Queensland vs. Victoria

As today is our last day here in sunny Queensland, I've spent a lot of time reflecting on the last week and what a lovely holiday it's been. I've also thought a bit about the differences between the sunny shores of Queensland and life back in the sometimes sunny Victoria. For those Americans amongst you, our holiday here would be the equivalent of going from New York City to Florida in the US. Victorians love coming up to Queensland to get away from the cold weather and get a bit of sunshine. This is our Florida!

Anyway, here are a few observations I've made during this visit:

1. Queenslanders seem to be a bit more laid back than their Victorian counterparts--or at least the Victorians I interact with in Melbourne each day. I don't know if it's the climate or the natural beauty of the place, but things move at a slower pace here and people are generally not too fussed about things. The first few days you are here it seems a bit frustrating that no one is in a hurry, but then you get into the holiday mode and you aren't in a hurry any more either. Lovely.

2. Queenslanders seem to be more stereotypical "Aussies" than their Victorian counterparts. What that means is the people I've met here are more like the people you'd expect to find in Australia if you were coming from the USA for the first time. What I'm trying to say is that there have been quite a few people here that have reminded me of Steve Irwin or Crocodile Dundee. Same type of accent, same inflection, same 'have a go' attitude. Maybe my visit to the Australia Zoo is clouding my judgement, but that's the way it seems to me. So if you are looking for the 'stereotypical' Australian experience, then perhaps Queensland is the go...

3. On the whole, Queensland's restaurants are a bit disappointing. This is a big statement and I thought long and hard before typing it, but I think that Melburnians are absolutely spoiled. The Handsome Australian and I have been to many restaurants here this week (and last year during our visit to the Gold Coast), and nothing has really caught our fancy. There are no standouts and even your average places aren't that great. In Melbourne it's quite easy to walk off the street into any place you come across and almost be guaranteed a good meal. I truly believe the standard in Melbourne is simply that high.

4. People in Queensland love their Rugby and Aussie Rules doesn't rate. For those of you who aren't familiar with Australia's football code rivalry, Australian Rules Football originated in Victoria and until recent times was seen mainly as a Victorian game. The Australian Football League has expanded during the last two decades and now most capital cities around the country have their own AFL teams. Still, more than half the teams in the competition are still based in Melbourne and it's surrounds. So in Melbourne and Victoria, Aussie Rules is a BIG DEAL. So it seems very odd to us when we come to Queensland and hear people talking about the 'footy' and it's not Aussie Rules, but Rugby. Victorians would have you believe there is no other sport.

5. Poached eggs with Soldiers is a common children's breakfast meal here. I've never seen it on a menu in Victoria. What is it? Well, poached eggs are well, poached eggs (basically soft boiled) and the soldiers are pieces of toast cut into "stick" like slices. The idea seems to be you dip your toast sticks into your runny egg. Very cute. Our littlest one loved his poached eggs with soldiers today.

And finally, the Handsome Australian noted, "People here in Queensland seem to wear shorts more often." Hmm...I wonder why? This is actually a big statement coming from the Handsome Australian--anything above 18 degrees Celsius and he's in shorts--rain or shine. He might wear a jumper on top, but he's got shorts on bottom.

The Big Pineapple

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Handsome Australian and I have taken the kids on holiday this week to sunny, tropical Noosa, Queensland. There is so much on offer in this area, it's hard to decide what to do with ourselves each day.

The hotel we are staying in has a lovely pool that seems to have a strange spell cast over our four year old. She wants to constantly be in it. Never mind it's actually quite cold and she spends all of her time sitting in the small spa alongside the actual pool, it seems the pool is all she can talk about. She actually said to us, "Mum and Dad, I'm going to keep asking you if I can go to the pool until you say yes." And true to her word, she did exactly that and has done so every day since our arrival until we finally give in. She's persistent and clever and while I find the endless pool requests a bit on the annoying side, I have to commend her for setting a goal for herself and achieving it. She's going places...well, to the pool anyway.

The Handsome Australian and I actually decided today that our daughter will make the perfect 'resort holiday' customer. She loves the idea of a hotel and she loves the pool. Every time we make mention of leaving the hotel and venturing out into the wider world, she protests and protests loudly. We aren't sure where she gets this tendency as the Handsome Australian and I are generally anti-resort (well the Handsome Australian is anyway, I reckon I'd be happy to give it a whirl once) and we like to get out and see what there is to see and do what there is to do in any place that we visit. We used to spend our holidays, before we had children, on the go. We'd leave our hotel early in the morning and wouldn't come back until late at night. We'd pack the activities in, doing as much as we possibly could in the time we had.

Now that we are traveling with the under 5 crowd, we've had to taper our schedule a bit and rethink our activities. So today after we peeled our four year old's fingers off the pool fence one by one and carried her kicking and screaming to the car, the Handsome Australian announced that we'd be visiting the Big Pineapple. The what? Yes, you heard me The Big Pineapple.

What could be more exciting than a super huge Pineapple sitting at the gate of a pineapple plantation just near Nambour (and just down the road from Noosa) here in Queensland? Well, my friends, the Big Pineapple and the accompanying gift shop, cafe, pineapple plantation and informative tours are really something to be experienced.

For the uninitiated, Australia actually has a collection of Big or Giant things all around the country. It's a weird Australian phenomenon. Don't ask me to explain it, because I can't. There are just all these iconic giant structures dotted around Australia that lure people in to visit them. They are generally a bit run down and dodgy--just your run of the mill tourist trap. Think of all those bizarre snake farms you see advertised on highways in the USA and you'll get the idea.

But back to the pineapple...the Handsome Australian was excited to be in the vicinity of one of these Big things and decided that we must visit. Upon arrival, our kids loved it. They were running around the gift shop, cafe and the Big Pineapple itself like they'd been set free in Disney World or something. They LOVED the Big Pineapple itself and really liked the fact that you could climb the spiral staircase inside and look out over the top of it.

The Handsome Australian was unimpressed with the Pineapple itself and thought it was in dire need of updating. Mind you, we paid nothing to see it and what did he think was going to be inside this Big Pineapple anyway? The inside is just as tacky as the outside. I thought this would have been an obvious conclusion, but the Handsome Australian seemed to expect more. Poor guy.

Here are a few photos from our adventure:

See the logo looks promising...

Now that's a Big Pineapple. You can't eat it, but you can climb it--well inside it anyway!

Here's another view from the parking lot...a very quiet parking lot I might add. Hmm, perhaps that should have been a sign...

This is the view of the pineapple plantation from the balcony of the gift shop and cafe. Both the Handsome Australian and I were amazed to see that pineapples actually grow on plants on the ground. We had both wrongly believed they grew up high in trees. Lucky we stopped by the Big Pineapple today so we could get our pineapple facts straight. (Oh and that little train thing you see is the tour you can go on. We elected not to take the tour of the plantation as we didn't think our kids would get much out of it and it would have cost us something like $40 AUD for all of us)

More pineapples growing on the ground and not in a tree. Who would have thought!

Stay tuned for more adventures at Queensland's greatest tourist spots tomorrow...

An Australian Holiday

As you, my loyal readers (all two of you--thanks so much for stopping by), may have noticed, I've been missing from the blog for awhile. Sorry for not posting more regularly recently, but life has been moving at an awfully quick pace outside the blogosphere and I've been endeavouring to keep up with it. This week though, it's all about relaxing and taking it easy on holiday.

On Sunday, which was Father's Day here in Australia (yet another difference between the USA and here. I've got to remember to wish my Dad back in the USA Happy Father's Day in June, and then tee my kids up with presents and cards for the hubby here in September. It can be very confusing at times. Anyway, back to my point...) the Handsome Australian and I bundled our children into a taxi at the very early hour of 5am and took a ride to the Melbourne Airport.

Once we arrived at the Melbourne Airport, we made our way to the Virgin Blue luggage drop off counters and checked our bags in for our flight to Brisbane, Queensland. Our time at the airport was really not that interesting except for the fact that not a single person--at the ticket counter or in subsequent security checks or at the gate for boarding asked any of us for any form of identification. I think that's the first time in a long time I've travelled on an airplane and not been asked to prove who I am and that my name matches my ticket. It was like a throw back to the 70s or the 80s or whenever it was that we didn't need our IDs all the time.

In many ways it was refreshing as everyone was totally friendly and didn't treat each of us like a criminal with something to hide (which I have to say is often the feeling you get as you travel through security in the USA). On the other hand, it was a bit disturbing because you think, "Well they let me through, who else are they letting through?" Yeah, a very interesting situation to say the least.

Nevertheless, we boarded our flight and arrived safely several hours later at the sunny Brisbane airport. Brisbane wasn't our final destination though. We stopped briefly and picked up our hire car (that's Aussie for rental car) and took a two hour drive north along the Bruce Highway to a well known Australian holiday spot along the famous Sunshine Coast called Noosa.

We've never been to Noosa before and this is only our second visit to Queensland. I've lived in Australia for 8 years now, but have done very little domestic travel in that time period. The Handsome Australian and I have made it up to Sydney and across to Adelaide and have driven through a lot of rural Victoria and we even went on a road trip to Canberra once, but that pretty much does it for my domestic travel here.

Last year, we brought our children up to Queensland just before Christmas time and we spent a week on the Gold Coast (which is a touristy beach area just south of Brisbane). During that trip and this current one, I've been confronted with the odd feeling of what it's like to be tourist in the country in which you live, but not in which you are from. Does that even make sense?

It feels odd being a tourist in Australia because we do live here, but we don't live in Queensland. There are a lot of people from overseas about the place and in my interactions with the locals, many of them assume that I've come for a holiday directly from the USA because of my accent. They are very careful about asking you though as they don't want to offend. This was my conversation with the man who runs our hotel and assisted me in checking in:

Hotel man: "Welcome to Noosa. Where have you driven from today?"

Me: "Just up from Brisbane in the car, but we had to fly into Brisbane first this morning."

HM: "So you flew into Brisbane from...?"

Me: "We flew into Brisbane from Melbourne this morning."

HM: "So are you from Melbourne?"

Me: "Yes, that is where we are from (this is the part that freaks me out because I have to say I'm from Melbourne. I don't really feel like I'm from Melbourne). We live there."

HM: "But not originally right?"

Me: "I know, you are trying to work out the accent aren't you?"

HM: "Yes, well I know it's a North American accent, I just can't tell if you are Canadian or American."

Me: "Texan actually (that's a Texas thing, we claim our state first. We can't help it, we are a proud people. Also, this tends to freak Australians out as I don't have a very typical Texan accent and most of them refuse to believe that I'm actually from there so I do love saying it for shock value. Yes, I am that easily amused.)"

HM: "How long have you been in Australia for?"

Me: "8 years now."

HM: "Have you ever visited Noosa before?"

Me: "No, we haven't."

HM: "Well you are going to love it."

And the niceties continued until all the administration of checking in was complete.

So I guess the point I'm trying to make is it's weird to feel like an international tourist again in a country where I've lived for so long and now consider to be very much my home and to be asked questions as if I am an international tourist.

So the identity crisis continues...