“So, you’re here on a holiday?” the taxi driver asks me while looking at me via his rearview mirror. “Well … (I pause and think of the people at Australian Customs) it depends who you ask. But no, I like to think I am here for work. RAC has asked me to come over for a few months.”
“Ah, for work. Okay. Then it’s not too bad. Wouldn’t want to stay here too long without the distraction of work.” I turn sideways to look at Duncan and raise an eyebrow. “Really? And why is that?” “Because this city is boring!” The driver gestures towards the empty streets. “See? Nothing happens here.”

I try to think of the last time I was awake at 2am to roam the streets, and quickly come to the realization that I am one of those boring people that are quite content with snoring the night away. According to this man the city of Perth is most definitely NOT worth travelling 31 hours to. And yet, this is exactly what we just did. Lucky we don’t get discouraged too easily.

The next morning the jetlag tries to get the better of us but we manage to drag ourselves out of bed and into the streets. Time to go and find ourselves a house! Besides, no better remedy than resetting your clock with a bit of sunshine, and there seems to be plenty of that around here.
Well, for a while anyway.
It must be around 11 when the sky suddenly turns grey. “O no, you’ve done it again” Duncan mutters as we run for shelter when the first thick drops of rain start to fall from the sky.
He is referring to my infamous power to attract rain to the most barren of lands. I brought a thunderstorm to the semi-arid Australian Flinders Ranges, made it snow in Tasmania in January and once drove the Director of Tourism in Pisa to despair because my two day press trip was nearly ruined by torrential downpour that prevented me from making the story or taking even a single picture. The man looked up at the sky, raised his hands and shouted (in a beautiful Italian accent) “But it never rains in August in Italy!”
That was the first time Duncan started contemplating on the number of camels he could get for me if he were to hand me over to some sheikh in a barren land.
Right now, it is our first day in the sunniest city of Australia. That’s just asking for trouble!

But I digress. Back to the house hunting. As the visa process wasn’t going as smoothly as planned, and RAC didn’t want to risk signing a contract for a house for someone who may never make it Down Under, we spend most of my free time looking for a place to stay. This proves to be a bit of a challenge.

Although the housing market in Perth isn’t doing to well, and prices have plummeted, that memo clearly hasn’t reached the real estate agents that deal with short-term leases. They even increase their prices by as much as 440 dollars a month when you call them to confirm you’d like to move in, after having been showed around the property.

I could easily fill an entire blog post named Adventures in Real Estate Land , but think it suffices to say that we have checked in and out and back in to our hotel room 4 times in 1,5 weeks on the assumption that we now had a deal and would be able to move to a more permanent residency. The good thing about that was that we got a free upgrade every time that happened because the staff felt sorry for us.

But, in the end, it all worked out as I am now writing this blog, sitting in ‘our’ living room with a view on the Swan River.

They don’t have sharks in the river, but I am sure there are a few around in town.