After a bit of a traffic jam, we arrived in Brisbane, dropped off at the coach terminal and for the first time we didn't have a hostel bus coming to pick us up. It's a tad different in a city, because in a sleepy little surf town they know the greyhound bus schedule so they just wait there on the fluke that people are coming to their hostel. ANYWAY, there I go sidetracking again, we got our google maps out and started to find our way, we entered a huge old building on the corner of a street, first impressions was the piss and vomit stench slapping us in the face, urgh, we went to our 6 bed dorm room and there was two other girls in there who seemed nice enough, they soon went out which meant we could get ready in our own space. We wandered out into the big city and realised how odd it felt after not being in one since LA. We're really starting to see what a rainy season really is, we got hit by another downpour but decided to carry on walking (much to my disappointment) but we did stumble across a cheap sushi place - the first of many! Grabbed some rolls and headed back to the s*** pit. We couldn't wait to go out in a big city and to party the night away, we rushed to get ready, had some pre drinks and headed downstairs to the bar joining onto our hostel, it was dark and dingy but they served cocktails in jars (just like the sweatshop in Townsville - must be an Ozzie thing) the music was brills, and we had such a good night, partied until gone 3am which we was shocked about considering how tired we was before!!! Woke up with a dreadful hangover, was feeling pretty grim and we all slept until 10am which is nigh on impossible in a hostel normally. Forcing ourselves out of bed, we took a stroll through town in search of a Farmers Market that was on that morning, lovely little food bits, problem was there was to much option and we couldn't decide on a hangover breakfast, I finally choose Lebanese food, definitely not the traditional English fry up but did the job. Today was nominated as buy a 'New Years dress day', the theme of the party were going to in Sydney is 'Black and Red' which makes shopping that little bit more difficult. We struggled ourselves up and down the several shopping streets, finally we had each chosen a dress, I didn't have the energy to think about bags and shoes yet, it's frustrating not having my home wardrobe, have to buy each thing, frustrating and expensive grrr. Dinner time means sushi time, we have become slightly addicted. Before going out, we needed a rest after our hard day of shopping (haha), were all happily laying in our beds, I asked Kate to pass the water, I didn't catch it and it fell on the floor, just as I went to pick it up, it had fallen next to a cockroach, we were all screaming and flapping our arms, not knowing what to do, you cant squash them because they spread their eggs once they go 'splat' so we had to get it out the room alive. No chance! I leaped next door and asked a random European boy to help out three scared (pathetic) girls, he couldn't really understand why we couldn't do it ourselves but he threw it out the window without fuss - phew! Thanks boy. We ended up in the same bar again that night but it was a bit more sleazy because there was a wet t-shirt contest with vile characters taking part. Voming'ell. Woke up by my hangover again today, we had to check out of our room at 10am to move to another dorm in the hostel because we booked to stay an extra night at the last minute so couldn't stay in the same room, annoying, we couldn't check back in until 1.30pm so had to put our luggage in a storage room, opened the door and BAM the smell hit us, urgh, the smell of a warm little room that someone had just been sick in, you can imagine how this helped my current state of nausea. Reception told us that each day there's a free walking tour around Brisbane that starts at 11am, we thought it would be a good opportunity to see the best parts of the big city, we went and waited at the meeting place, and waited and waited. No one ever turned up so we decided to get google maps out and do it ourselves, it was really nice just wandering actually, stumbled across Brisbane's China town, found a strip of bars, saw some lovely buildings and unique dinky shops and cafes. One laaavely little cafe on the corner of the mini alleyway of boutiques, Kate bought her new year clutch bag from one of them. At the end of the alleyway there was, what looked like, a shed but actually it was a cute book shop that just stood on its own, very original. We started to walk back but went along the river route this time, at first I wasn't sure if I liked being back in a city, I felt a bit vulnerable when we first arrived with our backpacks on but walking down the river, looking at the big bridge, the pier, the skyscrapers, it felt a lot like London in a way and we chatted about how much we liked that. Oh no, we stumbled across a sushi shop, we started off saying lets just get a roll for the road but ended up eating a full on lunch there, we were going to save money and have food back at the hostel but that plan soon changed, dread to think how much money we spent on sushi in Brisbane. Oppsy. Tummy's full we headed towards the Botanical Gardens and enjoyed seeing the different trees and plants, there was a few photo shoots going on too so watched them for a bit, I spotted a huge lizard just chilling out on a stone too, theres a photo of it on here. We ended up back in town and happened to pass a shop that sold Apple products, I'd been waiting to get to Brisbane to buy an SD card reader for my iPad so now I've got all my travel photos on there and there's wifi in my next hostel so HOPEFULLY I can put them all on my Snapfish for you all to stalk. We also found a shop that sold embroidery thread, we've only been looking for it for 6 weeks!!! Liv is a little pro at giving hair braids and we all wanted one so spent an excessive amount of time looking at the variety of colours, I'll get a photo of mine. Girls - you knew I was going to end up with one haha, I know you're all laughing now - especially Katy and Reace!! Back at the hostel, it took poor Liv nearly two hours to do mine because my hair is so long now. There was a few people in town tonight that we knew from our Whitsunday's and Fraser Island trip so we arranged to meet them in our hostel, we were obviously running so late due to braiding but finally got out (much to their relief I'm sure), headed down to a different bar called The Vic but that que was a joke so we just text our mates that was in there and told them to come to the bar we've lived in the last few days. Kate managed to trend on the back of one of my flip flops and I had a 'blowout' as people here say, I was not happy, only pair I have and they were my favourite too, I lived in them, I then had to walk back to my hostel with one barefoot, not attractive. It was a mini End of the World Party in the bar that night so it was $3 drinks, recipe for disaster maybe? We had such a fun night with everyone though, I'll miss them. Next day and another 10am check out of the hostel, we were leaving the big city today. We went and had a big breakfast in the bar, yes that same bar! We all slipped into a hungover food coma and fell asleep on the sofas, we got told by the bartender about 3-4 times "that we can't sleep here, it's a licensed bar", it basically resulted in us being told to move on, we felt like common homeless folk. Think that's our hint to leave Brisbane, off we trot to the greyhound coach terminal, carrying our lives on our back like camels. Au revoir Brisbane, Bonjour Surfers Paradise.