The most isolated city in the world.

Australia and I had our three month anniversary the other day. It was nice. I decided to spend it in Perth. I don't usually make the trek into Perth unless there's something big going on there or I feel like being alone. It takes about 40 minutes to get there and that's if you manage to time it right and catch the bus and train, whereas it only takes 25 minutes to get to Fremantle from campus. Perth is a great city though. All the people I've met in the city have been so nice and helpful. I think it's because of Perth's claim to fame of being 'the most isolated city in the world'. The tourism industry isn't as big here as in other places of Australia, so people here aren't sick of giving directions or answering stupid questions asked by outsiders. Usually when I talk to people I get questions like "Oh, where in the States are you from?" or "How long are you here for?". Even the cashier at Kmart will say something when he/she hears my accent. Which brings me to another thing...some people actually enjoy American accents here. Personally, I think my accent is a little bland. Plus, the people here have been hearing American accents forever, in movies, music, television, news reports. I figured they'd be tired of them by now. I met this Aussie girl in one of my classes and we got to talking about accents and she said that whenever there's Americans in her classes she can't pay attention because she just listens to them talk the entire time.

I had the last tutorial for one of my classes today. It was my Global Media class, which sucks because it was my favorite class. The class itself was a big eye opener for me. It's so fascinating to study globalization in another country, especially one so influenced by America like Australia is. The class was made up of a ton of different nationalities. About half were Aussies, but the other half were made up of myself ("token American" which I was actually referred to as during class. "Can we get the opinion of the token American?" in reference to Fox News.), Malays, and Singaporeans. I've learned so much about the world and the media in that one class. The discussions we had during tutorials were incredible.

Anyway, back to Perth. On our anniversary I decided to walk up to Kings Park by myself. It was a beautiful day and I just took my time walking through the massive park. Situated on a tall escarpment, Kings Park is a part of Perth history. It's half beautiful gardens and scenic views of the skyline and half protected bushland. You could spend an entire day following the trails in the park. I read a plaque that said that when the area was inhabited by only the Nyungar Aboriginal people, they hunted by chasing groups of kangaroos off the steep cliffs of the escarpment where Kings Park sits. Pretty clever way of hunting, no need for weapons, gravity does the work for you. After I had my fill of beauty courtesy of Kings Park I took the train back, made myself dinner and drank some coffee. Perth and I had a great day together on our anniversary. I only have a month left here so I've got to make it count.