Last Day in Perth

My last day in Perth was very anticlimactic. Although I suppose last days are often like that; one tends to cram everything they wish to see in the first few days. I do have to say it was more of a let down than I had hoped though.

I blame it on a book. I wanted a guide of all the hostels in Australia to help find what I needed when arriving in a new town. The Lonely Planet guide is bulky and has too much information about restaurants and expensive hotels than what I need. (Though after getting this guide, it also lacks such important information as interesting sites and valuable maps of the towns. Don't buy the BUG guide of Australia. It lack so much a person needs to know. That's right BUG, get your crap together and put together a worthwhile guide.) I knew it would not arrive in Broken Hill before my departure, so I shipped it to Erin's place. One month later, it arrives as a package slip in the mail box on my last full day in town. I didn't get the notice until after the post office was closed. OF course, the post office didn't open again until after Erin left for work the next morning, trapping me at her place that morning. Most mornings, Erin dropped me off at the train station at 7:30 on her way to work, then picked me up at five on her way home. This last day, I was at the mercy of the unreliable public transit.

The previous day was also a waste. My inability to find a bus that took me to Scarborough beach, until 3:30 cost me a whole day of wave bobbing. The bus failed me on my last day as well. The first bus that I needed didn't get me to town from Erin's until 2:30PM. Therefore, I was stuck at Erin's watching four DVD's, later checked into the hostile, returned a wall outlet for my MP3 player (damn problem maker), stopped by the travel agent to confirm my tour (and learned just in time I needed a sleeping bag), bought a sleeping bag, paid $3 for a mere hour of Internet, bought a bad gyro, went to the pub alone, found myself too, read a newspaper at the pub, found myself shy again at the hostile, so I wrote this newly meta-blog. I have to go to bed early anyway to catch my tour at seven in morning. Goodnight.

Ha! Did you really think I'm that I'm too shy not to mingle with a room full of solo travellers? Well, I often am, but I'm trying to get better. I took my cribbage set and challenged a German woman and her french friend to a game. Neither knew how to play though. I attempted to teach the game, claiming it was easy, but it didn't take. The language barrier didn't help, neither did the Aussie bloke who knew the game, yet still accused me of making up rules. Let's say I was winning by a lot as well.

We ditched it after half a game.

I went to bed early since I had to get up early, but I may have had my worst sleep I've paid for in my whole life. First off, I was on the top bunk, under a light that was being used by my other dorm mates for hours. I was also right next to the squeaky bathroom door and even closer to the even more squeaky exit door. Based on my calculations, given I sat in the bed for seven hours and a door opened and closed an average of once a minute, every single person in my room got up and opened a door individually 28 times between 11PM and 6AM! I only got up to urinate a single time. My top bunk did not have a ladder for some reason. All chances of falling back to sleep after my quick bathroom trip was killed by my six foot ankle-breaking drop and (famous male gymnast)-like lift back into the bed (good thing I am light a reasonably fit.)

Post-script: this last sentence makes me cry. The next day, such a feat would be rendered impossible. :-(