The letter that started it all.
Friends and Family,
I'm in Perth. I'll be here all summer (Winter here) living with my
parents. This is a pretty amazing place, and I'm going to push my
journalistic skills to the test to try to tell you all about my adventures
here. I want to keep up with as many of you as possible, and that's
really hard to do in any kind of real-time communication because of the time
difference. Just like my facebook says, it's totally flipped. I'm
writing this while I watch morning joggers go up the hill outside our home, and
most of you are getting off work, eating dinner, and getting ready to go out
for cheap drinks on a Thursday (more on your definition of "cheap"
later). So please, PLEASE email me back. I'd love to have one on
one conversations with all of you, and it'd make me feel like I'm only on another
continent, not another planet.
I'll keep this first email pretty short. At least, short by my standards
from the old Listserve. Sorry about all those, chops.
Yall need to hear about the journey here. Think about what you were doing
Tuesday afternoon around 5pm. Then Tuesday night. Then sleep.
Then Wednesday morning, afternoon and evening. Then what time did
you go to sleep wednesday? Got all that in your head? K. I
left for DFW at 5pm Tuesday and landed in Perth at midnight wednesday. Of
course, it was 1pm on Thursday here. I thought I knew what jet lag felt
like....I was wrong. I know several of you have been to Dubai - I guess
it's like that. After going to sleep at 8pm and waking up at 7 this
morning I still feel like a bus hit me.I have a meeting with a headhunter tuesday, and an interview with Apache Oil the same day. My dad was buying a sofa bed from some random dude, and he turned out to be the hiring manager for their whole operation here, as well as a Texan. "If you don't ask, the answer is always no" is my dad's mantra, so he whored my resume out and voila. Instant interview.
Our lives here are pretty sweet. We live in a second-floor loft that cost
a gajillion dollars, which IBM pays for. We live on a hill that has to be
about 30 degree incline - a real pain - that is right outside of the Central
Business District and just downhill of Kings Park. Kings Park is several times larger than Central Park in NYC, and has every kind of plant indigenous to AUS in it somewhere. The main Boulevard on it is lined with trees that each have plaques, some 1400 in all, dedicated to Aussies killed in WWI and WWII. A very neat little tribute. The park is always full, and pictures can't describe its beauty.
An hour walk around this park yesterday afternoon showed me more joggers,
bikers and random asian tourists than I'd see in a week anywhere else.
Which brings me to my next subject - the people here are FIT.
Everyone here runs, cycles, or both. A trip downtown at lunchtime
showed me about 4 overweight people in an hour, and none I'd call obese.
The diet is partially responsible - everything here is so damn expensive,
people just don't eat as much. Those of you who've lived/cooked with me
know how queer I can get about what I eat, and it's the norm here. No
greasy food, one MacDonalds in the whole city, and absurdly expensive beer and
liquor (wine is cheap, though). For comparison's sake, a 700mL bottle of
Absolut vodka would be around $15 in Uncle Sam's liquor store. The liquor
store down the street from us sells it for a generous $48. Like whiskey?
A handle of Beam is $87. A sixpack of Miller Lite was $18. And yet
my favorite red wine is $10 a bottle. I'm not looking forward to the day
my duty-free stash of hooch runs out. Oh, and a beer at a bar is $10
pretty commonly here. I miss $3 thursdays...even if they do put that
stupid "s" in front of the "fuzzi" drink.
My goal here is to meet as many Aussies as I can, and get a feel for the pulse
of the city. I don't want to feel like a tourist by the time I leave.
So I'll be hitting the pubs like it's my job and hopefully making some
friends along the way - thank you to those of you who put me in touch with
Perthies, I'm following up on all of them.
So God Bless, have a great summer, and keep me up to date on how my favorite
country is treating you.
Best Wishes
Rusty
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