Now, Perth is labeled the most isolated city in the world because it is a city of over 1.5 million surrounded by next to nothing. Here I have colored in all of the nothing that surrounds Perth:
I took my first long wander around the streets of Perth today. I climbed up to Kings Park and had a romp around the botanical gardens. I saw a wedding party taking pictures with scenic backgrounds, and I saw a bachelorette party cruising around the park in a stretch Hummer waiving around a giant inflatable penis. Unfortunately I only captured a picture of the Perth cityscape:
While strolling around the park, I found several war monuments. Some of them memorializing victims of World War II. Others honoring those who founded Perth. That’s when I came upon an interesting memorial with the story behind Perth and how it came to be. I didn't bring my notebook along, so I’ll have to do the best I can from memory.
The area on the Swan River where Perth is now located was first seen by white person eyes around 1700 by a Dutch sea captain. It wasn’t until 1829 that the city itself was founded by the British, and they gave a humorous account of how they gained control of the Swan River. Apparently the Dutch had started several communities around western Australia, mating with the Aboriginals and eating a lot of Kangaroo Paw, a mildly hallucinogenic flower, and a combination of the two is thought to have lead to those Dutch settlers believing that the incoming British were out-of-this-world life forms. When seeing the British were coming, a majority of the Dutch settlers ran off into the sea, many never to be seen again, though it is said that if you sail off of the west coast of Australia just after sunset at the point where you can no longer see land, you can see the ghostly apparitions of these lost Dutch souls.
The Aboriginals weren’t too happy about losing their Dutch playmates, so they retaliated against the British presence, leading to fighting throughout the 1830s. As a result of the fighting, this phallus shaped monument was erected:
As for what I’ve been doing in Perth, I’ve been having a good time. Today was an educational day, and a day of planning. I’ll be leaving for Adelaide on the 18th, so that gives me a good ten days to explore more of this beautiful city, where the sky seems even more infinite than it normally does, seemingly never producing a single cloud, and pouring down upon me more cancer filled death rays than I've ever experienced. I hope to continue meeting up with awesome people from the Internet and slowly learning that Australia does have good beer, you just have to really look for it. And you can't expect to find a thick Russian Imperial Stout that pours like motor oil because, hey, it just doesn't get cold enough on this continent.
Yesterday, while wandering the streets of Fremantle, I was lucky enough to catch the Death Star disappear into the Indian Ocean. The sight made me wonder how far west one needs to travel before he or she is considered to be east. It was an aesthetically pleasing moment, where the muscles in your shoulders relax a bit and the muscles of your heart twitter a bit as the day falls asleep. The air was cooling off, aided by a fresh ocean breeze, and various flocks of humans and birds stared off at the edge of the world.
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