Sunday, June 7, 2009

Going Green in More Ways Than One.

I love to recycle things. Clothes, books, kitchen scraps... all kinds of things. And when the Life Line Bookfest came along, I was ready for it this year. I had saved up big and gotten my walkin' boots on. And yesterday (6th, June - Queensland Day) was my day to hike it into Brisbane City to buy up big on books that I wanted. So during this last week, I organised my money, printed out my wishlist off Bookcrossing and emptied out my blue shopping trolley and made sure I had the right bag to go into town with.
However, one of my friends who was a bus driver told me to get off at Southbank and that the Convention Centre would be 'right there'. He was wrong. I had to leg it another three blocks and ask for directions from a nice police officer/security guard at the Southbank Police Station (who told me that I'd have another 400 metres to walk!). Once there, I found that this Bookfest was bigger than I thought. I had never ever seen anything like it. I just stood there in the doors for a moment and took in the sight of millions of books all laid out there for anyone to pick up and buy at bargain basement prices! And I mean starting at .50c and the most expensive I had to fork out was $4.00!! Not bad if you ask me! I spent $50 on around twenty books; and that included books for my niece too.
The one thing I did do was stop off at Garden City and pull out the cash I needed and leave some in the keycard; a kind of just-in-case deal. I didn't want to be flogged with charges.
Well, once I got my blue trolley almost too heavy to pull around and my feet were begging for a rest, I saw a coffee place outside the Scrapbooking Convention next door and grabbed a latte (forgetting to ask for a decaf...oops!). I guzzled that down and called my brother asking if his daughter still enjoyed horse books and told him I got her a few others I thought she'd like. He asked where I was and I told him.
Well, he invited me to the Botanical Gardens for the Green Day Festival. I thought why not and jumped on a bus down the road
outside the museum and art gallery and found myself at the coolest and hippest place that advertised how to use green energy. I even scored two free plants for entering a competition! Not too shabby if you ask me! We lounged about for an hour or so and I gave my niece her books and she was thrilled to see more horse books than classics (that was my aim) and when I mentioned that one of the classics had pirates in them; well that got her attention! The bands were wicked, the gardens looked fantastic and green. The weather was lovely and warm (for our winter, that's unusual!) and it was one of the best Queensland Days we've had for a long time! However, the afternoon was getting on and I had two busses to catch to get home before dark.
So, when 3:30pm rocked around, I said my goodbyes to my brother, his girlfriend and my darling niece and made tracks home.
However, the books I bought were so heavy that my trolley fell over on the bus and hurt an asian lady. Man! Did I feel bad. I kept asking if she was okay (because
I know that can hurt. I've had the trolley fall over onto me and it hurt me badly). She kept saying she was okay, but I knew she was in pain. I was worried about her all the way home on the bus; but if she wasn't going to tell me if she was in pain, well, I couldn't help her. I kept apologising to her but she said it was okay. Well, I got an early night last night after watching a movie at 7:30pm and then headed off to bed at around 10pm or so. I remember hearing the rain on the roof at around 11pm or so and then the alarm going off this morning.

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