A night out in Brisbane after a long day

 I always planned something to do on a Friday night during my internship teaching children. It gave me stresses and funny things that happened during the week. It was good to have another opinion on things that were bothering us and I liked having grown up conversations.

This post is about one occasion that I had with my friends. After work, I met up with my friend Jennifer who was also a teaching intern at the time and my best friend Mika. We took the train to South Bank, a cultural precinct known for its museums, art galleries, outdoor pools and restaurants. We wanted to have dinner at one of the restaurants there. Mika asked if her boyfriend could join us and we said it would be alright. When he arrived I thought he was some stranger who was asking for directions because I’d only seen him once!

We decided on eating at Ahmets which is a popular Turkish restaurant. As it was a Friday night, the place was already bustling with people. There was live music, waiters scurrying around everywhere and people laughing and enjoying their meals. We were lucky in that we were seated right away despite not having a reservation. At first I was a bit worried that we were in for a very noisy dining experience due to being seated next to the live entertainment. However, the man and his guitar regularly moved from the outdoor to the indoor dining rooms so it didn’t become an issue.

We had falafel and Turkish bread as a starter. I had never tried falafel before which is deep fried balls of chickpeas. It was crunchy on the outside, with a light texture and soft on the inside. Our mains took quite a while to reach us though but arrived before we could get seriously worried. I shared a mixed grill with Jennifer, while Mika and her boyfriend Brian had their own chicken shish kebab.

After dinner we went to browse the South Bank markets before ending up at Nitrogenie for dessert. Nitrogenie was this new fad ice creamery where the ice cream is made to order using liquid nitrogen. Jennifer and I shared a cup of salty caramel popcorn flavoured ice cream. The ice cream was like soft serve ice-cream and it was the right balance between salty and sweet. There were pieces of caramel popcorn too which was a nice touch.

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We were really full after all the food so we decided to walk it off along the South Bank boardwalk. Along the way we spied people walking in groups holding red lanterns. First it was just ordinary people and then it was Storm Troopers. So of course something had to be up. We thought that everyone had come out of some event and were given free lanterns. So I convinced my friends to find the person giving out the free lanterns. We must have walked for twenty minutes in the wrong direction until I found a person carrying a lantern and asked them where they got it from. The people were in a walkathon for Multiple Sclerosis and red is the colour that represent MS. We went to the MS headquarters where all the walkers were from and it was about closing time. The lanterns were twelve dollars and I decided not to buy one as I hadn’t been a part of the event at all and I didn’t really need a lantern.

We stayed at the MS headquarters listening to the live band that they set up until it was closing time. We were all so tired after the long day so we decided to go home. It was nice memorable night because of the happy times we shared together, it is also a reminder to me to take time out to hang out with friends.