Troy Archie – Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

Well I’m in Perth right now and Perth is a bit borring so I thought I’d put in an other entry but this one of all my general thoughts and observations thus far of Australia and whatever. The crappiest thing thus far about travelling alone is you don’t have anyone to share these weird quirky little thoughts and observations with so that’s why I’m posting them here. I hope I don’t sound too insane from this.

Flies. You ever see on TV they’ll show some poor desolate people in Africa or some other far away country and the people there always seem to be covered in flies. You think to yourself that they must be so weak, tired, dirt poor and without any hope that they just don’t do anything about them. The truth is is that they just don’t care. The flies in Australia are HIGHLY agressive and they’re always hovering around you and always in your face. Eventually you just stop caring and let them crawl over you.

Bordies. They’re not short pants. They’re not swimming shorts. They’re “Boardies” and they are useless. Everyone down here wears them and they are quite fashionable but they’re just absolutely pointless. They don’t have an inside liner like swimmers so you have to wear underwear with them but yet they don’t have any pockets so you don’t have anywhere to put change, room key… I bought a pair at the factory outlet and had them for 2 day’s before I tossed them.

Aborigines. They’re in rough shape like the Natives back home. I watched a group huff a bag of something in a park earlier today.

Hostels. They sure can be hit and miss. I don’t mind them being a dirty or rough around the edges at all, it’s the atmosphere and people that I’m interest in the most. I’ve thus far gotten burnt out hippies that keep to themselves, super friendly open to conversation people and now this one which is full of old people and asians that can’t speak a word of English. I sat and listened to two 70-80 year old British ex-patriots argue about who was the best King of England for an hour last night. Things started to get pretty ugly at some points. I have yet to stay at a “party” hostel or a real young person hostel yet so that should be interesting.

Asians. I’m assuming they’re Japanesse on this one and I’m trying not to sound racists but they are a riddle to me. You’ll be sitting on a beautful pristine beach with bluer than blue water and you’ll look over and see them playing games on their cell phones and organizers. I just don’t get them.

Coffee. Australians really like good coffee, good expensive coffee to be exact. I’ve seen only one Starbucks thus far and that was in Sydney. Sorry, no Timmies and no other major franchise to replace either of them. They’re all just small mom and pop operations selling coffee for like $2-$3 a hit. No $0.99 all you can drink diner coffee down here. Good thing I brought my coffee press.

Even McDonald’s is getting in on the actions.

Resturants. Australia is a very eat out country. Most of the resturants are sit-down places and I’ve seen very few fast food places. Pretty must all the places are again mom and pop operations and there are very few franchises like back home with Boston Pizza and Joey Tomatoes. They’re all kind of expensive too but I guess you get what you pay for. A meal for under $10 is considered good.

Food. It’s funny, my grandmother said to me that I wasn’t going to be able to eat the way I normaly eat while travelling. Ends up she’s right but the funny thing is, everyone else is eating the way I used to eat. I see everyone else making big huge salads, BBQing chicken and steak, cooking up big stir-fries and having omletes for breakfast meanwhile I’m currently living off of cans of tuna, oranges, peanuts and whatever else is on sale or cheap. I’m keeping my diet fundamentally the same as back home, just on a tighter budget. I figure I’m eating for less than $10 AUD a day right now.

Sunglasses. I’m glad as hell that I got a contacts before I left as I am loving sunglasses.

Cars. Cars don’t stop for pedestrains here. Mike warrned me about this and he was right. Even at crosswalks they speed through.

The Ocean. I still can’t get enough of it. This picture gives it no justification from what I saw that night on Rottnest.

Showers. Jumping into the ocean isn’t considered a shower/bath. I need to follow this one better. See Flies?

Accents. I’m doing pretty good understanding what people are saying with their accents. German, Scot, Asian, so far the only person that I had a really tough time understanding was another Canadian and no he wasn’t a newfie.

Air Conditioning. I don’t like it. The heat is alright but the second I get into an air conditioned area I just about fall asleep. 3 times now, twice on a ferry and once on a bus I just about fell asleep due to the cool air.

Perth. Perth is kinda of a borring town. There isn’t too much to do but that could be a good thing as it lets me catch up on things. It could also be the fact that the city isn’t on the ocean. It’s also kind of a weird town as it’s very Asian, and what I mean by that is that there are hundreds of Asian food resturants, tons of asian internet cafes and lots of Asian food stores yet I haven’t seen that many Asians around compared to a place like Vancouver where I would a minority.

Like I say, Perth is a little borring so I’m thinking about rigging out but at the same time I feel like I’m moving too fast and need to chill a bit. I think perhaps my best bet would be to chill at the next stop which is looking to Cervantes as it’s on the coast and not far from some really cool outback scenery.

Well that’s that.

Troy out.

Tags: Australia

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 16th, 2005 at 4:21 am and is filed under Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.