My Hometown in 500 Words: Brisbane, Australia
Sitting there, the humid wind whistling across my face from the open window, a vague feeling of unease settled in my chest as we passed through the Airport Exit. I looked over at Dad, he was chattering away, filling me in on the happenings of the family that I had missed while I had been away.
Travelling across Europe there was always someone wondering where I was from, telling them Brisbane always left them with a blank look on their face.
“Where’s that?” they would always ask. I had given up explaining.
Brisbane was nothing like Sydney or Melbourne, we had nothing to boast about, no great tourist attractions. Brisbane was a pit stop for tourists flying internationally, a city that no one wanted to visit but had to pass through to get to the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise.
Growing up in Brisbane everything was always the same, it isn’t a small town but you could always find the same people at the schools, the grocery stores, and the shopping centres. Nothing changed and it always felt as though time didn’t flow at the same rate as it did in the rest of the world. Summers went on for most of the year; blue skies were always present even while the bitterly cold winds swept through your bones, nothing to indicate the passing of time.
Brisbane is peaceful; there is no war, no rebels, no political strife, only politicians so stupid that their latest idiotic act is all that is ever reported on. Brisbane is always just there.
Dad chattered on, I nodded vaguely as we passed through the Gateway Bridge. There were only ever two types of people in Brisbane, people like Dad who never want to willingly leave Australia. People who wanted to grow old in Brisbane, fight for relationships that are doomed to fail, get married, and settle for having well paid jobs they don’t like and have those children that everyone must have.
Or you were one of those people who couldn’t wait to leave Brisbane, using every excuse to get way and only coming back when you started to wonder why you left.
We pulled up to the house. No one’s home, all still at work. I kiss Dad goodbye and go around the side of the house for the spare key. Letting myself in I look around, the floor is dirty, dishes are piled in the sink and there on the fridge was the bill that had been there when I left. I dumped my clothes in the wash and lay on my bed; it was comfortable, familiar, the same. Everything was the same. I started counting down the days until I could leave.
Kaitlin Mills said on July 9, 2009
Thanks Tabatha. Where are you from originally? I do see Bris differently and I never really thought of Bris as an expat home, it seems odd to me but I can appreciate why people would want to live here. It’s good there’s more than two types of people, I’ll have to track the rest of you down. The sunshine, that’s the kicker it will be blinding sunshine in the middle of winter, like you I found it really hard going overseas when it was winter and it was actually gray skies and rain.
Thanks I’m looking forward to that plane but in the meantime I’ll look around Bris a bit more.
Tabatha Smith said on July 9, 2009
The quintessential hometown piece from a traveler! It’s funny, I view my own hometown rather similarly, but my expat home has been Brisbane for the last five years, so of course I see aspects of Brissie differently than you. I love how you’ve pointed out the perpetual sunshine and how it fails to mark the passing of time; as a child of four seasons I have struggled with that (poor me, too much sunshine. . .). I want to reassure you there are more than two types of people in Bris, there’s also those of us who originate from elsewhere trying to make it amongst the people who have spent much (all) of their lives here. Don’t worry, you’ll be on that plane before you know it! Okay, it may take longer than that, but in the meantime enjoy what Brisbane has to offer and see it as an adventure!