WEATHER: Nice. Highs in 60s
We took off early from our rental house in SW Australia, as we needed to hurry back to Perth to return the rental car. As we drove along, the scenery was vineyards after vineyards, much like the Napa Valley. Then, it turned to farms and pastures. Lots of cows and sheep. In the USA, it is common to see flocks of wild turkeys foraging in the fields. Here, the turkeys are on steroids....huge wild emus munching away.
We passed through many little towns with Aboriginal names. Many names end with -up which we learned means "place of". So, Cowaramip means "place of parrots"; Yallingup means "Place of Love". On the other hand, one should avoid Kirup, "place of Summer Flies" and Nornalup, "Place of tiger snakes"!
We made good time, arriving in Perth around noon. We are staying downtown again, near the rental car company. We had booked the hotel through Holtel.com. and got a reasonably priced room. When I entered the room, I thought they had made a mistake. It is an apartment-sized room. It has 2 bedrooms, living room, dining room, fully-equipped kitchen, and laundry room!
George went back to the front desk to be reassured that it was ok to unpack.....for some reason, they had upgraded us.
We relaxed and strolled around the area, scoping out a place for dinner. We decided to just get a take-away pizza and eat it in the nice room. We found a very authentic Italian place and watched the Italian staff make the pizza in front of us, singing Italian songs as they cooked.
We try to be frugal without bring "cheap". I bought $60 worth of groceries in Margaret River last week (excluding wine!) That provided us with 5 dinners, 7 breakfasts and 2 lunches. Eating in a restaurant can be spendy. Servers earn a minimum of $29/hour, so restaurants pass this overhead on to customers. They earn double time on Sundays and holidays, resulting in a surcharge at some restaurants. We usually split a meal or just order an appetizer when we do eat out.
No comments:
Post a Comment