To the Bank and Farmers' Market in Perth, and some Birds

On Friday we went and set up our bank accounts at Unicredit, a credit union on the campus of the university.  Interestingly, it seems the people of Australia rarely use checkbooks anymore, but Rebecca requested access to a "cheque book" just the same.  I think the bank teller thought us quite strange for that.

The setup of the account was weird, too.  We have one joint account, but inside this joint account we have individual sub-accounts that to my knowledge work as individual accounts.  /boggle.

Vinny was a bit in a crazy mood the past evening and morning.  As I had said the heat in the apartment was not working and the landlady had brought us some space heaters.  They work really well, and are of those "fake log fake fire" hot air blower types.

I apologize for the quality of the picture, but this is about the only way you can see the "flames."  But i won't make too much fun of it as the two we have have made our apartment life much warmer.


And it puts an end to this:

Vinny loved telling us about the front loader washer, despite his outfit.

Which honestly wasn't that bad.

But now it's warmer and we can dress in less striking outfits.

On Saturday morning Rebecca's (and Bronson's) friend (who has been a godsend i might add, with all her help in getting us set up and knowledgeable of how things go) took us to one of the many farmers' markets in Perth.  The one she took us too, whether it was the biggest in Perth or not, was absolutely huge.  It was located on the Clontarf Aboriginal College campus off Manning Road.  The campus is very beautiful. 

The college was built in 1901 and was an orphanage, then later used by the RAF in World War 2.  Then it became an orphanage again and then a general boarding school.  In the 1960s it lost enrollment numbers needed to maintain itself and closed as a school.  Afterward it became a sanitarium of sorts for children with behavioral problems.

I thought the school resembled an old Spanish mission or something out of a good Alfred Hitchcock tale.

I thought that this was just going to be yet another farmers' market.  I'd seen them before.  We had a good one in Urbana, Illinois - one of the biggest I'd seen - that took up a good portion off a parking lot. Our farmers' market in Oak Ridge was downright pathetic.  I wasn't looking forward to much.  I thought we'd get a few vegetables, see a few trinket sales, and at least somewhat support local agriculture.

This place was huge!  There were long continuous rows of vendors selling all sorts of fruits, vegetables, breads, meats - real butchers! - and even a milkman with fresh bottled milk ffrom his own dairy!

Rows and rows of food sellers and flower sellers

 and honey sellers and milk sellers and home made food sellers and sustainability sellers. 

 There were ethnic food sellers,

 breakfast food sellers, 

bratwurst with attitude sellers, 

cheese sellers,

and even a man selling ginormous mushrooms!

Yeah!  they were GINORMOUS!

See?

There was even one place selling sweet potatoes as big as your head!

Those are big sweet potatoes :)



We came away with potatoes, fruits, bread, two two liter bottles of fresh milk, a whole chicken and some beef brisket (cheapest I've ever seen beef since Dakota).

 Vinny wanted a breakfast crepe and he ordered one.  I like him to try to do things on his own, within reason, and his montessori background has given him the confidence to do so (sometimes with prodding).



He was given a ticket, which I held, and had to return to the crepe maker when his number was up on the kiosk sign.  When the number came, he was up and hurrying over to his crepe.

It was quite tasty.  He enjoyed it.

They had this large area in the middle where everyone could sit and enjoy conversation and good food if they wanted. We sat there with our newfound Australian friend and let Vinny enjoy his crepe and some of his freshly squeezed (from a cow I guess) strawberry milk.

The next day we just took it easy and hung around.  Later in the evening Rebecca took Vinny to the park across the street.  I went out to take a few pictures of some birds for my mom.  There have been two birds we have seen predominantly.  One looks like a big black crow but it's call sounds more like a dying cat in heat than the gargling caw of our midwestern crows.  I think what they call a crow is actually a raven, only bigger.  I don't have a picture of it yet. 

The other is a small black and white bird that has a very distinctive call.  It almost drives me insane, actually.  I'll have to find a way to get a .wav of it up or something.  Some people have told me that bird is a Magpie.  

The woman in the downstairs apartment throws balls of raw meat out them and they eat it right up.

Here is another one with a different black/white pattern.

There are some interesting trees in the park across the street.  They have wonderful red/ink blooms and the birds seem to love them.  

The trunk and branches are covered in sharp thorns.  Any idea what these are called?

Rebecca noticed some beautiful green parrot-like birds who loved to eat fruit from these blossoms.  Just like with any of the other birds,

 I don't know what these birds are called, and our camera isn't the best when zooming, but I've tried to include what good shots of these birds we could get.

There was also a smaller, white-breasted bird with a black head and black beak in the tree with these green birds.  I don't know what it is either, but I wonder if it is a baby magpie?

Vinny had a great day at the park playing with his mama.  Rebecca posted an excellent picture of him in a tree.  When I caught up with them they were both quite tired.

I can't believe the size of this aloe plant.  I just had to take a picture of it again.  Rebecca also found a rosemary "tree."  Wow.

  We then went home and had wonderful homemade soup made with the chicken from last night's great chicken dinner (both cooked by my lovely wife) and hit the sack.

Sunrise, Sunset

Perth, Australia. Before last autumn I'd never heard of it. Sure, Heath Ledger came from there but I'd never paid attention to that fact. When someone said "Australia" I would think of Sydney, Melbourne, or the Outback. I knew of Queensland and New South Wales through friendships made online with gamers. I knew New Zealand was down there too, but didn't realize just how far away it was. I'd seen a few movies about Australia; Mad Max introduced me to mind-numbing bush; Australia and Hugh Jackman introduced me to Darwin, not to mention Nicole Kidman, herself an Australian, and all of the movies she'd been in, despite the subject matter relating to Australia proper or not; the iconic Crocodile Dundee and the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin opened my eyes to the outback and Australia's diverse biology; Russel Crowe was just outright badass; Dot and the Kangaroo, a book written in 1899 and later made into a cartoon/live-action film mixture first introduced me to Australia; and finally the summer Olympics in Sydney in 2000. I'm sure there were others too, but did any of these inform me of Perth?

Nope.

Not until last autumn.

As it turned out my wife, who is the primary breadwinner of our family because her earning potential as a research scientist is five times mine, was becoming disillusioned with her employment in the United States. There was an internal position that had become available that she applied for, interestingly enough, that she was already performing, but the powers that be had the opinion that she could not be trusted enough to take on the new position formally. What was truly going on was that she was being overlooked because she was a woman. Neither was this an isolated incident nor did they propose any sensible reason based in reality for not hiring her. Other women, too, were obviously being discriminated against.

The whole place has issues with women. If they're not refusing women sanitary environments to breastfeed - they suggested women could pump inside the confines of a bathroom stall! - or provide child care for working families they were approaching her and other women as if they were servants - she, a PhD scientist, asked to set up lunch tables and provide coffee before panels! They loved slapping her face all over their brochures and magazines to show the world how supportive they were of diversity in the workplace, however.

What's the point of all this? She saw an ad in a magazine for a position at a university in Perth for which she was highly qualified. She was the perfect candidate actually, and she asked me if she should apply. Knowing how additional job offers would give her power in her negotiations with her employers I told her to go ahead, that I thought it would be great to apply. So yeah, my fault. Despite her applying for this position thirty days past the deadline she was offered the job at the conclusion of her first interview!

Thus began the several months of heart-wrenching and worry as we pondered the move.

Perth? Where was that? It's no wonder we'd never heard of it. It's situated on the coast on the southwestern corner of the continent where it proudly sits as capital of the neglected state of Western Australia. Evidently it was considered nothing more than a backwater town until they discovered natural resources and BAM after several decades Perth is the fourth largest city in the country in population. It seems to be quite the cosmopolitan place these days.

Wikipedia and Wikitravel had some information about it, but everywhere else I looked, from bookstore to online book sellers to DVDs and audio CDs I could find very little about the town itself. Pictures on Google Earth weren't helpful either as most of the satellite scans are dated 2008. A friend of my wife loaned us the book "In A Sunburned Country" by Bill Bryson which she has read and shared what information she could.

It seems about all I could find about Perth was the equivalent to the AAA travel guide. If you ever want to know about Perth's history, check Wikipedia. If you want to know where to eat or a nice place to hike, check me.

Yet everywhere I looked I could find nothing on the society or the culture. I'm sure these books exist. I wonder if they are hiding from me.

I did come across a streaming video on Netflix about Perth, and it mentioned Perth a couple of times while being mixed in with Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney (is there not enough about Perth to fill a forty minute program?).

Because of this and the time constraints with this move we are moving to a town practically across the world from us and we have no idea what it looks like, what it feels like (other than hot), and how the city breathes. We don't even know the safest or best places to live. We do know, however, how expensive it is. That information is freely available. Everyone talks about that.

I've found a few dated blogs that discussed things like suburbs and crime statistics. I've gotten a few good ideas about the town from those. WWW.PERTHNOW.COM.AU has also been helpful.

So what's the plan? If I'm going there, I'm going to talk about Perth. If I'm going there, I'm going to make sure I do my part so that anyone else considering this move from the U.S. will have some more information to consider. If anything, it will keep me busy, and as I'll be a foreign national in a strange land with unfamiliar culture and no employment to keep me occupied, I'll need to keep busy.

X-day is sometime in July. I need to tell my parents. Here goes nothing.