Waiting for Alfred.....

No, I'm not waiting for the old man, what's he doing here in Australia? He hasn't traveled his whole life and why should I bring him here? He's happy where he is, with his 4 meals a day and his blanket to stare at. What we've all been waiting for here in southern Queensland for the last 2 days is the landfall of a cyclone called Alfred. Rumors have been swirling around the cyclone since last week. A cyclone is called a hurricane in other parts of the world, so much for what I am waiting for here. The cyclone has also come a long way now, normally they make landfall much further north, but this one seems to want to greet me, or not. At the moment it's still out at sea and is approaching land at around 14 km/h. Some people claim that the cyclone is probably still waiting for its visa to finally be allowed ashore. Joking aside, the internet is full of it, when the cyclone hits land it will probably be violent, although only category 2, the severity also depends on when it comes, whether at high tide or low tide. Here in Brisbane, they are definitely disaster-tested. After all, the last flood was only 3 or 4 years ago, although a cyclone like this hasn't been seen here for 50 years. The Australians themselves are all very worried and some have stayed in their home offices since Wednesday as a precaution. The cyclone's actual landfall was forecast for Thursday lunchtime and is now estimated for Saturday morning. We'll see. Apart from the wind, water in the form of rain is probably the biggest problem here. As I said, the region is flood-tested. When I was looking for an apartment (I will probably write something about this separately), I was advised to look at a special map (published on the internet by the government) to see if my potential apartment was in an area predisposed to flooding. This is just one of the specialties of house hunting here. It seems to be the case here that it can rain so much in a very short space of time that the streams and rivers become raging torrents quite quickly. This means in particular, as it is quite hilly here (or is it because of that?) the small valleys fill up relatively quickly and then the heights appear as small islands. As you can imagine, rents are cheap at the bottom and more expensive at the top. Houses are built on stilts, literally elevated, etc. But in addition to the flooding, 8 liters per square meter are expected within a very short time, the wind is probably another of the cyclone's worse evils, with an average speed of 90 km/h and a peak speed of 150 km/h expected. In addition, it can rain so heavily that you could be trapped at work, for example, and have to spend a few days there without electricity (which tends to fail during floods). That's why we're officially working from home and the company is closed. And so we've been waiting at home for two days for the cyclone to finally get going, which it still hasn't done. But it also seems that the forecasts are always off by two days so that people have enough time to prepare? But nobody really knows what's in store for us, at the moment the sun is even shining again, then another rain shower, only for the sun to shine again shortly afterwards. Only the wind has been steadily increasing for days. Some Australians take it with humor, others are outraged. Somehow like a corona revival, even the toilet paper in the supermarkets is sold out again. The toilet paper and the water. I only went shopping on Wednesday evening (by bike, of course) and stocked up on the essentials, i.e. nuts and, in desperation, energy drinks because there was no water left. I got a bit caught up in the panic, they were very keen to tell me how bad it was going to be. Whether in the office, by email or to cab drivers, the Uber drivers all disagreed. Some advised me to tape up my windows, others said leave the windows open, a few said bathtub and mattress and still others smiled and said the media were fanning the panic. The truth? I'll be able to tell you in a few days. Mind you, the last cyclone to hit Brisbane was 50 years ago. And it really is a bit like Corona back then, and no, I'm not trivializing the danger, I'm just not really worried either, because the worst thing that can happen to me is that I lose my life, I don't have any property here, so I can't lose anything. And if you're dead, well then it's like being stupid, it's only bad for those around you. So I wait for the things to come. My powerbanks are charged, I somehow miss one, I think it's in my bag at work, in the bag where I keep my life (I have all my documents and my expensive photo, well locked, on the second floor), my bike helmet is next to my bed, the internet is now off (there are other reasons for this) and I happily eat my nuts all the time. This means I'm constantly leaving the house to go to the supermarket to get supplies, which I then eat again. It's been like this for two days now and the supermarket shelves are getting emptier and emptier. There's now almost only high-priced and vegan food. Fun, the bread is now also gone and orange juice is becoming scarce, otherwise everything is available. I even got water at Aldi, the carbonated water that nobody likes here. Eggs are generally hard to find, but that's another story. In my desperation, I cleaned my room here in the AirBnB, did the laundry, packed (I'm moving into my own apartment soon) and am happily writing emails, just working. Or what they call work these days. Unfortunately, the gym has been closed for 2 days now, so this distraction is unfortunately also falling flat and I think I'll go shopping again now, in that sense.