Sunday

Day 3? Sunday, anyway.

Arrived as per previous post. Couldn't sleep for a while, I was nervous and pretty scared it was all going to fall apart without phone or internet access (i.e. no communication and on my own in a far away country, not fun).

Slept from 5 am - 10 am local time. Got up, grabbed my security blanket (a jobs list with lots of handy details written down like "Ask about buses, wifi, and building entry/exit") and sat by reception till someone who worked there appeared. As per previous post, they were very helpful, answered all my questions, sorted out the payment mistake due to the night manager being a tool, and made me feel an awful lot happier about my life.

I then played with my phone, changing various network settings, switching it off and on and off and on again, growing increasingly desperate as nothing worked. The problem was that my messages were 'unable to send'. Thanks phone. No other information? Really? Anyway, turns out it didn't like the network I was connected to, despite that network being the 'automatic' network choice for the phone in Aus and the network recommended to me by the phone company to connect to. Shows how much they know.

Having sorted the phone, and temporarily (by which I mean I paid for 2 hours usage thereof) gained internet access, I sorted my life out a bit.

Exploring Perth, getting my bearings, and food shopping were my next priorities.

I wandered out to see Perth, noting the bus stops for future use and generally marvelling at how clean and shiny and hot everything was. Really clean city. Can't stress enough how clean and well kept all the parks/buildings/streets are. For the costs of living here though, they bloody well better be.

Shiny!

Perth's historical buildings made me chuckle to myself. Historical? They're barely 100 years old! Lols. I took photos anyway. It's quite a Christian/Church-y kind of city - there's a lot of churches within a small area, and they all look nice, but they're all really tiny. Not sure why they need so many small ones. Also, they seem to revere the UK patron saints more than we do. Every other building/church/street references St. George, and there's even an emotive arty statue of what I can only assume is supposed to be his lance and a white flag outside St. George's cathedral (doesn't look like a cathedral as you might imagine one - all the churches are redbrick. Photos when I can be bothered to upload them). Next door was a church for St Andrew.

Standard Historical Building

Small Church 1

Small Church 2 

It sits there and emotes.

The Cathedral

St George's cathedral was holding a Welsh Night on that Sunday evening, complete with "Welsh refreshments" to finish. I spotted a Rev. pouring red wine into those plastic party cups outside though - definitely not Welsh. Didn't see any cheese on toast. Doubt there were any Welsh refreshments at all. Who wants leek and cheese on toast on a hot Sunday evening anyway? Moving on.

The high street was busy and full of all the shops I could ever need. Thanks to Perth's nice grid design, everything is easy to find and it's impossible to get lost. There is even a "Ye Olde Englishe Street" with mock-up Tudor buildings and Ye Olde signposts for them, and a mock-up statue of Shakespeare stands at the end of the alley in an alcove above an entrance/exit archway.
Despite being located in what I thought was a jokey tourist thing, there were occasionally pretty serious bits of writing on the signs. A solicitors, for example, had their signs in Ye Olde on a grainy piece of wood hanging from a pole off one 'Tudor' building. I wondered if anybody had ever noticed them, because they were difficult to spot and blended in perfectly with their tacky surroundings.

The entrance to Tudorland

Shakespeare is at the end of this alley. Fact.

Confusingly, Woolworth's are a supermarket chain here, but that's where to get food from. A different Mr. Woolworth I suppose. It's expensive, but still the cheapest place to get food. Food is expensive in Aus. As is everything else. Having got dinner, I dropped off the food in my allocated fridge space and cupboard shelf space before heading back out, with a plan to explore more and find internet.

I bought a prepaid mobile wifi modem from one of the mobile phone shops - and that is how I'm able to write a blog. Blogs are low data usage, but I'm on the web a long time writing - the opposite of what I would get from paying for limited time but unlimited downloads. It's also less stressful as I can effectively be always online, sitting on Facebook for conversation as and when it crops up, as opposed to having to pre-plan my every internet move to maximise time efficiency!

Now armed with a permanent internet solution and dinner for the evening, I could relax a bit more, theoretically. But I couldn't and I still don't know why exactly. I've put it down to jetlag and being alone abroad. I spent the rest of the time exploring to stop the feelings of loneliness coming on again, determined not to go back until 6 pm and enjoy the sun while I had it. This was a very good thing to do in hindsight, as it meant that I quickly figured out where everything in Perth was, and presumably got more Vitamin D than I'd had from all of 2012.

The city centre/tourist bit is pretty small, and everything useful is within 15 min walking radius from my accommodation, so it has another plus.

Tourist bits found so far: the waterfront and piers (for cruises on the Swan river that runs through Perth), the big bells (another phallic-shaped building in the world striving to be the biggest in some way, this one is the largest musical instrument...but perhaps disappointingly it's not a wind instrument, it's just bells), gardens and parks, the mint, and many brochures for a variety of outings.

Big Bells

I came home, set up the internet and had dinner. I sorted out my stuff for the first (potential) day of clinicals abroad, and planned the bus route to take. I browsed the tourist brochures and made a note to figure out what I wanted to do while in Perth. Then I wrote some of my book until I felt tired, which wasn't long after.

Home

Day 3 done. Another long day in hindsight, but it didn't seem that way due to the 5 hour sleep from 5-10 am.