(Continued...) I made it to a small town (what's new?) called Norseman. I decided to stay at a hotel because of my newfound fear of mosquito thickets. Plus air conditioning wouldn't be half bad. At the hotel I met another receptionist. This girl was Canadian and she told me that she actually applied for a job in the middle of nowhere. She tried to explain why but my mind couldn't grasp it. I kept thinking, who the hell would want to live here? She'd been there two weeks and had another eight to go before she went back to Perth. I wouldn't have lasted a few days.

I drank a few beers and played a game of pool with a guy at the bar. He was a local and worked as a police officer. He wanted to check out my motorcycle so we went outside and brought our beers. I found it amusing that it was illegal to drink on the street. He said he didn't take his job seriously. I believed him. He looked a bit drunk and I asked if he was driving home. "Yeah mate. I'm the only police officer on duty tonight". I had to laugh.

The next day I made it to Perth just in time for Australia Day, which is equivalent to the American Independence Day. Last year I was in Whistler, Canada with my friend Andrew and I actually celebrated Australia Day there since every person who worked there was an Aussie. People were binging in bars for 24 hours straight and the parties where quite great. I hoped that Australia Day in Australia would be better.

I made the mistake of arriving in Perth without a reservation for a hostel or hotel. I hadn't at all imagined that the hotels would be booked, but I thought wrong. I went to the Northbridge area of Perth, where I knew all the hostels to be located. I drove around and tried booking into three or four hostels, all of which were completely full. I had to settle for an expensive hotel with a not so lush room. Whatever, I will checkout tomorrow and find myself a hostel, I told myself.

I checked email for the first time in ages and sent messages to my friends in Perth hoping they would get my message in the next few hours so I could hang out with them for Aussie Day. By ten o'clock they hadn't responded so I decided to go to a bar and hopefully I'd meet some people to hang out with.

I went to a place down the street. Every man in the bar wore a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops and all the women wore miniskirts and heels. I was the only guy in there with jean pants and black boots, and I oddly felt overdressed.

I ordered a beer and found it to be outrageously expensive, like everything else in Australia. I listened to the live band for a bit and tried to talk with some people but they were already drunk. For the sake of my budget, sanity, and feeling uncomfortable about being around so many people after being in the outback, I left. Australia Day in Canada was better.

Next day, the 27th, I moved down the street to the Underground Hostel on Lake street in Northbridge. They had free parking for my motorcycle in an underground garage. My roommates were pretty cool and all Irish. As a matter of fact the whole hostel was full of Irish. I spoke with a few of them and learned that jobs were hard to find there, so they were all moving to Australia for a year or two. I imagined a great exodus like the great famine but they all seemed to be healthy. I spent ten days at the hostel and began to wonder if there were any more Irish people in Ireland.

During those ten days I hooked up with my friend Nav who I met in Buenos Aires, Argentina seven months ago. She still speaks in her broken Spanish phrases (I don't know whether she actually learned a whole sentence in Spanish) and chats to some of the other friends we met in Buenos Aires. I went out with her and her friends to a few bars and house parties, all of which were fantastic.

I also met up with Tristan, my first real friend when I started traveling in the summer of 2005. He was throwing a 'going away' party because he and his beautiful girlfriend Sasha were headed to South America for six months and working in Canada for six months. His party was a costume party but I hardly dressed up. I was going to go as Che but figured everybody would be dressed as him. Tristan was.

The party was fantastic and the girls were beautiful. Since Tristan was headed away for a year he had to spend time with his other friends as well so I didn't get to talk to him as much as I wanted. We both got supremely drunk and made asses of ourselves, just like old times.