After we got the car, a little Toyota Corolla hatchback, we stuffed the kids in the backseat and made our way south of the Swan & Canning rivers into some unsuspecting neighbourhoods that could be our home. Some of the areas were very nice. Before we set off we filled up with fuel. Regular unleaded here is $1.40/litre. That's $1.40 Aussie dollars which is equivalent to about $1.50 Canadian. We've yet to find anything here that is cheaper than in Canada. More details on this later...
In one neighbourhood we stopped by the river to take a walk. There were yachts, water skiers, some sailboats and quite a bit of wildlife. While it's considered part of the river it's really a salt water estuary that flows into the Indian ocean, so the water has a high level of salinity. We saw some jellyfish, a dead crab, a bunch of fish eating the dead crab and some sort of sea bird.
The "some sort of sea bird" drying itself in the sun and wind.
This is the "what is the steering wheel doing on my side" look. If you think Nad looks frightened you should have seen the looks of terror from the rest of us. She did fine although she kept turning on the windshield wiper every time we were turning or changing lanes. In case you're wondering, a single swipe of the wipers means "right turn", a series of swipes means "left turn".
After we were finished stalking the innocent families and terrorizing the pedestrians of South Perth we drove down to the coastal region of Freemantle. It's about 10km southwest of the City of Perth and is a working pier, busy fishery and bustling tourist trap. It was colonized primarly by Italians so there is an Italian club, Italian restaurants and they even have their own AFL team with the Italian colours. It's a nice place and they got a little bit a this, a little bit a that...fuggetaboutit.
The kids being forced to pose in front of the harbour:
A view of the sailboats out in the bay of Freemantle.
Us outside the market in Freemantle.
This is inside the market. Note the Xmas decorations. Last week they had a big tree lighting ceremony in the CBD (downtown). The 40 foot tree is either artificial or is part of the Plasticus Cheesus family of trees. It's a little odd seeing Xmas stuff when it's 25 degrees. I'll find a way to adapt though.
On the way home we went to the grocery store. Bananas are $7.99/kg, peaches $12.99/kg, apples $6.99/kg, etc. The fruit at the market was actually cheaper than the fruit in the grocery store. You'd think that in a country where they can grow almost all of their produce that it'd be relatively cheap. However, nothing is cheap here.
Tomorrow, I start working for real and Nadia is going to start contacting some schools to set up appointments. We've narrowed it down to 5 schools, all on the north west side between the river and ocean. Fortunately for us the schools here go from grade 8-12, so all three kids will be attending the same school. This will be the first time they'll be at the same school since the boys were in grade 6. They aren't happy about it but Nad and I are and they're kids so their opinion doesn't really count.
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