Touchdown On Perth Earth

We made it. Phew.

10.5 hours is a bit of a stretch on the plane...luckily, the plane was only 1/3 full, so that meant that I had lots of aisle space to walk around with Lucy. Most of the other passengers took advantage of the seat vacancies and stretched out to sleep on 3 and 4 seats in a row. As I paced the aisles with Lucy, I thought about murdering them - let me be honest about that! Anyhoo, I digress...

We made it through the usual hectic hustle and bustle of checking in, schlepping bags, etc. and on to the plane to Perth. Joely immediately kicked back, slippled on the headphones, and commenced watching about 9 hours of movies. All good, as far as I was concerned. When the attendant came to serve her the first meal, she asked Joely what she wanted to drink. Before Tan or I knew what was happening, the order had been placed and there Joely sat in her multimedia cocoon sipping a Pepsi. She had the world by the tail.

Because we had got the kids up early, Lucy was tired from the get-go. She drifted off not long after we took off, and I thought that was promising. However, after about an hour she decided that was enough, and then pulled a no nap protest for the remainder of the flight. Tan and I have had to finally accept the fact that we don't produce kids that drift off in public. If there's anything to see, they will stay awake to the point of insanity to see it. So although Lucy got more and more fatigued as the hours ticked by, she wouldn't sleep. The alternative was to walk her (which I did loads of), or for her to fuss in her seat (which she did a fair bit of). Surprisingly, when I think back, it doesn't seem like 10.5 hours of that, but it basically was. It's a long enough stretch that details of the beginning get fuzzy by the time you reach the end, if that makes any sense.

We also reconfirmed that Lucy is the master of timing. Guess when she finally did drift off.

When the plane landed. As in, when we needed to lug her about for a bit.

We collected up our carry-on bags, and headed to the baggage claim. Up until now, we'd always had a hand in the airports moving our luggage which consisted of:

• 3 carry-ons
• 6 large suitcases, each stuffed to the maximum capacity of 50 pounds
• the play pen
• the stroller
• Lucy's car seat
• Joely's car seat

So you can see why we were approaching this baggage claim with a bit of trepidation. However, we were helped out by two things. One is that the Perth airport is quite small - about like Winnipeg's if you've ever been there. The other is that true to legend, the Aussies are quite friendly and in short order we'd snagged an airport staffer to help us out. We got everything loaded on the two luggage carts, piled to the sky. Then we had to unload them to go through screening, and then reload them. Lots of luggage handling on my part.

We had reserved a rental car, thinking that we'd put some of the bags in that and then get a cab to take the rest and lead us to the hotel where we'd put in our first night. I had a change of heart about driving on the opposite side of the road than I'm used to in the dark, so we found a big van cab to take all our stuff. I think this thing usually hauls around drunken footy fans. However, it did us fine.

As I waited with Joely and the cab, Tan (with Lucy strapped into the Bjorn front carrier at this stage) went back in to tell the good folks at Avis that we wouldn't be needing our car. As Joely and I waited, the minutes ticked by. Finally, Tan came out, wearing a smelly Lucy. Yes, Lucy the master of timing had decided to barf all over the floor of the rental car area. Lucy never barfs. Except when it matters.

Bleary eyed and smelly, we made our way to the hotel. When the light clicked off, it was 3 am Perth time (which was about 9 pm to our bodies on Dubai time). Of course, check-out was 10 am, only 7 hours later. I convinced them to let us use the room until noon without extra charges. We got up, scared up some breakfast, and then went to my office to pick up the keys to our furnished apartment. It's pretty good digs; we can see the Swan River from our balcony, and there's a lovely sea breeze that picks up in the afternoon to keep things cool.

So far I have managed to avoid barreling down the road on the opposite side to where I should be. Parking lots are the most difficult because of the lack of lines and the general chaos associated with them. I've also got in the habit of driving with my fingers on the turn signals, to avoid turning on my wipers to indicate a turn (yes, even the wipers and turn signals are the opposite to North America).

My first impressions of the city are nice weather, clean, friendly people, and way greener than I had imagined. I'll continue to round these opinions out with experiences as we go along. Oh yeah - we have a phone here now - our number is:

011 - 61 - 8 - 9368 - 1113

Feel free to give us a ring if you like; remember we're 13 hours ahead of Ontario time, so the best time for us is when our kiddies are in bed which is after about 7:30 am Ontario time.