I nervously stood in the line to enter Australia with my passport in my right hand and a laptop I was frantically trying to open. I needed to quickly find the e-mail showing my visa had been approved and hoped the guard standing between me and the exotic wildlife on the other side of the border would accept it.
I paused to text Atalie. “Landed in Perth.” A few moments later, she texted back, “Wow. You’ve landed already? OK. On my way!”
“Don’t rush,” began my reply. “It might be a while, because I just realized I forgot to print the visa my travel agent e-mailed to me.” Travel tip: Australia is the only country I’ve visited that requires a visa for a short stay.
Ordinarily, something so trivial as an e-mail printout would be of little concern to me. But after the way the Australian agent at my departing gate in Singapore tried to poke holes in my travel story, I was uneasy at best. Firing questions in rapid succession, while flipping through the pages of my passport, she seemed determined to prove I was coming to Australia for a reason other than stated on my travel forms.
“So who are you visiting in Perth?” My friend, Atalie. “So where did you say your aunt lived?” I don’t have an aunt in Perth. I said my friend. “Oh, I’m sorry. You did say that. And how long are you planning to stay with your aunt while there?” It was then I knew Australia did not want any riffraff in their country and I’d already been singled out as a potential threat.
I’ve learned that there’s one thing in life that will never be fun: looking for a file on a laptop while shuffling in a constantly moving line with travel-weary passengers. I was getting empathetic looks from some, annoyed looks from others when I didn’t close the gap in the line fast enough, and condescending looks from the travel veterans. “Rookie,” their eyes seemed to say. If I couldn’t find the visa e-mail, I would be sleeping across three chairs at gate 27, dreaming of kangaroos and wallabies while everyone else had the time of their lives.
It was close to midnight. I was not in my strongest mental capacity, about to fall over from exhaustion. And yet I was steeling myself in the likelihood I got hauled into an interrogation room with armed guards and rabid dogs. I considered preparing a text for Keith: “Imprisoned for life in Australia. Don’t wait for me. I love you.”
There were four people ahead of me. I had only minutes to make my best case, and I still hadn’t found my visa. I hurriedly pressed Ctrl+F and typed “visa” with one hand and prayed the e-mail would pull up before I reached border patrol.
And there it was, the most glorious subject line my eyes ever saw, “Australian Visa.” The official document was attached to the e-mail. A portion read, “The ETA is issued electronically by a computer system operated for the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) of Australia. Approved applications are electronically recorded on Australian Government systems.”
Sigh of relief. That meant they already had it in their system. And when it was my turn, I got a quick “Welcome to Australia,” with a gorgeous smile and an Aussie accent.
As soon as I was in the clear, I sent a text message to Atalie to let her know I’d made it safely to the other side and would be out front shortly. Or so I thought.
After waiting in the longest security screening line I’d ever experienced entering a country, I retrieved my bags and handed the final border patrol agent my customs paperwork that declared I wasn’t bringing food or plants into the country. It now felt official. I had arrived in the Land Down Under!
I walked outside and was instantly cleansed by cold weather. It helped me put the whole border exhaustion behind me and gave me new life. My winter coat was snugly tucked in my suitcase, so I stood on the curb, hoping Atalie would pull up any second.
The chill of the air danced up and down my arms and legs, and just when I contemplated dumping all my belongings on the curb to retrieve my coat, I heard a familiar Australian accent. “Fawn, is that you?”
I looked over and was immediately confused. This was not the Atalie I knew from the States.
I’d met Atalie many years earlier, just months before she moved back to Perth. I was replacing her role as director of sales and marketing for a hotel property in Los Angeles, so we’d only gotten to know each other in the context of work. But I’d promised that if I ever came to Australia, I’d make sure to come to Perth. Over the years, we had become friends, and when I knew I’d be traveling to Australia, she was the first person I contacted. But I couldn’t have picked out this Atalie in a police lineup, which would have been a major problem if border control had required me to identify the friend I was coming to visit.
The Atalie I’d met in the States was forty pounds heavier with short red hair. The gal picking me up was a gorgeous blonde with long, flowing hair, standing close to six feet tall (without heels), and the perfect weight for her height. “I was so overweight when I returned from the States,” she explained. “I gained twenty kilos over there!”
Atalie and I quickly got caught up on old times—who’d gotten married, who was still single, who’d had children, who had left the hotel industry, and so on—and then she gave me the itinerary for the following day. We’d wake up in the morning and go for a power walk along Swan River toward Kings Park. And then we’d go to Fremantle, a downtown area that looks like a throwback to the nineteenth century with its well-preserved edifices and the oldest standing building in Western Australia, a prison called the Round House. Australia was founded by the British as a penal colony in 1788, and Atalie wanted to make sure I saw its convict roots.
Following Fremantle, we’d drive through downtown so I could see all the skyscrapers being built. Then we’d move on to Kings Park and botanical gardens, followed by a formal high tea at a British teahouse. Sunday was the only day she’d be able to show me around town before returning to work on Monday so she decided to cram as much of Perth into one day as possible. The itinerary for my few days there included interviews with the two happily married couples she esteemed the most—her parents, Doug and Barbara, and two of their close friends—as well as a must-have dinner of fish and chips.
I became tired just thinking about the itinerary she’d planned during my stay. Not to mention, Atalie makes a hummingbird look lazy. But I was looking forward to my stay in Perth, not the least because I’d be settling into a home for the first time in well over a month. I wouldn’t have cared if the bed were the size of a kitchen sponge, with sandpaper sheets. All that mattered is I’d finally be sleeping in a home rather than a hotel room.
It was quite late once we got to her house, so Atalie showed me to the guest room. The bed was lovely and plush, the kind that accepts you the instant you lie down on it. I spent the last few waking moments staring at the ceiling and thinking of home. “Just two more countries to go.”
If the sun hadn’t come spilling into the bedroom window the next morning, I would’ve sworn I had just gotten into bed. My deep, dreamless slumber had me feeling rested but a bit confused.
Atalie and I had early morning plans to walk through some scenic parts of Perth. I tried to get oriented while I put on my exercise clothes and laced up my shoes. We briskly walked up a small hill to end at a beautiful grassy park in the small community where Atalie rents her two-bedroom home. I whipped out my camcorder to record our walk and nearly got run over by an overzealous cycler heading in the opposite direction along the long sandy pathway. I quickly decided I shouldn’t attempt to record footage and power walk simultaneously.
Just then, Atalie pointed out a rare sight to our left, the same bird that is featured on their state flag. “Black swans are indigenous to Western Australia,” she told me, pointing out the elegant ebony creature with a red beak and a touch of white on its tip. As we watched the swan floating to our left, and those sitting by the dozens on the grassy areas near Swan River to our right, we walked and admired the beauty of this indigenous bird. It’s rarely seen outside the continent. The Swan River is actually an outlet to the ocean, its wide banks creating the feeling of a bay more than a river. Perth’s pristine downtown sits as a backdrop to the lapping waters and boardwalks filled with bikers, runners, and tourists. I could tell the water acted like a magnet of the good life for the people of Perth, and I loved seeing natives enjoying where they live so fully and naturally.
“I didn’t expect Perth to be this stunning,” I admitted. As I looked across the water, the city quickly felt like home. It’s nothing like Sydney’s big-city feel, with its famous opera house on Bennelong Point, or the Harbour Bridge, whose steel design is recognized around the world. Certain parts of Perth feel like a city you might find along the coast in the southern part of the United States—like Charlotte or Nashville or Dallas—and in other areas you might think you’re looking across the Hudson River into Manhattan.
Perth is a breathtaking place. Unlike most major cities, whose nearby bodies of water are full of pollution, the waters surrounding Perth are crystal blue. Downtown was in the midst of a major building boom, with skyscrapers going up all around, cranes permanently parked on every street corner, and construction workers busy on the tasks at hand.
The mining boom Australia has experienced for the past twenty-one years has helped them avoid major recessions, and it seems all mining centers around Perth. The town is filled with miners, many with beer bellies, which, from what I could see, might be a prerequisite for the job. What’s different about the miners in Perth and the surrounding areas is they make more money than the majority of Americans. It’s not uncommon for a high school dropout to make $150,000 a year running drills in the underground mines, extracting gold and other minerals. If it weren’t so difficult to get a work visa, I imagine people would be filing into this country by the thousands.
Atalie was telling me about all this as we walked along the river boardwalk. It was great to fill my lungs with air and shake off the sleepies from the night before. Thinking back on my tentative entry into the country, though, I knew I wasn’t here just to sightsee or learn about black swans. I had some happy couples to interview, and I knew the following morning would begin with discovering what secrets one woman had to offer.