28 Mar 2001 (updated 1 Apr 2001) »
jschaum: life in Brisbane
As anyone from Brisbane will tell you, thers is no life in Brisbane. 🙂
However, it is a great place to work, and it’s not far from Sydney (about an hour’s flight), and two and a bit from Melbourne. Melbourne is fantastic; lots of 24×7 places (including all Coles, a major supermarket chain), zillions of restaurants spread evenly throughout the city (with vibrant Greek (Lonsdale St), Italian (Carlton), Vietnamese (Victoria St), Chinese (Lt Bourke St), vegetarian/alternative (Fitzroy) and many other specialized cuisine areas), good shopping, great cinema and arts life, a Comedy festival that rivals both the Glasgow and Montreal festivals, and by world standards, cheap(ish) housing. Melbourne is the third largest Greek(-speaking) city in the world, and peoples from all over the world.
Unfortunately, Melbourne is not Brisbane.
In Brisbane, most places shut early, Fortitude Valley is awful (it’s like a really down at heel, cheap-ass version of a red light district). And it’s warm and humid nearly all year around. Red necks infest most outer suburbs, and the inner suburbs aren’t all that great. There is a particular style of Queensland politics that seems to blame everything that they don’t like on Canberra, particularly once you’re north of Ipswich. It is possible to get a decent feed and coffee in Brisbane, but only in certain suburbs.
The downside: being paid in the Australian peso. I’d suggest getting paid in the equivalent of US currency. You’ll be extremely rich. To give you an example. A mid range US salary is about $70k (poverty rates in the valley). This is over $140k in Australia, and you are in the upper 5% of all tax payers. It’s enough to afford pretty much any house you like in the Brisbane or Melbourne regions, minus the bloody expensive places.
But Brisbane has to beat Norway as a place to work. 🙂
Cat flatuence
Is evil.
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