Perth Take 1: Travel Day

For those of you who don't know, this is Katie. She was my "travel companion" this last week. She's another American (from Wisconsin, but originally Iowa) studying marine biology down in Warrnambool with me, although she's here for a year rather than just a trimester. 

Now that you've been formally introduced, here we go. I will warn you that excessive photos were taken, so be prepared for more visuals than writing. 

Our journey began on Friday, April 18th at 6:30 am...well that's when I woke up at least...Katie was already here and ready by then. We double checked our bags and Sarah (who was going home to Melbourne), Katie, and I started the walk to the train station out in front of Uni. Before we left we noticed that it was sprinkling a little but weren't too concerned seeing as the walk isn't that long...that was until it started to down-pour sideways. By the time we reached the platform, it looked as though we had all just climbed out of a swimming pool. We found Owen, Gemma, and Daniel waiting at the platform as well and we all agreed that sitting soaked for four hours on a train was going to be torture. Once on the train, we hung our clothes on the luggage rack to dry...although they were still damp by the time we reached Southern Cross. Also, I think we can all agree that I am not the prettiest sleeper...

Once we reached Southern Cross, before all going our separate ways, we ate lunch at a nifty little burger place called Grill'd. After that, Sarah was off home, Daniel was off home as well, Gemma and Owen were off to Jake's (?), and Katie and I were off to the airport. Once there we went to get our boarding passes, thinking that we were going to have to wait there for 8 hours for our flight at 8:45 pm, but the nicest guy at check-in named Jon (who was very flamboyant and called us "doll") got our flight moved up to 5:45 pm, which was such a relief. We boarded the plane to find out that we had epic TVs in front of us with choices of movies, tv shows, music, and games. I ended up watching the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (little bit of a homesick decision) and then a couple episodes of Friends...which I ended up laughing really loudly on accident and I'm pretty sure the people next to me hated me. We also got meals that were surprisingly not bad, and had chocolate mousse for desert.

After the long flight, and then a taxi ride, we had finally arrived at the hostel in the middle of Perth. The atmosphere of the hostel was so welcoming and not at all what I had expected. I thought hostels were dingy looking places where you had to keep all of your belongings padlocked and sleep with your arms looped through your backpack. This hostel was three floors, had a workout room, two kitchen areas, an outdoor pool, and a bar and cafe. We stayed in a six person room with four other girls that came and went throughout the week. Definitely a 10/10 would recommend for the YHA in Perth.

Since we had just arrived, we decided to go scope out our surroundings, and hoped to find a grocery store. Apparently, everything in Perth closes at a ludicrously early hour, so we were at a loss with the groceries, but we ended up seeing some awesome street art (by now you should all know that I have a particular fondness for street art). There was also this cactus looking "statue" that we found. Apparently it's famous or something because I saw it on a postcard later in the week, and if something is on a postcard, it must be famous. After wandering, we headed back to the hostel and I think my tiredness must have encompassed my body because that was the first night in months that I've slept through the night without waking up numerous times.