Sunday, May 2, 2010

Brisvegas or Brisneyland? How about neither?

I'm back from my most recent trip to Brisbane, and what a difference it was from my previous trip a few months ago. Back then I spent some time checking out the city, the nightlife, the gay scene. All that kind of stuff.


To be honest, it left a lot to be desired. I checked out a place called the Sportsmans Hotel. There were a bunch of guys playing pool. A few old guys, a few young guys. Not really my crowd. I sat down at the bar and had a beer, and got hit on by a senior citizen. I tried the Wickham Hotel next. It was actually alot better. Not great, but there was a decent crowd of people. I had some beers with a few guys I met there. Of course they told me I needed to be in town on the weekend if I wanted to experience what Brisbane had to offer, but that wasn't an option for me. One actually told me he'd be at Sporties (as the Sportsman Hotel is known) the next day for some karaoke if I wanted to join him. Sounded like a bit of fun, so I figured i'd see how my day went.


They headed off but the night was still young, so I checked out Megabeat. Its a nightclub but I guess I was too early for the 2am crowd, because other than the bartender I was 1 of about 2 guys in the entire building. So of course I got chatting and drinking with him. There was a show by some old drag queen, and there were a small crowd of girls there so I wasn't the only one to shake my booty and embarrass myself. But i digress. This guy, who was a blondie, seemed to be more into me than I was into him. And i'd had too much to drink by that time, so of course when the crowd grew and there were more entertaining people to chat with, I moved on. And blondie was pissed, lol. I got chatting to another guy and we ended up leaving together and started walking home. Yes he came back with me, but no we didn't do anything. We were both exhausted, it was past 3am and I had work the next morning and had to be on time. But the company was great :)

The next day was my welcome lunch at the company. This is Brisbane and no there are no kosher places around. There are barely any jews around! Well it made things easier that I don't keep kosher 100%. And by that I mean I will eat non-kosher, but will stay away from non-kosher meats, and everything else that by definition is not-kosher. So no lobster, crab or prawns for me either, but with those restrictions in mind, there are plenty of places to eat. I didn't need a vegetarian place. Regular eateries had something I could eat. (One of my workmates did actually say to me once "but you can eat kosher pork, right?"). Anyway lunch was nice, met most of the employees at the office there and it was all on the company's bill :) .

I did end up going back to Sporties to check out this karaoke. It was bit sad but it was better than nothing, and I hung out with the best looking guy of the bunch that I had met that night. I will not go into detail about what we got up to that night. But his place had a nice balcony, with a great view of the city, and it was only a short walk back to my hotel afterwards.

The next night I was hoping for a bit more excitement. A friend of mine was in the area for a long weekend away so he drove up for the night. We first went walking through the city and ended up at the casino. We had something to eat at their restaurant and met up with a friend of his who recommended we head to Fortitude Valley which is supposedly where the nightlife is supposed to be. Unfortunately for Brisbane that means a bunch of loud drunk teenagers and a lot of cops. It really wasn't much, and it was a Thursday night!

Well that was the end of my first trip. I went back a couple weeks ago and this trip was so much different! For starters I didn't do much there after hours, just chilled out at home. Home being my company's apartment in a building that overlooks the city which was really cool. Really nicely decked out.


I did have a guest over one night after work. No not THAT type of guest. I had a friend i'd been chatting to on gaydar. He lived in Sydney but was heading to Brisbane for work the following week. And 2 days later I found out that I would be too. So he came over one night for a few drinks before his flight back home, that was nice. Other than that I was just busy with work and chilling out after work. And that's how the trip ended. To be fair there's nothing inherently wrong with Brisbane, but after spending so much time in New York I'm used to more. More people, more nightlife. Everything seems small compared to it.

I came home and had one day left for the week at work. It consisted of a couple hours work, an extended lunch meeting at a restaurant with a coworker and associate and then a stop at a pub on the way back. Now if only every week ended like that :)

j

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