Perth WA

I finally left Asia and was on my way to Perth to meet up with my cousin Gary. He picked me up at the airport and we headed back to his house where I was able to crash after a sleepless red eye flight. Once I woke up, I was able to properly catch up with Donna and the newest member of the family, their daughter Rachel. Rachel is only four months old, cute as hell, and took a liking to me, thank goodness. It was great being back with family again.

I had a little over a week in Perth, but also was taking the GMAT in the middle of my stay which left me with a few days to study and then a few days to enjoy myself. Did I say study? Gary took me for a drive to show me where he worked, where a few places were, and then handed me the car keys. Now while I should have been at the library cramming as much as possible, instead I decided to head to the beach to 'study.' I enjoy studying at the beach, it involves getting a tan, going for swims in the ocean, body boarding, and checking out the girls that seemed to be as jobless as me. Oh yeah, I did bring my books, but they were mostly used as a sleep aid.

Beyond the beach I was also introduced to cricket and footy by Gary. I've seen cricket before and never really understood how a game can go on for five days and still not have a winner. Australian Rules Football, footy, was new to me though. This has to be the greatest game ever invented. Leave it to a penal colony to create a game like this. It is incredibly simple, you can kick, knock or dribble the ball, trying to kick it between two posts while your opponent tries to take your head off any way possible oh and yeah there are fights going on away from the ball all the time. I don't know why this game hasn't taken off anywhere else, it is brilliant. Footy season was still a month away though so I had to settle for a cricket match. The match turned out to be the day before my exam, but I decided that it would be good to try and relax a little the day before. We headed off for the WACA (cricket stadium) around lunch to watch a one day match against Sydney. Now cricket is a little like baseball where you don't really go to the game to just watch the game, it involves beer... lots of beer and conversation. The only difference is that this game is eight hours long. After a good thorough explanation of the rules I started to understand the game and it became marginally more interesting. Sydney batted first and didn't do so hot, so after four hours it was time for Perth to bat and try and score more runs. They made bating look easy and I was fortunate to watch the fastest one day century in Australian cricket. It was quite exciting to watch Perth destroy Sydney quickly, but is still is nowhere as good as footy. I guess I'm just a stupid American that doesn't understand cricket.

After the exam things didn't change too much. It was days at the beach and nights hanging out with Gary, Donna and Rachel. My time in Perth went by way too quickly though. Before I knew it my time there was coming to a close. It is strange how fast time can go by. I had such a good time with my cousin that it was quite upsetting to have to leave, but I had a birthday to get to.