Yesterday was pretty fun and exciting. The previous night Ross had taken me out to dinner and I spent the night (consequently going to bed at a fairly late hour) so it was extremely difficult to get up at a reasonable time, but I’m glad we did. The six of us (Julesenrosey, Will, Siska, Ross and myself) went to the John Forrest National Park, which is about 1/2 hour or so away. Ross showed us Darlington, where he and Jules grew up. The roads are really windy and extremely steep, and it’s basically right in the bush. I heard many tales of hills taken on bicycles at high speed which resulted in many a crash into various trees and other plant life. Heh. In any case, Jules and Ross relived their childhood by climbing hills and rocks and giving their bodies a beating.

Our entourage had lunch in a park then went back to Jules’ place to have a swim (the water was bloody cold but it was fun anyhow.) We watched some “Black Books” (everyone seems to be particularly interested in the show now, which is awesome because it’s good fun.) In the evening we went to get gourmet pizzas and spent a little time by the river while we waited for them to be made. This reminded me a little of Oshkosh, which was kind of cool and sad at the same time.

We went back to Rosey’s to consume the pizza (it was fantastic) then I quickly changed clothes and Ross and I hurried back to his place so he could change (his folks were waiting for us already) and the four of us hopped in Max (their Volvo) and went to Paul’s ballet recital (Paul is Ross’s pseudo-step-brother.) It was in an outdoor ampitheatre (I didn’t know this before hand and the wind was pretty cold up there so I was shivering madly until Reg offered me his leather coat. Very nice. We went back to Ross’s place afterwards and Ross and I had a short but meaningful conversation about our future and then cuddled for a bit before he took me back to Rosey’s because he was dead tired and had to work today.

Behind me Siska is sitting on Will’s lap on Rosey’s bed calling out “Bubble Tea! Bubble Tea!” Heh. Today is her last day here before she goes back to Indonesia so we’ll be going out to the city for lunch and Bubble Tea and probably a bit of shopping, and then tonight we’ll see her off at the airport.

**Later on**

We saw Siska off to the airport. Ross got done with work earlyish so he was able to come along too, which was nice. Jules was working on his projects so we weren’t able to see him today (sucktastic.) Hrm, so much has happened in the last while and I haven’t been blogging because I’ve been around the people I care about so much, attempting to spend every possible moment with them. I don’t even really miss the internet or chatting on IRC since the people I communicate the most with are actually here in physical form. Once I get home I’ll be back to my old ways again I’m sure.

Augh, we’ve been eating out for nearly every meal so I’ve gained weight, and it sucks. :-( It’s all worth it though…I mean, how many opportunities like this will I have? Since it’s winter back at home I’ll have to settle for DDR and tae bo instead of rollerblading in terms of exercise, but that should be okay for a few months.

Mmm. Friday night was really nice. Ross and I went out on a real date (heh) which was odd. It wasn’t the fact that I was out with him that was strange, mainly the fact that I was dressed up nicely (as was he) which I’m not used to whatsoever. The food was pretty good (not nearly as nice as Victoria’s back in Wisconsin, but good nonetheless) but Ross got a bit of a headache so we got some beer after dinner and took it back to his place. We watched the “Smeg Ups” tape of “Red Dwarf” and then cuddled. It was difficult to make ourselves go to bed that night (since we were going to the national park early the following morning) but we eventually got to sleep.

Other things that have happened recently…

The group of us played 1000 Blank White Cards one evening, which was great fun. Ivan in particular picked up the idea very quickly and a lot of his cards reminded me of things Will used to do in the game. (I miss you Will.)

One evening after Rose went to bed I had tea with Jules and we chatted for quite awhile about fairly meaningful things and shared many things simply through sustained eye contact. I like to really study peoples’ eyes and watch their expressions and it was wonderful that Jules didn’t feel uncomfortable enough to break the gaze. Only a brief mention of me leaving got me in tears and he held me while I calmed down. He’s written an absolutely beautiful passage about this particular evening in his journal.

We had dinner at Will’s parents’ restaurant for his 21st birthday. I’d never had Vietnamese food before but it was quite like most Asian foods I’ve had, only better. It was absolutely fantastic. We took a ton of photos and afterwards went back to Rosey’s place to play many rounds of Warioware. Fun.

One evening the gang took me to see the beach for the first time. Okay, Oshkosh has a lot of lakes and rivers and therefore a lot of shore but I’ve never actually been on a real beach before. We went right at sunset so it was absolutely gorgeous. It was a bit cold though, but no matter. We had fish and chips (I had a chicken sandwich because I’d had fish the previous evening and was fished out.)

Rose and Siska took me on a tour of parts of their university. We were going to stalk one of Rosey’s cute lecturers but he was out. Too bad. It’s a beautiful, small campus.

So I suppose it’s about time to write about my impressions of Perth now that I’ve been here nearly a month.

• The water goes down the drain clockwise. (verified in Rosey’s shower) The toilets here don’t flush the same way American ones do so I couldn’t test this way.
• Many of the street signs are hilarious to me because I’ve never seen them before. The one for the foot/bike path depicts the figure of a man above a bike. It looks like he’s doing an insane stunt in Grand Theft Auto.
• No one here says “soda.” It’s always “Coke” no matter what the soft drink is. Pepsi is “Coke.”
• Perth is extremely multicultural. There are all varieties of restaurants and stores in which things are in different languages. The place has a very high Asian population.
• It’s very strange for me to enter a place with my friends and look around only to realize I’m the only white person in the room. This has happened on several occasions, and it never seems weird until I really think about it.
• I’m not picking up the Aussie accent. Ross mumbles terribly, Rose has a Malaysian accent, Siska has an Indonesian accent, and both Ivan and Jules sound more British than Australian. Aside from Ross’s family, Will is about the only person whose accent sounds particularly Aussie. That’s okay though. :-)
• Everything is so much cheaper here, including food. The money is worth less than US dollars ($1 here is about equivalent to 70 cents in the US) Often times, especially with food, you get more for your money anyhow. DVDs are strangely quite a bit cheaper than those in the states. I got two seasons of “Six Feet Under” for about $45AUD each whereas in the states they’re $95USD each (which equates to about 1/4 the cost!) I have eaten out almost every meal this month and have shopped for some souvenirs and still have not spent more than $400AUD!
• There are roundabouts and speed humps all over the place, and the yield signs say “Give Way.” All the cars are right hand drive and they drive on the left side of the road. Turning left on a red light is illegal.
• Most of the stores close down at 5:30PM each day except Thursday when they’re open a bit later, so you have to get all your shopping in before that time. Most food places are open later than that but you’re hard-pressed to find other establishments open. Very strange to get used to.
• Public transportation is very good and fairly inexpensive. It’s easy to get from place to place using buses and Rose and Siska were able to get me on the bus for the student rate by using a multirider card that gets scanned when you get on the bus. Bwaha.
• Rose goes shopping for food just about every day because she doesn’t decide until the last minute what she’s going to make. I’m accustomed to planning ahead a bit and shopping once a week so it was a very rare day when we didn’t go shopping for one thing or another.
• The sun comes up really early here, like around 5AM. It shines really bright and gets the noisy birds going. I was woken up to this nearly every morning here.
• Rain is spotty and comes and goes quickly. You could be driving somewhere and it starts raining and by the time you’ve reached for the windshield wipers it’s already stopped.
• The city has a lot of people in it but I never feel unsafe. No one looks like they’re about to kill you or pick your pocket, which is a very strange concept for me to deal with. Every large city I’ve been in I’ve felt uneasy or suspicious but I don’t feel any of that here. For the most part people are very friendly.
• Because of the overwhelming international population here I haven’t run into any prejudice over me being an American. Strangely, I haven’t run into any other Americans here, but there are people with every imaginable accent in almost any store or restaurant you enter. Very very cool.
• It’s very funny to look at signage for places that exist in the states because often times it’ll be the same company with the same logo but some part of it is spelled differently. Burger King is “Hungry Jack’s” here. Same logo too. Michelin tire professionals are “tyre” professionals.
• A lot of the signage in the city is painted rather than printed or neons. The letters are often big, bold, and neon-colored and often hand-painted. It’s a lot to look at and take in. There’s a sad excess of Comic Sans usage which it is my sad duty to point out at every opportunity.
• The Aussie stereotype of having a yard full of cars (most of which are clunkers) seems to be rather true. Ross’s family has 8 cars for 5 people.
• A lot of the city is paved with brick and other fancy types of masonry. It looks really clean and classy, much like how downtown Portland is. Beautiful.
• Honkey nuts are as prevalent here as acorns are in the states. They are absolutely everywhere.

I’m sure there’s a ton more I can come up with but that’s good for now.

Well, my final days here are at hand. I leave here on Wednesday morning and arrive back home on Wednesday night despite a travel time of over 30 hours. I’m not looking forward to going back to snow and cold and the 12 hour flight. Guh. More importantly though, I really do not want to leave my friends. I’ve felt so welcome and at home with them and I feel as if they’ve become a second family to me. It’s so easy to feel like everything is completely right when surrounded by these people…Wednesday will quite possibly be the worst day of my life. I’m not sure how I’ll cope with having to leave. :\