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.