make your own perth

Okay, so I've been down under for a few days now, time for a look at what we've learned so far. MAKE YOUR OWN PERTH: first, take ramsay street, multiply by 10,000 and plonk it in the middle of the desert next to an ocean. Then get the city centre of glasgow, clean it, and stick it in the middle. Add some parks and gardens from edinburgh, with a few tropical plants for effect, and dot them around the city centre. Then take all the dual carraigeways form east kilbride and livingston (minus the roundabouts) and use them to link it all together, and hey presto, your very own perth! GETTING AROUND: there's only one, quick and easy, sure-fire way of getting around the city, and that's sponging lifts off Katie and Damo. Failing that, the public transport is very good, it's $3 to get into town from my 5-bedroom house with pool and bbq, and it takes about half-an-hour. Once in the city centre, there are free buses called cats which take you around the centre of town. EATING: Macdonalds, Hungry Jacks, KFC and Subway abound, along with local favourite Red Rooster, most meals are between $5 and $7. There are also tons of chinese/malaysian/thai/himalayan/vietnamese etc places to eat, and failing that, every single newsagent seems to sell plenty of hot pies, sausage rolls and quiches for a few dollars. My favourite so far as been the Oz Spot in the Metro food court, $5 for a meat pie with chips and gravy and a can of juice. Soft drinks are in slightly bigger can and bottle sizes, which is hardly surprising with the heat. DRINKING: Shockingly enough I've only been to one pub for one drink so far, true story! But that's probably because we keep the fridge well-stocked with booze, and a few cold ones by the pool is much nicer than going out to the boozer. There's plenty of bottle shops, some of which are actually drive-thru's, which is coolwer than I could possibly tell you! Cans of Johnnie Walker and coke are everywhere, and I've also found a Castaway equivalent called a West Coast Cooler, which I've been guzzling regularly. WEATHER: it's hot. All the time. That's about all you can really say, just put up with it the best you can...