "date night" on Saturday. After the babysitter showed up at 5 and went to play with Will in the back garden, we snuck away by foot to the Regatta Hotel for dinner. I haven't quite mastered the terminology yet, but "hotels" in Australia are sort of large combination restaurant/pub/entertainment centres. The Regatta in Toowong is a landmark, sitting near the river and having some sort of historical connection to Brisbane rowing. Anyway, we had a very nice dinner there, once I got over my angst about which steak to order. I haven't been so challenged about a piece of meat before. Take a look (the menu is posted on the website):

Stockyard MSA Beef 18-24 month old British Bred Yearling, grain fed at the "Kerwee" feedlot in the lush surrounds of the Darling Downs
Eye Fillet (minimum Med 100 days grain) 200gr $28.0
Eye Fillet (minimum Large 100 days grain) 300gr $34.9
Rib Fillet (minimum 100 days on grain) 300gr $26.9
Rump (long fed) (minimum 200 days on grain) 400gr $27.5

Diamantina MSA Beef Raised in the Central QLD Highlands, fattened at "Bottletree" feedlot in the heart of the rich Darling Downs
Sirloin (minimum 70 days on grain) 350gr $25.9
Rib Fillet on the bone (minimum 70 days on grain) $35.9

After dinner we walked to the ferry terminal below the Regatta and got on a CityCat for the 30-minute ride to New Farm. It was our first river trip all the way through the city centre and under the Story Bridge. Restaurants, clubs, and parks along the river were full of people enjoying the warm spring evening. Large clusters of people sat around public BBQs in the twilight, looking like scenes out of 1950s small-town America.

Disembarking at New Farm, we walked to the Brisbane Powerhouse, an old power station that has been converted into "a contemporary multi-arts, dining and conference venue." We had a nice coffee (a flat white, which has become our fav) before entering the Visy theatre to see Daniel Kitson's "C-90." We figured out that this was our first theater outing in over two years--the last just before we found out we were pregnant. The "play" itself was about 70 minutes long, and was actually a monologue by the fast-speaking Kitson, who wrote and developed the show back in his native England. I enjoyed the performance very much. It's the story about a man's last day at work in a large repository for mixed cassette tapes. (You do remember the cassette tape, don't you?) Most had been made for the benefit of others, either as gifts of appreciation or some romantic gesture (at the beginning, the middle, or the end of the relationship). As suggested by the show, sometimes a person might even make a mixed tape and label it "Sorry" before giving it.

In college I used to make a lot of these tapes. I remember the careful process of putting a record on the turnstile, setting the needle down, and then releasing the pause button on the tape deck set to record. As soon as the final bit of noise from the song was done, I would hit the pause button again and repeat the process with another record. Even after we got a CD player in 1989, I continued to make mixed tapes, but stopped when I was able to burn CDs in the mid '90s (a process that in turn ceased when I got my iPod). I still had many of these tapes when we were packing up to move. Of course, it had been many years since I listened to any cassette, so all the ones I had made were put in the trash and the rest given to Goodwill. After seeing "C-90," the funny thing is that I can't remember ever making a mixed tape for someone else, particularly for a romantic reason. I received a few from others over the years, but I don't think they were accompanied with romantic yearnings either. Maybe this was a more prominent form of expression in other parts of the world...

Did you ever receive or send a mixed tape? Was it ever done out of love?

Toowong: Home Sweet Home

Yes, we have a new home! Yesterday we received word that our application for a townhouse in Toowong was approved by the owner. We move in next Tuesday. Although the Queenslander in Paddington would have been nice, the location of this townhouse couldn’t be beat. We’ll be just two blocks from Toowong Village Shopping Center, which has a train stop and a CityCat landing nearby (the picture above was taken roughly a block from our new place). What’s more, my drive to work will be 5-10 minutes long. Our plan is to have Will go to a daycare facility two buildings away from where I work, and V. will take either the train or CityCat to work in the City a couple of days a week.

Speaking of V., she met with her new boss at the Mater Children’s Hospital yesterday. She loved the place! She already has her own office, although it will be several weeks before she will be able to work due to licensure issues. V. got a very good feeling about how psychiatry is practised here, and she is really quite happy about the arrangements for her job in particular. She’ll be working about 20 hours/week, and she’ll even be able to see private practice patients sometime in the future. She is really happy about the job.

In the meantime, we are enjoying the company of the Clarks. Ellen, the eldest girl, played in a tennis tournament this week at UQ, so I was able to watch a few of her matches. This afternoon V. is watching Ellen play doubles while I stay at home with a napping Will. This morning we had a long walk along the river from Southbank, across the Goodwill bridge (see picture above), through the Botanic Gardens, and finishing up at Queen Street Mall. We have probably walked more just in the past week than we did in the entire previous six months. And that’s a good thing.