Evaluating vs. Vacationing

What is the difference?

I have no clue.

This was something that I kept asking myself throughout our one week, whirlwind adventure through Brisbane. I didn't even know what I should tell the customs people when they ask the routine question, "What is the purpose of your trip?" It's partly business, but not really, but then it's not quite a vacation either. In the end, it didn't matter, because they didn't even ask.

When I first arrived in Brisbane, I had decided that by being a lifelong Calgarian (a rare breed), Alan would probably have a better sense of evaluating this potential new city than me. After all, he had already moved from Winnipeg to Calgary, and orientated himself to a new city. I, on the other hand, have spent my life in Calgary. And until I moved out, I lived in the same room in my parents house my whole life.  Whoa! So, I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the prospect of coming to an decision to move to this new place, based entirely on a week of evalucationing. As it turns out, they aren't too different. In the end we did a bit of both, we did tourist things, and we did decidedly untourist things.

I held a koala.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane

We looked at cars.

The actual car dealership we went to.

We went to the Gold Coast.

Surfer's Paradise

And we went to a real estate open house, although it's called an inspection there.

(Can't find a picture to illustrate this)

There were so many moments when I just couldn't quite believe that we were actually in Australia, a zillion kilometers from home. Well, 12533.32 km to be exact (according to somewhere on the internet). To me, this was a good thing. Obviously we were far from home, but the fact that it didn't feel that foreign or unfamiliar was quite comforting (you can call me a xenophobe, I'm okay with that). There was one moment in particular when I was sitting in our hotel room, waiting for Alan to get back from the airport. When I stood on the balcony, I could hear bagpipes. It was a little surreal, and very cool.

Maybe we did it wrong, but it seemed that evaluating is kind of like intense vacationing. You want to see as much as you can from a tourist perspective, but on the other side of the equation you're also looking at potential suburbs to live in, and how long it took on the CityCat (Brisbane's public transit ferry system) to get from point A to point B during rush hour. A strange combination, really.