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Every where you go in the world they have something to show you, Brisbane has the Story Bridge and the City Hall, Brisbane City Hall is in George Square, it has a clock that chimes every quarter of an hour, one could say that this is the Big Ben of Brisbane.
Welcome to our article,
Dear readers, this is another article of my life story. Here I am going to tell you about my first impression of Brisbane city, when I came to Australia.. Let us start from the docks where I have arrived and disembarked; as soon as I disembarked in Brisbane I met with my brother and other friends, so, I let them guide me what to do next, after all they were here before me, so, they knew what we had to do and where we had to go. As we know newcomers arriving from a foreign country have to go through custom to check their belongings, so, we did that and then we were free to go to our destination.
Anyhow, after the customs cleared us, we left the port in a car and they took me to one of our friends house not far from the port, here the lady of the house had prepared something to eat for everybody and while we were eating and everybody was trying to make me feel welcome, we were also talking about my native town Genzano di Lucania and the people that I had left behind in that town; you see, all those relative or friends that came to pick me up, they were from the same town and I had brought presents and news from their families. I must say here that in those times when transport and news travelled much slower that today, anybody that arrived from overseas was welcome, especially if one brought presents and news from their relative and friends.
Here we guess that everybody that has migrated or moved away from home for a long period of time knows what being home sick is; therefore, this finding that there is a group of people from your own town, and they are staying in touch with each other is helpful wherever one goes and they make the new comer feel welcome. So, I was welcomed from this group of relative and friends, who soon made me understand among other things that I was welcomed to Brisbane the land of the kangaroos.
Now, I have to say that at first sights
Brisbane did not look as good as Sydney, the port of Brisbane where I
disembarked was an old timber dock, and we went through customs in an old and
large timber building, but I thought anyhow Brisbane is still a city and our
friends live here; so, we went to one of our fried home, it was a unit in a
brick building, so that was not bad, after all one has to accept whatever there
is available when we go to a different place.
Anyhow, after having eaten and talked for a couple of hours with our friends, and given them those presents that I had brought, I was driven to my final destination a few kilometers away, where we had to go was on the other side of the river, we went across the Brisbane River on a bridge called the Story Bridge. So, Brisbane has also its own unique landmarks the Story Bridge and City Hall are the most important.
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Reaching my final destination
My final destination was at my uncle home, where my brother and a few other friends and relatives were also staying. My uncle had been in Australia by now 9 years and somehow very recently had been able to save enough money to put down a deposit to buy a house; the house was a large wooden house.
Now, for us that were coming from a country where almost everything was masonry or built with bricks and mortar and cement, these houses in Brisbane city make us feel a bit strange at first; but, they were still houses and they still provided a roof on our heads; therefore, even knowing that they were made of timber, I was pleased to have been offered that accommodation. My brother knowing that I was coming had already bought a bed for me, so, I was already set up. You know it is a great help when you go to a new country and find that somebody has already prepared everything for you. I believe that for this reason I have been lucky.
Let us imagine you reach your destination, as I did when I reached Brisbane city. Now let us say that you don’t have much money to pay for accommodation, you don’t know where to go or what to do next; you don’t know even how to speak the local language, you can end up in deep trouble you know. Therefore, I think that I have been lucky, when I found that I was welcomed. I believe that when we see new arrivals, we should try to understand that they have left their own country, in the hope of finding a better way of living.
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At my new address.
Now, let me talk how I was welcome at my uncle house; we reaching my uncle house and were greeted by the people that were in at that time of the day, since there were people that had gone to work, you see, there were quite a few people living at my uncle house already, and they were all from the same town that I came from, so, we all knew each other already.
So, I reached my final destination in Brisbane
city at my uncle house, and greeted those that were there, we unloaded my
luggage and we started to talk about the town I came from, Genzano di Lucania,
with the people that were present, because they were all from the same town, and they wanted to know as much as they could about their
relatives. While we were unloading at the same time I was telling them about
the presents that I brought from my own family to my uncle, they were mostly
local town produce the largest of them was now a seven liter demijohn of wine,
since the ten liter broke on the way, I had also some 6 liter of pure olive oil
and a large tray of homemade large biscuits that we make in Genzano when
somebody gets married, there were other presents that I was going to give them
as soon as I would unpack my own luggage.
Anyhow, evening came and we had dinner and after that I retired to my bedroom, I was ready for a good night sleep on firm ground, after being a whole month on the ship.
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Brisbane city views.
Wherever you go there are always interesting
things to see, also Brisbane city has got several thing to show the world. I know that most people that come to Australia will say that Brisbane
does not look as good as Sydney, but so what, it is still a nice city to live
in and has got things that we are proud of; like the Story Bridge, City Hall
with its clock tower that strikes the time every quarter of an hour, the city shopping Centre, Parliament House and the botanic gardens
next to it, where we can stroll around looking at the garden or the pond, with
its ducks and swans or sitting on the lawn on a hot summer day and listening to
a band during the weekends.
Now there are more parks in Brisbane and most of them have a playground for children, the most important after the City Botanic Garden is, New Farm Park, this park is well known for the roses that are grown there, so, we call it the park of the roses, it is also a sight to see early in spring when the jacaranda trees are in flower, this park has a large playground for children, it has a kiosk, where you can have a cup tea or buy an ice cream for the kids and a few other things, on hot summer days one can sit under the trees near the Brisbane River and fill almost as if you are at the beach; you see Brisbane River is a very wide river and it is navigable for many miles, so, while we were sitting in the shade of the trees, we can see the traffic of bouts on the river, some of these boats are carrying people that were sightseeing on the river, or going to another pleasure destination.
Another important garden that needs mentioning here is the new Botanic
Garden at Toowong Brisbane, near Mt-Coot-Tha forest this is a western suburb on
the fringes of Brisbane city, this new botanic garden has been opened because
the old botanic garden in the city lost some of its land, as they have built
another university there; now apart from seeing what we can see and find in a
botanic garden; from this new botanic garden, you can visit also this
observatory;
The Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium is a planetarium located on the grounds of Brisbane Botanic Gardens[1] in the suburb of Toowong, Brisbane, Queensland,Australia. The Planetarium was officially opened on 24 May 1978.
Anyhow, let us go back to talk about the sixties and those wooden houses.
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The wooden houses.
Living in Brisbane wooden houses, I felt no difference at all to live in it, after all that is the way that most of the local people live in these parts of Australia. It was a four bedroom house, in addition to the four bedrooms there was a lounge room, a large kitchen where there was enough room for a large dining table, there was a bathroom with bathtub and shower that had a gas heated hot water devise that you could light up and have a hot shower, the toilet was downstairs under the house; now all this large house and floor space was set on wooden stumps, I know that those people that have never lived or seen a house on wooden stumps before are saying; what is he talking about a house on wooden stumps.
I know it sounds strange and feel a bit
strange too to live in these houses at the beginning, but anyhow, they are there,
and they have a pretty good reason why people built them like that. After all is not even a new idea when we think about it;
you see when I was at school I remember that my teacher was saying that a long
time ago for safety reasons, some people that lived by the sea would build
their house on stilts over shallow water, so that they could defend them easily
if they were attacked, but
what are the reasons for these houses to be built like that here?
I believe that I have said enough in this
article, we will talk about these wooden houses, in our next article, Australia
wooden houses, because we want to explain the reasons why these houses in
Brisbane were built with timber and they have been built on wooden stumps.
See
you soon in next article,
To see more click on this link, Welcome to Brisbane.
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