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Reports

During my travels, I received free accommodation for a night in exchange for writing a daily travel diary. This diary documented how I reached my next destination, the hosts who welcomed me, the food I was offered, and other experiences along the way. Below, you will find the archives of these extensive reports. Please note that English is not my native language, and most entries were written quickly, often around midnight. Enjoy!
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Thursday, 4 April 2002
Ascott --> New Farm, Brisbane, Australia

From Sam "Forbsie" Forbes and his girlfriend Carmen's place, I moved on to the apartment of Liz Reid.

Liz works as a sales manager for the easy-listening radiostation 4BH (882AM) in Brisbane and heard a colleague of her talk about my project, after Channel 9 broadcast the report about me. She loved the idea and immediately invited me over.

After her work she took me along for a few drinks (Champaign) at the nearby pub, where I met up with some other colleagues from her work.

One of them suggested I should go to Stratbroke Island for a week, because it is just fantastic. This person, David, a commercial producer, is just fascinated by this island and told me I shouldn't miss out on it. "Heck! Why not stay a whole week?"

"A whole week? I don't even have an invite there. And how am I supposed to get to an island?"

And that is when the idea was born to get in contact with the breakfastshow crew of the neighbour-radiostation 97.3FM. They might be able to get me to that island!

A few bottles of bubble wine later, the group spread up and I was the one that had to drive Liz and Shelly to the suburb of New Farm - as I just slowed down on the whole alcohol thing. "Can you drive manual?" Liz asked. "Manual? Man, we don't even have automatics in Europe!", I told her. "It's just to crowded to go out and cruise."

After a quick rinse at Liz' apartment we (Liz and her boyfriend Harley, Shelley and me) caught a cab up the road to have dinner in a Chinese restaurant in a jazzy area called Fortitude Valley.

We basically started a night out over here and I met up with some colleagues of Harley, who has his own webdesign company in Brisbane. We moved from the restaurant to a nearby pub and this is where political deep discussion started, where we were not allowed to wear our straw hats and where the music kept us grooving into the night.

Liz came up with the idea to visit the morning breakfast show on 97.3FM tomorrow morning, as she works in the office next to it.

When I fell asleep on the couch pillows that Liz had put on the floor, it was only 11.30pm, but for my mind it was much later.

Good night New Farm,

Ramon.

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