Had a super early flight and started the day at 4am. Upon arriving in Brisbane, just hung out for a couple hours at Starbucks while waiting for the Rugby match to start. After Rugby, ended up heading to AirBnB and catching a movie for a slightly chill day of transit.
Heading into Brisbane
Headed to the airport at 4am, and quickly found that I couldn’t even check my bag yet, as the counter didn’t open until 5am for the 6am flight. Just walked around for a bit, and eventually got onto the plane and tried to sleep right away. Unfortunately, the older lady next to me is a morning person and wanted to have a conversation the whole way. Even after I tried to go to sleep, she turned around and started talking to the baby behind me instead. Needless to say, didn’t get a ton of sleep on the quick flight over to Brisbane.
After a quick train ride into the city, I walked around until I randomly ran into a Starbucks so stopped in to use some wifi for a couple hours until the Rugby match at 3pm.
Rugby Match – Dolphins vs Cowboys
I had two things I needed to do before the Rugby match. I needed to drop off my luggage somewhere and I needed to figure out which team I would root for. I ended up finding a nearby hostel using Stasher to drop my bags for a couple hours and brought them over from Starbucks with a 20 minute walk (LOTS of hills).
Afterwards, I set off to go to the game, and the crowd control was quite impressive as it actually routed us for almost 10 blocks of traffic and everyone just kinda went where the police were directing, instead of just descending from all directions.
Finally got to the stadium, and found that there was some fun pregame festivities for kids. I ended up going into the store to figure out which of the teams jersey’s I liked better, and after perusing, I decided on the Dolphins, choosing a jersey from their Aboriginal series (I had also seen it online and been drawn to it earlier in the day, but its from last year, so it was on discount at the store).
Seeing as it was opening week as well, they were also giving out fins for all the fans, so…why not.
Wandered around for an hour, cause my seats (mid field about 10 rows up again) were directly in the sun, so didn’t want to go sit until I needed to. Grabbed some food while I waited.
As we were waiting for the match to start, I noticed that the videographers weren’t on a wire like they are in the states, nor just sitting on the sidelines, but there was one on a segway that was going around filming…looks like a ton of fun.
Pregame was a lot of fun, but the pyrotechnics and the torches were SO close to us and it was SUPER loud and HOT. Like everytime it went off, I thought I was getting a little toasted. There was a fun little callback to the aboriginal ways as well.
Seats themselves were fantastic, and environment was fun to watch the match, but we got blown out and it was an awful showing. The Cowboys thoroughly outplayed my dolphins and were just more physical and creative with the ball throughout the day. Hopefully they can turn it around.
After the match, went back in reverse to go grab my bags and then headed to the AirBnB.
Entertainment
Was feeling like I needed to just chill and turn off my brain for a bit (even after the match), so walked from the AirBnB down to a little district to get some popcorn and watch Dune Part 2. It was SO good, very much enjoyed myself. Highly recommend the movie, as it’s once again just stunning.
Headed back afterwards to shower and try to get some rest for my full day tour tomorrow.
Vibe Check
4 parts joy
1 part sadness – poor dolphins
Feedback
Leave a comment or question if you have any thoughts! Anything you want to know about as we go around the world? Any things you want to share as feedback, or any images that particularly spoke to you. I’ll try to read all of them as time permits!
Matti 
Leave a comment