Chapter 6, part 7

The Trip to Brisbane, part 2.

So as I said, I went to Brisbane. Being in Brisbane this time was an interesting experience. Usually we stay with Hobart’s family, and we don’t have much of a touristy time. But this time? This time we actively tried to have at least one big day of pure being-a-tourist.

We took one of the boats out onto the river — Citycat, or whatever they’re called. That’s fair enough, they’re a cheap, effective form of public transport in the city. But dammit we rode up front and took photographs and enjoyed the wind in our face.

Then we went up to the museum/art gallery. At this point I’m not going to attempt to remember the actual official name of the gallery. I probably should, because damn it was great. The galleries in Brisbane’s city centre are great for someone from Townsville. They’re freaking huge. There’s so much to see. We could have spent days there, and still not been satisfied.

But the best exhibit?

It was this strange, awesome room. I only have external pictures. Basically it’s this enormous black box, that was surrounded by all these reflective balls. The balls were a different art piece by the same artist… and they displayed them together, apparently for the first time. Like I said, I only have external pictures. Hobart has an awesome interior picture, and really I wish I’d taken one… because you see the giant black box was an art work you could go inside.

Inside the massive black box was an infinite room. There were a whole bunch of mirrors, and the floor was water, and there were all these hanging balls. It was black-lit, and the illusion really was of an infinite space. It was fucking incredible. An amazing piece of art work.

There were a bunch of other things that were awesome at the gallery, but this artwork was incredible… an amazing experience.

Going to the gallery was awesome. I love art of all kinds, and it’s always amazing to have a venue to expierence it. Going with Hobart is always good, too, because he’s well educated about art, and it’s easy to talk to him about what’s going on.

So as well as the gallery and the boat we went on a giant ferris wheel. Not much to say about that. I have a terrible fear of heights — well more accurately I have a fear of falling from heights. So Hobart likes to do things that challenge that, like going on a giant ferris wheel. Unfortunately, the ferris wheel was boring. It was too stable, so no matter how high it was it wasn’t very thrilling. We just went around in circles. Yay.

Of course that wasn’t the worst or most disappointing part of the trip to Brisbane. The worst part was our taxi driver who was trying to get us to the RNA show grounds for the convention on the first day of the convention, the Friday. The RNA showgrounds are a well-known landmark in Brisbane, a place that any taxi driver worth his salt should be able to locate instantly. We got into the Taxi and I asked him to take us to the RNA showgrounds and he asked, whether, maybe I could direct him, and show him the way.

Okay… okay… a home address, a specific place? Maybe… but the fucking RNA showgrounds? What the hell, man? Some people have suggested that maybe this guy was trying to give us the run-around to make more money. After all, if he pisses around, surely he can make more bickies by leading us all over the place? Nope. He got completely fucking lost and actually turned off his counter. In fact at one point he pulled over to the side of the road, hopped OUT of the car and ran across the road to ask a random stranger if she knew the way to the RNA showgrounds.

Our taxi driver GOT OUT OF THE CAR AND ASKED A RANDOM STRANGER FOR DIRECTIONS.

I… I was absolutely staggered. Who the fuck was this moron? You have to understand that this wasn’t our first ride to the RNA showgrounds. The day before we’d gotten there without anything even resembling a hitch. The taxi driver didn’t even need to ask or qualify where we were going. Easy peasy.

HE DIDN’T NEED HOBART’S IPHONE TO GET HIM THERE.

That’s right… the only reason that we actually made it to the showgrounds in the end is that Hobart pulled out his iphone, found the location and gave the guy the phone, to act as a GPS map. THE GUY HAD A FUCKING GPS SYSTEM, ALL TAXIS DO. But, not… he needed to use Hobart’s goddamn iphone to get us to a really well-known Brisbane location.

Somehow we managed to get, literally, the worst taxi driver in Brisbane.

–Andrew S.
(This, incidentally, was the only time I actually rode up in front and told the taxi driver where we were going. Every other time it was Hobart who did that. Maybe it was my fault? Yeah… somehow I don’t think so.)