Perth Revisited

Here I am in Perth once again.

I came here about 2 years ago and it was my first time in Australia. Yesterday I was walking into the office with my friend Tim, telling him how I was so wide-eyed taking in everything as this revolutionary expirience.

Now years later I have a completely different view of Australia and Australians. It's no longer new territory and I'm familiar with it all now. I have expectations, which I now have to force myself to stifle so I can stay open to new expiriences.

While I've changed a lot in 2 years, Perth hasn't.

It is still a wonderful place to visit. The quality of life here is hard to match. There is ample beautiful weather, open (clean) water, nature and wealth. It seems that 50% of the population cycles to work here, and everybody is fit and dresses very well.

It's inspiring to be here.

Before, this culture feuled so many wild dreams of mine. I wanted the life here, I wanted to be here. My short 2 week stint left me with dreams that when the dust settled, I wanted to be here and have a family here.

But alas my situation has changed drastically in just a few short months, and my long term dreams have (albiet slowly) have shifted to something different.

While I still envy the Perth lifestyle, my dream is to somehow encapsulate pieces of it (key points mentioned above) and adopt them somewhere closer to home.

For so long I've had little reason to move back to Houston. But that city has changed. The public infrastructure inside the loop alone is amazing. And those changes are driven by a cultural shift in Houston as well, driven largely by a wealthy, younger generation that has come into wealth and driven the changes...a good example being the buffalo bayou partnership expanding greenspace and cycling routes from the heart of the city to the beltway.

So as I jog through the Perth CBD, up to the overlook in King's Park, I'm thinking how good it would be to have this expirience then pop over to Liz and DK's for dinner. Cycle into work, then spend the weekend at the farm.

Next week I interview with Petroleum Houston, and my hopes are up. There is so much there to expirience, to build. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

Until then, I'll enjoy the great food, company and weather that Perth has to offer. It's a bit sad because I may not be back in Oz for quite some time, so I'm soaking it all up.