Freo at last

This is our house.
Well we have made it to Fremantle (Freo as it is known here by the 'strians)
We have been here a week and things are falling into place.
Let me tell you about the town. For those of you that have seen Charleston or Savannah you will have a pretty good idea of what a 18th or 1th century town by the sea is like. Lots of old and low buildings, nice parks. Very easy to get around. I have a borrowed bicycle which makes getting around town super easy. Freo is famous in Australia for its artistic culture and coffee house scene. I don't think that I have been to a place with more restaurants and coffee houses per block. Amazing considering how expensive it is to eat out here. More on that below.

Freo is 20 miles from the state capitol of Western australia (W.A.) which is the city of Perth. Perth is a beautiful and modern city. There is a train every 10 minutes or so from Freo to the city. Perth doesnt have the reputation as a city with more than workplaces and apparently it is quite deserted after 6pm.

Our house. It is 140 years old and never had a major remodel. We were a little shocked when we first got here but since we have made it into a comfortable place to live. It is smack in the middle of the market. Freo is favorite for its market. We are in the middle of it. The market is a huge ordeal 5 days a week although the weekends are biggest. There are great butcher stalls, veggies, baked goods, souvineirs, magicians, musicians- a bit of everything and lots of people coming and going. It is an exciting place to be actually. Grant and Margo spend part of each day out on the front porc playing legos and talking to the musicians that play on the corner in front ofour house. The mausicians are only allowed to stay in a spot for 45 minutes so they have several that they know and chat with.

Last night we decided to go out to eat and we had to walk all of 75 feet to a little food court that speciallizes in excellent chinese/thai/malay/indonesian food. After dinner we went to a video arcade as a birthday treat.

There is a large park with a huge rope climbing structure 5 minutes from the house. There is a nice sand beach for swimming on the indian ocean just 2 minutes further. Freo has a very nice swimming pool compound with waterpark, playpool, and two large pools. There is a free bus network that goes around the city and it makes life pretty easy.

Australia is crazy about sun protection and almost every playground has a sun shade built over it. Also the whole aquatic center is in the shade. School kids wear uniforms here and every uniform has a wide brimmed hat of some sort.

The montessori school that had promised us enrollment for feb, marc, april called to say that they have lost a teacher and that they can't accomdate us. We have to figure something else out. There is a public primary scool just close by our house and we will look into it.


Cost of living: It is alot more expensive than we anticipated. Western Australia is doing just fine economically atthe moment. Most of their economy is based on the mining and sale of natural resources they sell to the chinese and the rest of the world market. The Australian dollare is worth .90 of the usd but the prices for everything is usually 50% higher. We don't eat fast food, but here is a comparison of prices- Specialty burger in the states 4.50-- with fries and drink 6.00. In Australia the same burge is 6.50 and 9$ with fries and drink. We see this across the board. A beer in a pub is between 7 and 10 bucks.

With the market nearby Jeri has been cooking great meals and we havent eaten out much.

AS for my art. Things are moving along well and I have a proposal out to the Fremantle Art center to do a large installion of sculpture and video. I will update the blog when I find out more. The theme of the work are the many wrecks of Dutch and english ships that happened onto the shores of western australia 100 years before Capt cook supposedly discovered the continent. Google "ship Batavia" for a true story that is unbelievable.

People are very friendly and we are having a great time. The weather is early summer and the high each day is close to eighty with 60s at night. Really very nice.