November 1st…..We made it to PERTH!!!

So, we got up pretty early and made it to Perth!!! Destination accomplished! I really never thought I’d see the day, and though it seems it hasn’t taken very long, it seems like forever ago if I think about all the things we’ve done. I am feeling very lucky today, to say the least.

I got to spend the drive up talking to two of my best friends back home, which was so, so, so good. It really helps me to keep going, ya know? Well, maybe you don’t, but to put it lightly, it’s a real boost of my mood to talk to my good friends and feel like we haven’t missed a beat. I always leave on these trips thinking that I will get back and things will be so different and everyone will have forgotten about me or moved on, which is obviously inevitable, but then I talk to people or get home and it seems nothing has really changed much. We are all different people doing different things, but we can still be best friends and still laugh and get real with each other again. Maybe I’m getting too deep here….enough. Just know that I am happy.

We made it to Perth. What a beautiful city! We checked in to our 5-star hotel (yeah, we get to live it up for one weekend!) and enjoyed a couple quick showers in real bathrooms then headed down to the river to watch a bit of the qualifications. Our hotel is right on the river and we can see the course from our room, but we decided to be outside and enjoy the beautiful day. There is only a park between the two and they turned that into the airstrip, so we have an incredible view of the planes.

The Air Race isn’t really very long. It’s a full weekend of events, but the actual racing takes an hour total probably. In the meantime there is an awesome air show and we got to see a bunch of planes do some really cool tricks. It’s been years since I’ve been to an air show…I forgot how exciting they were! The Air Race qualifications were way cool too. It’s so much better to see in person than on TV. They fly so stinking low to the ground and everyone is gasping and cheering the whole time. It was pretty entertaining.

After the race we decided to do some civilized things and go explore the city a bit. We kept reading about this part of the city called Subiaco. It’s meant to be the trendy part of the city with all the shopping, cafes and pubs. We had a pretty bogus map that we must’ve read wrong, so it took us about 10 times longer to get there than it should have. Luckily there were a lot of places to see along the way and we didn’t realize we walked nearly 3 miles! HA! It only should’ve been about one. Pretty good navigators, we are. We walked through a place called King’s Park and I swear it was the town of limos. We must’ve counted about 25 just in this park. There were all types too….Jeeps and old-fashioned ones, an MG one and a Cadillac one, a Mercedes one and a few regular ones. We felt like we were in a movie! Oh, and there were weddings everywhere!!!! I think it must be the day to get married and drive a limo. For real.

Once we got to Subiaco we were shocked at the ghost town in which we found ourselves. There was no one around at all!!!!! We must’ve passed a total of 4 people on the whole street, until we got to the very end and found one open pub that was full of really uppity people too rich for our blood. We walked in, sweaty and exhausted, with backpacks on our backs and flip-flops on our feet. The place was full of girls who looked like they were about to go to prom, with their hair done so perfectly and their high heels to the ceiling and guys who matched the scene. So we grabbed a beer and headed outside on the patio where no one was sitting, except these two older guys who were more our style than this pub’s and we started chatting with them. They were full of questions about America and we had a pretty entertaining conversation with them. We all hit it off really well making fun of the scene we found ourselves in, so they took us down the street a bit to this Irish pub and bought us Black and Tans. We ended up playing pool for about an hour with them and then they had to leave. We finished our beer and followed suit. On our way out, we realized the pub was right next to a Mexican restaurant so, of course, we had dinner.

Then we caught a taxi back to the hotel. On the way, we asked the driver where everyone was and where the nightlife was in Perth. He told us about a festival on this weekend in Northbridge, so we had him turn around and take us there. It was pretty full, but still not what we thought, though we had fun watching the characters and the random funny things going on in the streets. It was a bit like Bourbon St. in New Orleans, if you’ve been there. There was even a silent disco in the streets, which is brilliant and something we need more of in America. It’s basically a nightclub in silence, with everyone wearing headphones and the DJ’s music only going into the ears of the people who purchase them. So, on the outside, it’s just a bunch of people dancing to nothing, all to the same beat. We got a good laugh.

Then it was back to the hotel and straight to bed. What a long day!