Booo Egypt and the Trains

I headed downtown today to go to an Egyptian exhibit at the art gallery with a friend. For the past week my train line has been shut down, so I've had to take the bus, which on Sundays, isn't very frequent. I ended up getting there a little early, and took a few snaps of the city. Later, I observed a hysterical man screaming about Rupert Murdoch and newspapers. It was quite humourus ... thus I pulled out the camera. He proceeded to run around, and then got into a confrontation with an employee at a coffee shop .... of course... photos are below.

The exhibit was pretty good, however, there was a negative cloud cast upon the visit as Eugene the security guard forced me to check my camera / back-pack. It was horrible. Not only can I not drink my water, I can't take any photos. My heart is still bleeding.

Then off to the grocery store in the CBD before hitting the bus. I cut it a little close, but was in line at the grocery store with plenty of time to spare .... that is until the fellow in front me chose not to pay for his $29.95 purchase with a $10 and $20 bill. He decided to use all 20cent and 50cent coins .... 50 ... $1 ... $1.20 ... $1.70. As I was watching this I said to myself "this is going to make me miss the bus by 1 minute" .... then as he hit the $20 .... I thought "maybe I should kill myself by hitting these bananas over my head" ... well I didn't miss the bus by a minute ... make that about 20 seconds. So it was an hour of standing around doing nothing. Thanks to Transperth's shutdown of the train line!!!

On a romantic note, the missing of the bus allowed me to witness, for the second time, this couple as they said goodbye. They look about 75 to 80 years old. The woman is in a wheelchair, and she rolls up on the bus. The old man stands outside the window doing what looks like sign language to her. As the bus drives off, they wave goodbye for the final time. I wonder when I'll see them again!

Justin Timberlake Statue

MAJOR injury

Today I had my first major injury since coming to Australia. And no it's not my leg that got hurt, that's just where most of the BLOOD ended up! It all happened because I decided to go for a run to check out the carnival (more on that later ... the "PNE-like" event opens tomorrow and I can see some of the rides from my kitchen!!!). Ok, what was I talking about? Oh yah, the PNE... I didn't get a chance to go this year because I wasn't in Vancouver, but hopefully this Perth "Royal Show" will make up for it. I'm really excited, to allow for all the extra passengers on my train line, they are going to CLOSE my "home" station. Isn't that Great!!! Now I'll get more exercise by walking even further to the train!

Ok, so I was running, it was dark, I was having that awkward moment where you aren't sure if you should keep your hands high and close to the chest, or swing them low, or somewhere inbetween, so as I ran I reached out to grab a piece of long grass. [Running and grabbing things like branches, poles, fences can be pure excitement]. Let's just say Perth-grass is much more sturdier than BC grass. The grass did not budge, so my hand pull up along it to produce one major paper-cut-like "Grass-Cut". I started feeling woozy, and light headed. The blood was pouring out. The sounds from the carnival had me confused and disoriented. But I made it home ok, and now have the band-aid and polysporin on the old wound.

The 3 Saga Continues...

Fingers are crossed. I hope the '3' Internet issues are over. I decided to actually "CAT" it down to the city at lunch break and hand my bank statement over personally to the girl there. I was trying to get a pick of her, but she saw me as I was standing outside and screamed "YOU!". Busted! Here I am with a camera pointing at her, pretending like I do it all the time. I chickened out and didn't take any shots of her. Oh well. Then off on the CAT (Central Area Transit) back to west Perth. All buses inside the city limits are free! That means they are PACKED! and have a rather BO smell to them. It felt like there were 200 people on it.

Major issues with TransPerth are arrising. I have a "SmartRider" card that lets me swipe on, and then swipe off and then charges me for how far I've gone. Well if you forget to swipe off, it automatically charges you the max (~$5). For some reason, my card is acting up, and sometimes won't let me swipe on, or swipe off, it's very frustrating. I've actually had to seek out the Transit "Police", and they give me obscure reasons for it not working. "It's cause you are using it during Peak hours". I have a feeling I'm going to have a major issue in the next couple weeks.

Amy and I headed to Freo this evening to see "Hairspray". Actually, our intention was to see "Superbad"; however, we soon realized that we were watching the wrong movie!!! Amy was set to just stay and play it out, but I wanted the get the heck out of there. It would have been ok, if Amy hadn't gotten up while I was walking by her. She tripped me, then started running up the aisles. Embarrassed, I too had to run up the aisle. Fortunately, we found the correct theatre (the one with no one over the age of 30 .... originally we couldn't believe how many gray hairs there were to see Superbad). Despite now being 20 minutes late, the promos were still going on (they are about 30 minutes here), so nothing was lost. Good times.

Experiencing Sunset while waiting for the train