C and J Down Under: Brisbane

After a whirlwind 3 days in Surfer's Paradise, we had a sad little train ride back to Brisbane. Not only were we sad to be leaving all the fun that was the Gold Coast, but also sad because we knew this was our last day in Australia, and a 14 hour flight back to LAX awaited us in the morning.

Upon arriving back at the train station (which is attached to the Brisbane airport) we made the tiny realization that the hotel we had booked in Brisbane was about an hour away, and roughly a $90 train ride. Or an even more expensive cab ride.

We momentarily debated renting a car. Let me backtrack, Jenn tried her damnedest to talk me into renting a car. I believe my exact words are "I don't even trust your driving in the states, let alone here, on the opposite side of the road. I don't want to die in our last 12 hours in Australia"... or something like that.

Thankfully, Brisbane airport's free wifi came to the rescue and I booked us a new hotel room 15 minutes from the airport, with free taxi service, all while Jenn cancelled our existing room. Before long we were checking into our room on Kingsford.

It was still early evening, we were starving, and not about to spend our last night down under cooped up in the confines of a 3star hotel room. We changed clothes & headed out the door to wander. A few blocks down we stumbled upon a gas station. Red Bull's in hand, we asked the clerk where to go and were promptly pointed in the direction of the pier. We split some Mexican food & had a few beers at the Burrito Bar while debating our next move. Lo and behold as soon as we left the pier we spied signs for a Containerval.

You heard me right... a festival focused on a plethora of shipping containers. Oh, Aussies, you do everything SO right. It was like food trucks meets box trucks, with a mix of hipster shopping and a bar'tainer.

It was, quite possibly, the cutest thing I have ever seen. There were a ton of seating areas and tables all made out of deconstructed pallets and shipping spools, astro turf, and SO many different food "containers".

Before we knew it, 10pm was rolling around and a thunderstorm was brewing. Our table was full of empty champagne glasses, half-eaten crepes, and the biggest bag of kettle corn ever made. Two giggly girls scurried out of the awning into the lightening-lit sky arm-in-arm and hurried in an attempt to make it back to the hotel before the storm hit.

Lo and behold, luck only goes so far, as we rounded the last corner the clouds let lose and we got SOAKED.

Cold, wet and drunk on champagne we sauntered back to that hotel room for one last sleep in the land down under. I think we stayed up half the night talking about what the past 10 days had thrown our way.