Fireworks & Bananas

Hi!

Well, that was a quick and easy week. Started off with two days off – excellent! Time spent getting a haircut, taking myself on a massive walk to the Vespa showroom, through neighborhoods I’d never given a second thought to (and for good reason – no, not bad or scary, but when you don’t need anything from random neighborhoods, who cares?) all just to drool over the little Vespa ET4 150cc scooter I would some day like to park as mine but at $7,800 new ($5,500 used. Sigh.) it looks like drool is all I’ll be doing; Going to the grocery store; Getting my hearing and my eyes checked for free (better hearing than most people and perfect eyes, well, for another few years yet) and generally lazing around. Then, come work time, I was told to ‘use it or lose it’ about my remaining vacation that they don’t pay out. So I basically worked one whole day last week, the others were either non-existent or really short. Was pretty nice. Gotta love paid days off! But that’s it now, no more. So in place of no more paid days off, bring on the higher hourly wage!



This weekend has been pretty nice in that the rain stopped (it rained for about a week), thus leaving the skies nice and clear for a huge fireworks show that they had last night to celebrate the wonders and the glory of the murky Brisbane River. It turns out they’ve recently discovered how cool it is having a city built around a river (they had to know something was up with all the towering high-rise apartment buildings that keep going up near it. Hmmm). So they threw a big festival centered around the River and water in general. I can’t keep up with every festival that they have (at least one a month) so I just opted to go with Mave and Roger to watch the fireworks near the Story Bridge. It was a pretty neat little fireworks show all in all (but honestly, after growing up with those fireworks shows at Disneyland and the ‘99/’00 New Years fireworks in NYC, everything else looks like beginners’ attempts. Awww). It started off with a fly-over of an F-14 (or some other speedy little fighter jet) doing a dump (oh dear, that sounds baaaad, but it was really cool and not a little scary. Especially for those people living in that apartment building it flew near). All I have to say about taking pictures at night, with a sensitive digital camera, is tripod tripod tripod. Just look at them and appreciate them for their "artistic" effect.





This morning was ‘Market Day’. The day, if I can haul myself out of bed in time, Mave and Roger and I go to the Eagle Street Pier Sunday Markets (my favorite). Those 2 go for the cheap bananas (and assorted fresh produce) and I go for cheap bananas too (I’ll admit it. I’m not ashamed), but really to look at jewelry for design ideas. You have to get there early as it’s only on for one day a week (Sunday) and the bananas sell out before 10am. Here’s the story – they had a cyclone blow through Northern Queensland a few months ago that pretty much wiped out the banana plantations (this seasons crops anyways). So in response to the "shortage", the grocery stores jacked up the price from like $4 a pound to $20, overnight. Yeah. In retaliation, the local farmers (or ‘dealers’ as I like to think of them) have set up shop in the little weekend markets undercutting the stores by 75%, thus making bananas affordable. To me, it’s all kind of funny. It’s psychology, isn’t it? Tell ‘em they can’t have their banana fix and they behave like heroin addicts lining up for methadone. I quite like these markets. This week was even livelier than previous weeks. There were stalls selling everything from opal jewelry, exotic breads, cedar socks (who knew?), to kangaroo skin wallets. There’s usually a little jazz band that plays once the place starts to pack out and the stalls get horrifically crowded. Early morning, tough as it is, is best.




So that’s the wrap up for the week. I gotta say, I love this little camera and I hope it helps give you guys an idea of what the place looks like. Any questions or comments, just ask!!!!!


J!

P.S. Still working out the photo bugs. If anyone knows an easy way, or, hell, ANY way to upload photos so they look normal and don't take all day to upload, do let me know.