Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Welcomed at my Brisbane address

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to out blog, Genzano it story
and this post, welcome at my new Brisbane address
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At my new address
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This is just a view of the Story Bridge in Brisbane.









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Some Brisbane views seen from the Brisbane river.









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Just a typical wooden house in Brisbane suburbs in the sixties.

  














At my new address

Welcomed at my new address
Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, Welcome to Brisbane.
Now just to keep my life story going in a way that it makes sense, let me talk about in a more personal way how I was welcome at my uncle house in Brisbane; we reaching my uncle house and were greeted by the people that were in at that time of the day, as there were some that had gone to work, you see there were quite a few people living at my uncle house already and they were all from the same town that I came from, so we all knew each other somehow. Here I am not going to be very personal and tell you their name, I am not going to do that for a couple of reasons; you see, if it happens that any of these people read these hubs, I don’t know whether they like the idea of being mentioned here; therefore, I am going to tell you in a general way just things that happened and keep everything impersonal if I can.
So, I was saying that I had reached my final destination in Brisbane city, which was at my uncle house and greeted by those that were there at that time, then we unloaded my luggage and we started to talk about the town I came from Genzano di Lucania with the people that were present, because they were all from the same town as I have said already, and they wanted to know as much as they could about their relatives. While we were unloading at the same time I was telling them about the presents that I brought from my own family to my uncle, they were mostly some local town produce the largest of them was now a seven litre demijohn of wine, since the ten litre broke on the way, I had also some 6 litre of pure olive oil and a large tray of homemade large biscuits that we make in Genzano when somebody gets married, there were also other presents that I was going to give them as soon as I would unpack my own luggage.
Soon everybody came back from work, and I greeted every one of them and told them as much as I could about things that they wanted to know. Evening came and we had dinner and after that I retired to my bedroom, where my new bed that my brother had bought me was ready for a good night sleep on firm ground after being a whole month on the ship. Now before we go on about telling our readers the timber houses of Brisbane city, I think that it would be more appropriate, if I tell you first about some positive sights that one can see in this city of Brisbane.  
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Brisbane city views
Wherever you go there are always some interesting things to see, also Brisbane city has got several thing to show the world, so, we have taken the liberty of showing you a few photos of this city that makes us proud; I know that most people that come to Australia would say that Brisbane does not look as good as Sydney, but so what, it is still a nice city to live in and has got a few things that we are proud of; like the Story Bridge, City Hall with its clock tower that strikes the time every quarter of an hour, the city centre with all its shopping centre, Parliament House and the botanic gardens next to it, where we could go walking around looking at the garden or the pond, with its ducks and swans or sitting on the lawn on a hot summer day and listening to a band playing music during the weekends.
Now there are many more parks in Brisbane and most of them have a playground for children, so most people used to go to these gardens or parks in those times, perhaps today they are not used as much as they used to be then; of these parks the most important after the City Botanic Garden would be New Farm Park, this park is well known for the roses that are grown there, so some of us call it the park of the roses, it is also a sight to see early in spring when the jacaranda trees are in flower, this park has also a large playground for children, it has got a kiosk, where you can have a cup tea or buy an ice cream for the kids and a few other things, on hot summer days one could sit under the trees near the Brisbane River and fill almost as if you are at the beach; you see Brisbane River is a very wide river and it is navigable for many miles, so, while we would be sitting in the shade of the trees we could see the traffic of bouts on the river, some of these boats would be carrying just people that were sightseeing on the river, or going to another pleasure destination.

Another important garden that that needs mentioning here is the new Botanic Garden at Toowong Brisbane, near Mt-Coot-Tha forest this is a western suburb on the fringes of Brisbane city, this new botanic garden has been opened because the old botanic garden in the city lost some of its land, as they have built another university there; now apart from seeing what we can see and find in a botanic garden; from this new botanic garden, you could visit also this observatory; 

The Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium is a planetarium located on the grounds of Brisbane Botanic Gardens[1] in the suburb of Toowong, Brisbane, Queensland,Australia. The Planetarium was officially opened on 24 May 1978.

Now, let us forget again for a moment that this article is mainly to talk about the early sixties here, as we have done above, so let us add what else could be attractive today in Brisbane, here we are talking about the year 2014 and we can add also that in Brisbane there are many shopping centre that are the size of a small town, and they are all well organized and air conditioned all under one roof that it is a pleasure to go shopping specially in those hot summer days, when one can go in there and stroll from shop to shop doing the shopping and keeping cool at the same time, what else would you want?

Anyhow let us go back to talk about the sixties and those wooden houses.

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The wooden houses

Living in Brisbane wooden houses
At my new address in Brisbane Australia, even though it was a wooden house I was welcomed and soon I felt no difference at all to live in it, after all that is the way that most of the local people live in these parts of Australia. But now, just for the sake of knowing what I am talking about here let me describe this house for you. It was a four bedroom house, in addition to the four bedrooms there was a lounge room, a large kitchen where there was enough room for a large dining table, there was a bathroom with bathtub and shower that had a gas heated hot water devise that you could light up and have a hot shower, the toilet was downstairs under the house; now all this large house and floor space was set on wooden stumps, I know that those people that have never lived or seen a house on wooden stumps before are saying; what is he talking about a house on wooden stumps, I have never heard of this before what a strange country Australia is.
I know it might sound strange to some people, and it might feel a bit strange too to live in these houses at the beginning, but anyhow they are there and they have a pretty good reason why people built them like that in these parts of the world. After all is not even a new idea when we think about it; you see when I was at school I remember that my teacher was saying that a long time ago for safety reasons, some people that lived by the sea would build their house on stilts over shallow water, so that they could defend them easily if they were attacked; Now we could say, okay that was a good idea then but what are the reasons for these houses to be built like that here?
This is how we migrant saw Brisbane city when we arrived to Australia for the first time.
I believe that we may have to tell you in our next article about these wooden houses, because it would be more appropriate, as we will write about it and explain some of the reasons why these houses in Brisbane were built with timber and they have been built on wooden stumps.
 See you soon.
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Genzano it story
Welcome at my Brisbane address
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, Brisbane wooden houses
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