Night out in Freo

Greetings from Australia once more. Have been down under in Oz for a couple weeks now. Last Saturday I volunteered to be the designated driver for my colleagues. Ah, need to back track some more. We live in a 3 bedroom (3-story) house that is near the center of Fremantle.

Very convenient spot, the center is like 5 blocks away and the cathouse only 3. Including me it is the Captain, a Swedish guy and the Hotel Manager, a Swiss guy, that lives in the house. It is almost like Big Brother but we don't have any chicks which makes it rather boring. We only work, work and work. Well, I been cooking dinners almost every night more or less. And so it goes.

Well, to come to the point of the story we went out on the Saturday night for dinner and beers to Northbridge, Perth where the meat vats are supposedly bigger and better. As I said I was driving and we headed for Perth and ended up in a restaurant called the Brass Monkey. Didn't see and monkeys though. We enter the restaurant and the waitress that comes to take our order has a name tag on her chest and I read a Finnish name, so I ask her do you come from Finland? The girl replies yes and continues in clear Finnish. As it happens she had just finished her studies and was backpacking around the world and had stopped to work some cash for her next leg of the voyage. It is just amazing how a nation of just 5mil people spread out. There you go walking into a restaurant practically on the opposite side of the world and you bump into a fellow country man. How weird is that?

Anyway, I had quesadillas for starters and a 300g kangaroo steak for main course. Man, I was stuffed, I couldn't have even forced myself to drink beer after this, so I was quite content to be the designated driver. After dinner we went around and looked into various venues but the area we were in was just too rough. Teenage guys in T-shirts and jeans, ratarsed and full of adrenalin, coppers everywhere ready to contain any arising situation. It was almost like being in Finland, just a bit warmer. So, we went back to the car and headed for Subiaco, another nightlife spot in Perth. Down in Subiaco bars were closing and nightclubs had queues of people lining up.

I haven't lined into a venue since I was in my twenties and I guess it was the same as with my colleagues. Then we bump into this Aussie guy who starts talking and it turns out he had been living a short while in Sweden and he wanted to guide us to another venue with no queues, so we hop into our car and drive on somewhere near Cottesloe which is almost Fremantle. We end up in a seedy disco with a clientele about 10-15yrs younger than us. Oh well... After a while looking at all the youngsters getting bombed out of their heads we decided it is time to head home for a good nights sleep. When we arrive home I chat on DC++ until 4.30am, so much for the nights sleep. At least I woke up without a hangover.