Three days in Perth – very little internet access so no
blogging until I decided to write at night and post in the day. Of course,
tomorrow is Sunday, when the library is shut, so we may not get internet unless
we can hack into our neighbours’ wifi. (Or we might just ask them – the two
immediate neighbours on either side are very friendly and kind).
Although we haven’t had much time to explore yet, Perth is a
beautiful city. The vegetation is a mix of desert and tropical, some wildly
abundant greenery but also some very manicured shrubbery. The dominant colours
are sandy and a rich iron red; the red soil has painted itself across the
sidewalks, fences, and half way up the trees. The typical house roof is waves
of Mediterranean-style red tiles, and houses are long and low, with their front
doors quite close to the road, giving a friendly feel to the multitude of
mini-neighbourhoods. Every second block, there is a new neighbourhood name,
which explains why when people ask what neighbourhood you are in, they rarely
recognize the name – there are too many to become familiar with.
The birds sound very different here; Chris observed that the
crows sound like laughing sheep, and there is a bird that sounds like a shrill
child’s voice, as well as one that sounds like a police siren. Chris has
spotted several different types of parrots, but I haven’t only managed to hear
the birds and not see them.
(Sorry for sideways photo - it's right way up on my computer but for some reason it's loading sideways into the blog!)
When we arrived on Wednesday night, we were met at the
airport by one of the executives at my office, who managed to squeeze all of
our luggage into a vehicle she had borrowed from another one of the executives.
I was incredibly impressed with the personal welcome, and it was really nice to
be met at the airport after our long journey. Not so impressed that you had to
pay for a luggage trolley – that was the only airport of the six we visited to
charge for a trolley.
Our new home was very dark and cold when we arrived, but the
boys quickly chose their bedrooms and we all collapsed into bed. It took some
time to find our way around the house at first, because it is U-shaped, unusual
for a Canadian home. Along one wing is our bedroom and bathroom, and a small
living room. The main section has the dining room and kitchen, and then the
second side of the U has three bedrooms, another bathroom, and a larger sitting
room. Sol was very surprised that the toilet and bathroom are separate rooms,
and Rio desperately ran around the house several times without finding anywhere
to pee. I managed to direct him just before he gave up and went to water the
plants outside. Personally, I think dividing the bathroom and toilet is very
civilized, but it does make for a long walk in the night time for the boys.
Outside, there is a lemon tree laden with fruit in the front
yard, as well as two washing lines and a small stretch of turf-like grass in
the back yard.
Perth’s winter weather so far has been quite pleasant, with
sunny, warm days but cool nights. Most days it is warmer outside than in, so we
try to spend more time out and about and don’t sit still much. The first two
days were busy getting the bank account set up, buying mobile phones, and then
locating and buying a car. Luckily, the house came with four bikes that we were
able to use to get down to the local shopping centre where the bank, phone
store, groceries and library (internet) are located. Sol, Rio and I will
probably just use these bikes for 6 months, but Chris had to buy a bike today
because the house bikes were too small for him.
Buying the car was a bit of an adventure. Our neighbours
very kindly lent us their second car to go car hunting. We used the Perth
equivalent of usedvictoria.com, which is called Perth Gumtree. The first car we
looked at was a Toyota, and it all seemed very good until we were just signing
the paperwork and Chris decided we should phone the government service that
checks whether there is any money owing against a vehicle before we bought it.
No money owing, and it hadn’t been reported stolen... but it had been written
off by the insurance company. That put an end to that line of pursuit. The
second car was a Kia Rio, so you can imagine that at least one member of the
family was strongly in favour of the purchase. I was a little disappointed that
it was a standard gear shift rather than an automatic, because I was hoping to
be able to pay full attention to the roads and traffic. But the car is nice
enough, clean, compact and in reasonable shape for a 9 year old vehicle – and
we didn’t want to wait any longer to have a set of four wheels to get around.
Driving on the left-hand side of the road takes some getting
used to, but the biggest challenge is turning on the indicators rather than the
wind-shield wipers. I was having a good giggle at Chris’s constant wind-shield
wiping, and was quite proud of myself for managing to hit the indicators most
of the journey home, until a sudden lane change confused me and I, too, hit the
wipers. It threw me off just enough that I almost hit the curb. White knuckles
on the steering wheel for the rest of the journey.
The boys have had to be quite patient as we run around
getting all of the boring logistical things dealt with. On the first couple of
days, they spent hours in the back yard playing cricket, until their arms were
too sore and they had lost all of the balls over the fence, in the bushes or on
the roof. They have been inspired by the Australia vs. England test match
series, the Ashes, taking place in England this summer; England is doing quite
well so far.
Today we finally took them to the beach. The water is
multiple shades of green and the sand is very yellow, making for a
postcard-perfect scene. The boys squeezed into some wetsuits we found in our
closet back in Victoria that were just about big enough for them (Heather, were
those yours?) and jumped into the waves on a couple of boogie boards they found
at our rental house.
Well, to be truthful, they contemplated the waves for a
little while before jumping in; from the shore, the waves looked quite large
and they weren’t entirely sure it was a good idea. But there were a few other
brave souls out boogie boarding so it seemed worth a try. They got into the
hang of it quite quickly and realized that the waves weren’t as scary as they
seemed from a distance.
As for the shopping, there are some quirky little
differences with what I’m used to: lots more free range egg and meats; much
smaller size portions for most food packages (you should see the tiny size of
the flour packages, compared with the 10 and 20 kg bags I normally buy!); dairy
produce is generally cheaper than at home; a much higher proportion of the food
is grown or produced in Australia, including lots of fresh produce from Western
Australia – and they make a big deal of it. In B.C., we tend to make a big deal
of the fresh produce being local, but there isn’t as much attention paid to
whether the cereal, flour, yogurt, cookies come from Canada or from B.C. The
money is smaller and made of polymer, and the $2 coin is absolutely tiny! At
first I wondered why there was a 2 cent piece; lucky I didn’t accidentally use
it as if it were two pennies. They have phased out the penny here too, so at
least we don’t have to deal with that. There is a 50 cent piece, which is huge,
and a 20 cent rather than 25 cent.
Haven’t tried any Australian wine or beer yet, as Chris
picked up a cold on our travels and hasn’t felt like drinking anything but
lemon and ginger tea so far. I’m sure it won’t be long, though.
