Day 1: The Adventure Begins
Thursday, October 28, 1999		  


Here's a view out the window of the first sign of light.

Arrived at the airport at about 9:30pm and sat in the boarding area until about 11. We finally took off around 11:45. I lucked out on seating assignments: 3 seats to myself! Made it reasonably easy to get some sleep. Had some dinner and took one of the tranquilizers that my brother (the doctor) had kindly prescribed for me. The new Rio 500 MP3 player that I bought over the weekend works very nicely; between some good techno/trance music and being able to stretch out, I managed about 9 hours of sleep.


Crossing over land for the first time in 13 hours.

Arrived at the airport about half an hour late, which pushed me past my connection to Perth. They put me on a one and a half hour later flight. When that plane turned out to have a scratch on it that was "beyond tolerances", they switched us to another plane at the next gate. Finally arrived in Perth at 1:30pm local time. Jean-Pierre and Matthew were waiting for me in the terminal.

We stopped off at Matthew's so that I could grab a quick shower and shave. Then we headed off for lunch at a nice little place on the river looking over at Perth.


It's a really beautiful city, not too big, very green and clean.
Then we headed up to King's Park for a look down over the river and the city.


So nice and green!

The weather was being very cooperative, light breeze, somewhere around 75 degrees, not a cloud in the sky.


This is the other side of the river.

After heading back to Matthew's we all changed for dinner and then a few of his friends came over for drinks. Had fun looking at the pictures from a wedding that JP and Matthew went to in France the previous week. Had to get used to the term "pissed" being used to describe someone who is drunk rather than mad. Then off to dinner at a very nice Thai restaurant.

It was still a bit early (10:30pm), so we headed to a small bar named "The Court Hotel", (sort of like "The Cafe" in the Castro) for a few drinks before the dance club. Then we went to "Heaven" for their Thursday Gay Night. It was a nice space, with high ceilings and an upper level overlooking the dance floor. Plenty of cute Aussie (or "Ozzy" I was later informed) boys and the music was good, though a bit uneven.

Danced for a bit with JP and Matthew and hung around and chatted for a while. Around midnight made eye contact and cruised a very beefy Australian boy (about 6' 3", very short hair and very solid muscles) for a while and then introduced myself. His name was Adrian and he was from Perth (found out he's actually going to be part of the stage show on Saturday night after the Pride parade). Danced for a while, watched a short stage show, then did some more dancing. Around 2am Adrian said he was about ready to go home and "hit the sheets", and very matter-of-factly asked if I was going along as well. These Perth boys certainly know how to give visitors the red carpet treatment!
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