Ladies and
Gentlemen,
Welcome to Episode 2 of my ridiculous summer abroad, wherein I go out excessively hard with South Africans, learn Cricket, chill with sealions, eat Indian food, do the wine and cheese thing, and make deep philosophical comments on how cartoonish this place is. G'day.
So some of yall weren't in on the first massive, impersonal and doubtlessly boring email. It's beneath this one, so if your eyes haven't committed suicide from over-reading by then, feel free to push the issue with them and read on. And thanks to those of yall who emailed me back, skyped, facebooked and all that. I'm grateful to still feel a little plugged in.
Anyway, this place is still fantastic. I've now seen 6 obese people, although 4 of them were technically in Fremantle, not Perth. None of them were below the age of 40, which is also reassuring. It's also still "dead winter" and hasn't dropped below 70 during the day yet. But these are all things I talked about in my last 400 page email...so let's move on.
My friends here so far are South African, except for Lloyd and some peeps who are studying abroad. This is a very international city, and everywhere I've gone where I meet people (the gym and bars...where else do I go?) I inevitably meet more international people than Aussies. Canadians, Scotsman, Norwegians...you name it, I've met them. Wednesday night is the big party night here, and so Wednesday night I went out with my South African buddies to get "Op Hofuk," which means "quite sufficiently shitfaced" in Africaans. Learning a new language from friends hasn't changed at all since my family were the new American kids in preschool in Germany - always swear words first. The bars here are all 18 and up, and are called hotels for some reason no Aussie has yet adequately explained. The 18-and-up situation creates an atmosphere full of "prostatots," a term I think is as self-explanatory as it is awesome.
Welcome to Episode 2 of my ridiculous summer abroad, wherein I go out excessively hard with South Africans, learn Cricket, chill with sealions, eat Indian food, do the wine and cheese thing, and make deep philosophical comments on how cartoonish this place is. G'day.
So some of yall weren't in on the first massive, impersonal and doubtlessly boring email. It's beneath this one, so if your eyes haven't committed suicide from over-reading by then, feel free to push the issue with them and read on. And thanks to those of yall who emailed me back, skyped, facebooked and all that. I'm grateful to still feel a little plugged in.
Anyway, this place is still fantastic. I've now seen 6 obese people, although 4 of them were technically in Fremantle, not Perth. None of them were below the age of 40, which is also reassuring. It's also still "dead winter" and hasn't dropped below 70 during the day yet. But these are all things I talked about in my last 400 page email...so let's move on.
My friends here so far are South African, except for Lloyd and some peeps who are studying abroad. This is a very international city, and everywhere I've gone where I meet people (the gym and bars...where else do I go?) I inevitably meet more international people than Aussies. Canadians, Scotsman, Norwegians...you name it, I've met them. Wednesday night is the big party night here, and so Wednesday night I went out with my South African buddies to get "Op Hofuk," which means "quite sufficiently shitfaced" in Africaans. Learning a new language from friends hasn't changed at all since my family were the new American kids in preschool in Germany - always swear words first. The bars here are all 18 and up, and are called hotels for some reason no Aussie has yet adequately explained. The 18-and-up situation creates an atmosphere full of "prostatots," a term I think is as self-explanatory as it is awesome.
For the South
Africa game we went to a bar that was essentially HomeBar with a projection TV, and even played HomeBar
music. Unique environment. Awesome. With the World Cup on tv,
all my theories on male bonding (and rush) have proven true - playing sports,
drinking, and talking about playing sports over a few drinks are the uniting
pastimes of all human beings, with the exceptions of artists and WoW
enthusiasts, who can't do so only because they sucked at sports.
So sometime this last week I learned Cricket. My SA buddy Matthew was a pretty legit player back home, and showed me the basics. The pitcher is the bowler, a curveball is either a wobbly or a googly, the batter is the batsman, and nothing else makes any damn sense. It's the most popular sport in the southern hemisphere, and I'm somehow decent at it. The bowler "bowls" without bending his elbow toward the batsman, who protects the wickets. The Bowler wants to hit the wickets or the batsman, neither of whom did anything obvious to the bowler to deserve this treatment. The batsman uses the estranged bastard child of a 2x4 and a hockey stick to knock the ball away, and then run to the opposite wickets and back. Somehow points are involved, and I've ascertained that you want lots of points. Like, hundreds of them. Mmmm, points. Apparently my style of swing and defensive posture (I practice, you know) made me "quite a batsman, but you get fooled by googlies too easily because you don't have them in baseball. You must practice batting googlies or you'll knick out to the keeper too often." Fucking Googlies, man. Ridiculous.
So let's talk sealions. A different South African family my dad works with - I told you, lots of em here - took us out on their little boat last weekend. It was Founders Day in Australia, and I like how any 3-day weekend here necessitates boating just like it does in the states - Larco, Newkumet, I'm talking to you here - except that Perth is a city of roughly 2 million people that has roughly 80,000 liscenced boats. Crazy. We took the boat through the Fremantle port (see pictures) and then out to Carnac Island, which is totally unpopulated. Australian birds have some kind of agreement with eachother about refusing to let human beings wear the pants in our relationship with them - they are total assholes. More annoying birds later, we had the best facebook profile picture of my short career in giving a shit about facebook.
So sometime this last week I learned Cricket. My SA buddy Matthew was a pretty legit player back home, and showed me the basics. The pitcher is the bowler, a curveball is either a wobbly or a googly, the batter is the batsman, and nothing else makes any damn sense. It's the most popular sport in the southern hemisphere, and I'm somehow decent at it. The bowler "bowls" without bending his elbow toward the batsman, who protects the wickets. The Bowler wants to hit the wickets or the batsman, neither of whom did anything obvious to the bowler to deserve this treatment. The batsman uses the estranged bastard child of a 2x4 and a hockey stick to knock the ball away, and then run to the opposite wickets and back. Somehow points are involved, and I've ascertained that you want lots of points. Like, hundreds of them. Mmmm, points. Apparently my style of swing and defensive posture (I practice, you know) made me "quite a batsman, but you get fooled by googlies too easily because you don't have them in baseball. You must practice batting googlies or you'll knick out to the keeper too often." Fucking Googlies, man. Ridiculous.
So let's talk sealions. A different South African family my dad works with - I told you, lots of em here - took us out on their little boat last weekend. It was Founders Day in Australia, and I like how any 3-day weekend here necessitates boating just like it does in the states - Larco, Newkumet, I'm talking to you here - except that Perth is a city of roughly 2 million people that has roughly 80,000 liscenced boats. Crazy. We took the boat through the Fremantle port (see pictures) and then out to Carnac Island, which is totally unpopulated. Australian birds have some kind of agreement with eachother about refusing to let human beings wear the pants in our relationship with them - they are total assholes. More annoying birds later, we had the best facebook profile picture of my short career in giving a shit about facebook.
On Indian food. It's amazing. Holyshitit'ssounbelievablytasty. You can smell the restaurants here from about 30 feet out, and that's in no way a bad thing. I wouldn't eat it before any occasion where you'd be with the opposite sex, as its effect on the digestive system can be...unpredictable. But wow. That's really all I have to say about that.
Wine and Cheese. Wine isn't just for the David Harners of the world here. And I won't push that joke any further. It's some seriously good stuff - they're all about the blends, and it's consumed with just about everything here. And just about everyone here consumes it on the reg. If it got my dear sweet mum to enjoy a drink or two without considering the longterm moral implications and awfulness of drinking, you know it's a big deal. And if you don't know my mom, ask someone who does. Getting her to drink is like offering a blintz to Hitler. But on the subject of wine and drinking again, Little Creatures Pale Ale is the best beer I've ever had. And with apologies to my friends from New Orleans, I will no longer use the expression "Killing more Little Creatures than BP," although it goes over quite well here. And on that note, I'm continually impressed with Aussies' knowledge of that situation. It's the one notable departure from sports
and places with funny names that everyone seems to talk about here, and the general consensus is the same: All George W. Bush's fault.
Kidding. Sit down, Ryley.
So let's talk cartoonish stuff. My gallery of stupid signs on facebook doesn't convey just how funny this place is. A trip on google maps might help. And the sport of Aussie Rules Football, or Footie, is just slightly more important to these people than Carbon is to Life As We Know It. And this game simply had to have been invented by a bunch of 11-year-olds at recess. It is childishly simple, yet the uniforms make Adam Falivene's wardrobe look tame and milktoast by comparison (sorry...) and the refs couldn't look any funnier. Google it. Please. The Rugby team are the Wallabees and the Football team are the socceroos. Every word ends in -ies (plural nouns: sunnies, flippies, boardies, undies) or -o (rotto, buddyo, chippos). English Majors would have a stroke before they got off the plane. I'm glad I renounced my evil ways in favor of engineering.
And I love every second of it! The people are extremely nice unless they happen to be bartenders or waiters (in a society that doesn't tip, it kinda makes sense), the culture is awesome, and they love ostrich-hide cowboy boots. The Aussies I went out with are, I can only hope, characteristic of how this place is, because they couldn't have been nicer to a more-or-less total stranger.
If you haven't been here, get your ass to Perth. If you have been here, come back!
Anyway, this email is already too long. My eyes are even starting to revolt. So with much love, I'm done. Time to go read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in King's Park for the next 3 hours.
Cheers!
Rusty
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