After most of my Notre Dame classmates had left Perth to begin their own travels across Australia and ultimately back home, I was still hanging around Tommy More eagerly awaiting the arrival of my parents and my sister. I was excited to have the opportunity to show them around UWA's campus and Perth. Playing tour guide, however, was a much more stressful job than I had originally imagined, and I found myself relieved when we were at last on the plane out of Perth and onto new adventures that were out of my hands.
I won't take up too much space on this stuff, since essentially I showed my family around the places I've been talking about and showing pictures of all semester. Basically, they arrived on Sunday afternoon, and I met up with them at their hotel shortly after. A good son probably would've been there to pick them up at the airport. In my defense, I had no reasonable means of getting to the airport. They also booked the flight that landed in Perth around the same time as the start of the fourth quarter of the Notre Dame vs Pittsburgh football game. Regrettably, I chose watching the game over picking up my family. Well, no, I regret nothing, not even firmly believing that Notre Dame would go BCS bowling this year at the start of the season. I don't want to have my faithfulness tainted when they win the national championship next year with their new coach. But I digress. In short, I met my parents and sister at their hotel and their was much rejoicing. It was great to see them after so long, but my brain was having trouble comprehending that they were actually in Australia with me.
To start off, I showed them around the University of Western Australia's campus. Then we went across the street to St Thomas More college, and I showed them were I'd been living for four months. They couldn't get over how strange the coed bathrooms were. Another thing that was very strange to them but all too familiar to me was the Australian Crow. Upon hearing the bird for the first time, my sister stopped and looked at me and said "What is that?!" The Australian Crow is one of the most annoying birds in all the world. They sound like a cross between a crying baby and a sick cat, and they are all over Perth. They never shut up either. But don't take my word for it, this video will help you understand (I got this from youtube. I did shoot my own video, but this one is much better).
Yeah, crazy right? Believe I know all too well. They start at about 5am and go all day. But I won't dwell on those birds anymore because I'm free of them now. Anyway, back to the trip. After leaving Tommy More, I took them to Fremantle for dinner. We went down to the beach so they could all touch the Indian Ocean. We had dinner at Little Creatures, a popular local brewery. By the time dinner was over, my party was beginning to feel the affects of some 30+ hours of traveling without a good nights rest, so we all went straight to bed after that.
The next morning I took them to Kings Park. Unfortunately, the season of spring was ending and the wonderful flowers of the botanical gardens that I took pictures of a month earlier were no longer in bloom. We did get to experience the spectacular views of the city that Kings Park has to offer. After Kings Park, we went into downtown Perth and had lunch in the Hay Street and Murray Street Malls, the main place to shop in downtown Perth. After lunch we got ready for the part of the day that I was most excited for, a bus tour. I'd spent a lot of time after finals researching tours around Perth, trying to find the right one. I wanted to go back to Caversham Wildlife Park so that my family would have a chance to see kangaroos and koalas while in Australia (cause who goes to Australia without seeing kangaroos and koalas?), but I also knew that they were interested in visited a winery to taste some fine Australian wines. I only had one afternoon to fit in two completely different activities. Luckily I finally found a tour bus that combined a trip to Caversham with a trip to the Sandalford winery.
I was really impressed with the tour too. The driver was very informative, and I was surprised at how much more I learned that I hadn't already discovered in my semester there. Even at Caversham, where I'd already been once before, I realized there were a lot of things I'd missed the first time around. The best part was being able to finally sit back and just be a tourist again. I had my day and a half run as tour guide, and it just wasn't for me. But my family seems to think I did a good job.
That night I moved out of my room in Tommy More at last. I was the last Notre Dame student to leave. There were still a few Australians left, but for the most part the place was empty. It was sad walking down the steps out of Tommy for the last time, with all my bags in tow, but we had an early flight to catch in the morning, and a new day meant exciting new places and exciting new adventures.
Here are all the pictures.
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