Last day in Brisbane

So today was a twacking day, as they say in Newfoundland. And thus, not much happened. We went to the Pacific Fair Mall in the Gold Coast. We were debating going to the beach as well, but it's a bloody big mall and the temperatures felt a touch on the cool side. Apparently, we're becoming wussy like many Aussies are when faced with temperatures that hover around 20C. It was funny, we went to the train station this morning around 8:30 to catch the train to the Gold Coast. That meant as we were entering the station the hordes of Monday morning commuters were coming out. And they were almost all bundled up against the "cold" wearing coats, sweatshirts, scarves and whatnot. And there's Cathy and I wearing linen shirts, shorts and sandals.

It feels bad just doing a day at the mall when you're in Australia. But never every day can be an exotic tour or a day on the beach. Sometimes you just need to wander around a mall, especially if you come from Nunavut, where seeing so many shops can be an overwhelming experience. And supermarkets still produce the usual shock and awe. Look at all the selection. And it's all so cheap! It's a wonder I don't drop hundreds in Coles, the local supermarket chain.

We also caught a movie. I've got say, Australia builds some nice movie theatres. I'm not even comparing them to what we have in Iqaluit. I've been to theatres in Ottawa and they pale in comparison to some of the ones we've been to here. We saw Public Enemies today, which was good, but not as good as I was hoping. It was just missing energy, I think. The acting was great, Michael Mann's direction was top notch, but the heart of it just didn't feel like it was there. It wasn't a bad movie by any stretch, just not as good as we were hoping for.

We've seen two other movies since hitting Australia. Tragically, we wasted perfectly good money on Transformers 2, something I will be embarrassed over for quite some time. The first one I wanted less of the comedy and a tighter script. This one I wanted more comedy to make up for the absolutely nonsensical script. I think I'm just too old for Transformers. The toys broke big when I was in my teens, so they've never had the same appeal to me that they have for others.

We also saw the latest Potter. And I like it, but some of the cuts from the books to the movies are starting to bother me now. It has lots of charms and I did like it, but there were things that bothered me (Harry and Ginny's first kiss is different, the climatic battle at the end of the book is completely absent). I understand that slavish devotion to the text doesn't necessarily make a great movie, and I've never minded some of the cuts in previous movies, but they bothered me this time.

Anyway, something a bit different than the usual Australia rambles in case people are getting tired of hearing me talk about this awesome adventure or this super cool trip. Although I can't really bring myself to take anything more than a cursory look at the newspaper headlines. The world hasn't ended, that's about all I need to know.

We're off to Sydney tomorrow on the final leg of our adventures. Which is depressing, but I'm trying to block it out. There may or may not be a post tomorrow. I doubt there's internet on the train and we leave here at 7:30 am and don't arrive in Sydney until going on 10 pm. But I'll see what I can do.