After all the beaches and small hostels we'd been to it was a bit weird getting to a city, but quite nice - more things to go and see and do and of course the cricket and barmy barmy army!!Our tickets were for the third day of the test, Saturday, id already sold one of my tickets to Pete who we had met in Cairns but couldn’t shift the other one so ended up making a loss by selling it on to a tout for $5 = about 2 quid! Seats were pretty good and had some funny ozzies smashed near us. Don’t know how the press have been reporting it at home but the police have been very heavy handed - really s*** and ruins the atmosphere. The press over here have been slating them as well. One main problem is that the tickets are all split up, so when the ozzies keep on asking where the hell are the barmy army = everywhere but not in one place, there’s s*** loads of English over here following it. The copper have banned the Mexican wave (yes banned) if you are caught starting one off you’ll get chucked out. Also beach balls are a no go - when they’re getting chucked around if a copper or marshal gets it they’ll burst it. The best one was where there was an inflatable woman being chucked around for a bit and then you saw about 6 police all line up each side and go in for the kill - she got away a few times by some good hits but ultimately was put down! The barmy army trumpeter was also chucked out after 'smuggling in' his trumpet. They’re being labelled the 'fun police' over here!The next day I decided to go to and watch some of the match on the big screen by the beach here and then had a walk around and ended up at the Gabba again. After asking loads of people who were leaving for their ticket and being told they hadn’t stamped it out (which you need to do to get back in) I decided to try my luck and got a non stamped ticket for free off a bloke and then went on up and said I forgot to stamp it out - she looked at me but decided ok then! So I was in for free - got a beer....made my way to section 36 = NO ALCOHOL section, damn it! So I just wandered around to a different section and took pot luck on a spare seat! There were more barmy army this day but the marshals were stopping press and photographers getting snaps of them as 'it encourages them to sing louder' stupid!Went out in town this night and had a few pints of Carlton - one of the only nice beers out here. Standard tuna pasta was had for the third night in a row, woooToday I’ve just taken a walk around, went up the bell tower and saw some of the sights - Brisbane’s a nice nice cityOn Tuesday we went to the XXXX factory and heard the little history that they had and how apparently 4 X's means that its a good beer, I have yet to be convinced of this - it tastes like flavoured water! Carlton draught or tooheys extra dry and the good uns Wed we got up early and made our own way to Australia Zoo once home to a bit of a lege - the late Steve Irwin, it was a bloody hot 33 degrees but a really cool zoo. The show at mid day with snakes, birds then crocs was really cool and well put together; the pics should be on one of the links below.  Going to leave Brisbane for Surfers and hopefully the weather will be better one hour away! Its cloudy at the mo, shocking - altho still in my flippies and boardies http://nottinghamac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075949&l=8beec&id=199703881http://nottinghamac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075953&l=a4f5d&id=199703881http://essex.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2887&l=5731e&id=283600208