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Reports

During my travels, my compensation for free accommodation for one night, was for me to write a daily travel diary. Of how I got to my next location, the people who would host me, the food I was offered and everything else. Below you find the archives of the highly extensive reports. Know that English is not my native language and most reports were written at high speed around midnight. Enjoy.


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Saturday, 13 July 2002
Maida Vale --> Midvale, Perth, Australia

I will jump just a few more times from one suburb of Perth to another.

The gang in Maida Vaile let me sleep in this morning and Esther helped me out with some breakfast. And I was very surprised when I found out that Liz' favourite breakfast was white rice with tomato sauce. She politely also offered me a bowl, but I just couldn't do anything else than have a laugh with all the others in the house. This was just very funny.

Liz and Michačl were happy to drive me to my next place to stay in Midvale, halfway from Maida Vaile to Perth city centre.

I was staying with a lady named Jaimes Thorpe (not related with the Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe). Her house was full with fish tanks and I immediately was intrigued by her Mexican walking-fish. Ever seen a fish with feet?

Jaimes lives with her brother David in a small apartment unit and works at a BP petrol station. She is almost ready to move to her self-owned house in Perth and if that's not going on somewhere next week, she might just go for a run-and-hide and give me a lift to Adelaide. Hey!!!

She likes the job and she's happy to have her office actually around the corner and one block away. "I go to work by car anyway, because the weather is just too miserable here."

She has seen me on Channel 9 Television in March this year and decided to invite me over for whenever I get to Perth. In the apartment one computer is always on and always connected with the Internet.

In that computer room I am stunned with all the Charlie Sheen memorabilia that I see. Somebody here is a Charlie Sheen fan! "I also make The Officially Unofficial Charlie Sheen Website, presenting Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, and Ramon Estevez." The proudly shows me her website on the web.

Jaimes took me out to show the Military Markets in the suburb of Midland. Once this place was just filled with army barracks, but when it was empty for a long while, people gathered together and decided to make it a market place.

At the 2-bucks-shop (never ask how much an item is there!) Jaimes bought me this really expensive Australian flag that I could attach to my backpack. At the coffee shop at these markets I was introduced to the scented coffee bean for the first time in my life.

The Canadian guy behind the counter is the only person in Australia to sell flavoured coffee like this. He got the aromas from the US, buys normal roasted coffee beans but roast them another little bit with a different aroma. The flavour gets into the bean and the eventual coffee will have a vanilla, amaretto or banana taste! Of course we had to taste some of those coffees there. I met up with Jaimes' parents, who said before that they'd love to meet me and they joined in for some more coffee.

Father Thorpe advised me to try to contact some people that fly charter planes from Perth to Adelaide, as my way out towards the east again. I sure will give that a try!

Afterwards I joined Jaimes on doing some shopping at the normal supermarket. She told me how she got to her name Jaimes, because it sounded very much a boys-name to me. Her birth name is Jenny, but she never liked that. When her much-beloved grandfather died, she decided to take on his first name: Jaimes.

Back home I also discovered her wide range of DVD's and videos and I was just in time to watch Men In Black, a movie I had seen in our previous century, but which is my generation's Ghostbusters.

At 6.30pm we had to go to the Clancy's Fish Pub in Fremantle. The distance from Midland to Fremantle is basically the longest distance you can make from one place to another in Perth, Jaimes told me.

At Clancy's Fish Pub I was joining a small gathering of friends of George, Jaimes' brother, in a surprise party for his birthday. George indeed didn't expect it and was very surprised with it all.

We didn't stay long, as Jaimes wanted to have something else for dinner than fish. Along the way home she introduced me with the eat house along the road, Alfred's Kitchen. At this shed you order at the outside counter and wait for your order at the camp fire, just there along the road! I must say they certainly make the best steak burgers of the southern hemisphere too!

We got chips and coke at the Chicken Treat drive-in where the lady behind the counter was shocked when I made that photo. We drove away and had a great laugh in the car!

(Now Australians, is it true that the service at Chicken Treat is horrible, but people only go there for the good fries they make? Just let me know, because I hear that from almost everybody here)
Back at her home we had our dinner while watching some more television. Jaimes folded out this couch and prepared my bed for the night. With my laptop on my lap and sitting in my bed I did some writing and publishing online; which is a luxury to me in this position.

It was still very strange to see a fish walk in that fish tank next to me! Blub blub…

Good night Maida Vale!

Ramon.



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