...because when you look at a "standard" world map like this one below, the end of the world is New Zealand and therefore Australia is almost the end of the world. So, I went to almost the end of the world for Christmas.
That's where my brother has been living for a year, in Perth, and I was warmly invited to spend a few days there for Christmas for some festive eating, drinking, general fun and making merry. Note that I could have stayed on my lovely island and have a good time with friends, but the prospect of seeing my nephew opening his Christmas presents was very appealing (I have the cutest nephew EVER, just so you know).Top that with my brother telling me he smuggled foie-gras back in Australia and mentioning wine and steaks and such, and I was sold to the idea. So, I'll tell you what a few days in Oz were like.
A short plane ride later, here I am in Perth, the sun is shining and it so happens that it's also my brother's birthday like every year at the same shitty date 3 days before Christmas, so we are going straight from the airport to a park for some celebrating that involves BARBECUE. Now, BBQ is a very serious business in Australia. Some sort of ritual that pretty much everyone seems to be doing because well, that's what they do. So in parks, there are BBQs (and to sound local you have to say "barbie", not sure how to spell that...). Public ones, for everyone to use, which are surprisingly clean. You walk in with your bags and cooler, find a spot and get the BBQ going on the next one available. Super awesome, if you ask me. About a thousand times better than tiny disposable BBQs I used a couple of times for the same purposes elsewhere on the planet. So well, within a couple of hours of getting out of that plane, I was having grilled beef and cold beer. Brilliant.
The rest of the week involved a lot of delicious food to start with (that trip to the supermarket was like a pre-Christmas really), lots of great presents, lots of fun playing with my nephew and other fun stuff. Perth is really nice and green and has lots of space to walk around and also have water in the middle so I didn't feel too trapped in there, I was easy to walk out and go to the river bank, we even caught a ferry to cross the bay it was fun.
And then, the day before flying back, I met my first KANGAROO. Seriously, I was not gonna go visit Australia and not see a kangaroo. A lot of other cool animals live in Australia, like koala bears and also the completely random wombat. My brother has decided the wombat was his emblematic animal. I have to say I'm a bit dubious about this.
All in all, it was a lovely week of vacation. The australian people seem pretty chilled in general and I didn't feel misplaced with my flipflops and my shorts. So I decided against doing a visa run in Singapore and I am going to Perth again next month to get a new visa. More steaks and family time and kangaroos, yipeeee!