Over the weekend I travelled from Belgium to London to Australia in only 3 days without the use of a plane. Impossible you say! Not when you live in Brisbane.

After work on Friday I went to the Belgian Beer Bar to meet up with Vanessa and Cameron. Located on the corner of Margaret and Edward streets the place has an after work yuppiefied feel which isn’t surprising considering the cost of the beer. In it’s favour is the rock waterfall, open air bar and intricate beer serving show. Apparently in Belgium the tradition is to serve the beer in a cup that is the same brand as the beer. If you order Stella Artois you get a Stella Artois glass, order a Guiness you get a Guiness cup. So where is the show in that? Well at this pub they get the glass, wash it in soapy water, flip it over on to a bidet looking square that squirts clean water inside the glass, they then pull the beer, remove the excess froth with a knife looking tool and then dip the outside of the glass back in the soapy water. At the end of it all your drink is placed on the correct branded coaster. All this is done in your face and takes a few minutes. The water on the outside crystalises a bit which makes the glass cool to touch. All the beer is boutique and costs more than $5 a piece but it damn sure tastes nice.

Vanessa and I were working our way through each brand and were on the red rose beer by the time Cameron turned up. The red beer was surprisingly nice and you certainly could taste the rose flavour. I normally don’t drink 4 beers but the place lends itself to the drinking of fine beer. Apparently it’s lots busier on Friday nights but I was happy with the size of the crowd and they even had a dj. We actually lost track of time and ended up being late for the Queensland Roar soccer game that was at Suncorp stadium. We had to catch a cab but still missed kick off. Thankfully the Central Coast Mariners held off scoring until we got there but I wish they wouldn’t have scored at all. But Roar got a goal back to even the match but couldn’t find another goal to win. We had another beer at Suncorp but it just wasn’t as good after the Belgian experience.

Saturday was spent celebrating Auntie Sue’s 55th being ladies of London at Queenies. Queenies serves high tea in Nundah and Clayfield like little old ladies did in the 50s. Because there were 12 of us we had about 4 different types of tea served from teapots which ranged from the Vanilla infused Stockholm to the house tea. The food was served on a three tiered plate. The bottom had crustless sandwiches, the middle was scones, jam and muffins and the top was chocolate, macadamia caramel slices and minature pigs ears. There was also a champagne jelly that was devine. A side dish also included small quiche. We gorged ourselves on the tiny delices which surprisingly filled us up. An excellent time was had by all except for Ella who got a bit upset when she jumped out of my arms trying to get a purple tiara and bumped her head on the table. She cheered up though when she tasted some of the jelly.

Sunday was the typical Aussie Red Rooster meal in the park. Nothing like stuffing yourself with chicken, chips and cake in an active and healthy park to make you want to laze around on a picnic blanket.

I need another weekend to recover from all the activity had from this weekend!

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