Tramgirl in Transit

Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Bookcrossing in Brisbane

On the weekend I got to hang with a whole lot of other Bxer's (story attached, check out the July 3rd post on Jess' blog for the details!) in Brisbane at the second Australian Bookcrossing Convention. It was three days filled with a lot of books, some wild releasing, catching up with old friends, making new ones and just overall a lot of fun!!

Day 1: I arrived in Brisbane late on Friday afternoon and headed straight to the Palace Backpackers (where Jess and I shared a room) and meet Jess, we headed out for a quick stroll about central Brisbane and then were back in time to meet up with everyone else to head out to the Welcome Drinks at Growcom in the Valley. It was a lot of fun meeting people and being able to put faces to names (or screen names in this case!) and exclaiming everytime you met someone you emailed frequently or sent books to. Jess and I of course hung with the cool kids and talked about a lot of other things apart from books; current TV shows, movies, food etc.

Day 2: Saturday, Jess and I started early (although it felt like we'd been up all night what with those 'real' backpackers roaming the corridors until all hours!) and headed out the Valley once again to meet up with Emma (Felicia-Fairy, our new bestest friend!) for breakfast and to peruse the Brunswick St markets, from there we headed back in to the city and met up with all the other bookcrossers at King George Square. While waiting here I realeased my first ever book into the wild, and some people came up and took it and started talking about Bookcrossing, highly exciting!! Anyway, from here the bookcrossers set out across town releasing books on the way and eventually meeting at the Energex Arbour at Southbank from were we started out for the flashmob. [flash mob v: A large group of people who gather in a predetermined location, perform some brief action, and then quickly disperse (Thanks Jess!)] We strolled along underneath the arbour following our Nessy, the convention leader, and eventually when she stopped and dropped her book on the grass we all did so to until there was a long line of books and no people anymore. We all got to sit in the open eating area across the way and watch excitedly as strangers came and picked up our books and took them away (hopefully to journal that they'd found them!).

Emma, Jess and I then headed off to spend our 'free' afternoon catching up with Emma's sister and some friends at the Gay Pride festival which was taking over Brisbane at the same time as us bookcrossers. Jess and I stayed long enough to eat (which we seemed to do a lot of, we put it down to being on holidays!) then headed back to our digs to rest before the Trivia Night.

Trivia Night: Lets just say we went in swinging but got KO'ed towards the end of the fight! We started off well and at some stage we were in front (we blitzed the music rounds) but it turns out there were a lot of book related questions (why??) and we aren't as knowledgeable as we thought. We were hanging for the gossip questions but they never came... :(

Day 3: Once again I headed out early, this time to have breakfast with Rachel (a friend from Library school who has since relocated to Brisbane with her fiance) and get to see her house and the area she lives in. It was great catching up with her since it's probably been about 5-6 months since we last saw each other, a few hours of non-stop talking and catching up and then I returned to the bookcrossing folds to finish off the convention with a yum-cha lunch (did I mention I'd just had a big yummy b'fast of ricotta pancakes...). Yum-cha is always good and this time was no exception, except that the food didn't stop coming, instead we just had to admit defeat and leave plates of food spinning around on the lazy susan and feel guilty with our over-indulging!

Then it was time for good-byes, a lot of "see you next year in ??" (looking like it will be either Adelaide or Canberra) before heading back to the Palace to grab my bags and head out to the airport to return to Melbourne.

My stats for the weekend are:

Books Released ~ 12
Books Caught = 2

I also came home with less books than I took so that is a bonus as well!

posted by Michelle @ 2:51 PM