Hello all, I have been in Perth, WA for about a week now and what a week it has been! I have mostly just been exploring the city and taking care of the essentials, but even that has been great fun. As it turns out I am well suited to the unemployed, hostel-living lifestyle. My days are largely spent exploring, lounging around with friends, reading, and playing pool. I’ve met a lot of people here but have also said goodbye to many of them already. But one thing that is true about pretty much all of them is that they are better than me at pool. My competitors have graciously allowed me a number of redo shots but I still have yet to win a game on my own (I did win a few doubles matches, but I made shamefully few contributions). The upside is that there are plenty of opportunities for practice and they are generally willing to give me pointers that have already helped. Winning a game of pool has been the most recent addition to
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| Exploring Elizabeth Quay area along the river |
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| Patio area of my hostel…I’ve been told by many people that Spinner’s is the best hostel in Perth, so I’m starting out with pretty high standards |
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| Found a nice overlook with one of my roommates to watch the blood moon |
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| Cottsloe Beach |
One of my other favorite activities has been to go for runs to explore the copious amount of parks in the city, which is one of my favorite things about Perth so far. The largest and most well-known one is King’s Park which has many beautiful overlooks of the river and cityscape as well as a botanical garden. For those of you in the Central community, I actually walked this park with Ang and Snow, the sister and niece of Chelsea Fry, who live in a suburb of Perth. One of the most memorable moments of this walk is when all of a sudden we were being swooped repeatedly by a bird, which I admit is a rather frightful experience when you’re not expecting it. I have been informed that they are just very territorial so if you keep walking they should eventually leave you alone. However, I was also informed that they can remember faces so I will definitely be on lookout during my next visit. Another brief note about greenery in the city is that all of the grass is kept very short. At first it kind of looks like there is turf everywhere, but I did check and I can confirm that it is real grass.
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| Hyde Park |
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| King’s Park overlook |
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| They have grass courts at the local tennis club |
Later this week I will actually be moving to Fremantle to live with Ang and Snow for a few weeks while I get my farm or hospitality work set up. 3 months of this sort of regional work is required to be able to extend the type of visa I have for up to 3 years if I choose to do so later, so I’m planning to complete this towards the beginning so I don’t run out of time later.