Day Four of our vacation to Fremantle started about the same as Day Three had, but slightly later. Despite having absolutely nowhere to go and not even a hint of a schedule to keep or an agenda to pursue, we were out of bed, in the shower, and out the door like Amy Schumer ditching a hookup in the movie, Trainwreck.
It seemed insane—if not a little sad—for two healthy, red-blooded vacationing American’s to be up and around at 5am on a Saturday morning in Australia, but there we were. And we couldn’t even blame the time zone issue at this point since we’d been there for nearly 3 days—and it was 7pm back home.
Still, we tried—I mean we really, really tried—to relax and take it easy but it was a futile effort. There are only so many things one can do in a hotel room, after all—and only so many times one fifty-year-old couple can do them, if you catch my drift.
Even the television offered little in terms of distraction. Although the Jarhead normally can (a) lapse into and (b) sustain a TV coma—faster, longer, and with less effort than literally any man, woman or child on the face of planet earth—his superpowers are apparently weaker outside of North America. Seriously.
It doesn’t happen every day, but I and a handful of other witnesses have seen this man sit through twelve straight cycles of the Local on the Eights and three consecutive airings of Dune, and four solid hours of The Big Bang Theory—without blinking. And just when you’re ready to call someone with an electroencephalogram to check for evidence of brain activity, he’ll suddenly, casually, and quite coherently remark on some subtle difference between the most recent forecast and the one that had been issued for our area precisely one hour and eight minutes earlier—or preemptively blurt out Leonard Hofstadter’s response to one of Sheldon Cooper’s crazy complaints before Johnny Galecki can deliver the line himself. It’s uncanny.
But again, TV failed to hold the same attraction for him in Australia that it does in the States. My guess it has something to do with the language barrier.
I know. I know. The Aussies speak English just like we do. But DO they?
Sure, they speak many of the same words and use basically the same sentence structure that we do, but that accent of theirs can be tricky for people for whom language—and talking in general—doesn’t come easily. And this is the guy who spent three years in Naples and yet managed to learn enough Italian to request thirty liters of fuel from gas station attendants (trenta litri per favore) and to thank them afterwards (grazie.)
At any rate, the Jarhead wasn’t drawn to Australian TV like a moth to a flame as he is to American TV. Which was fine with me. Apart from a couple of programs I watch when I’m working out (which isn’t exactly often, obviously, or I wouldn’t be two seasons behind everyone else in the free world with Orange is the New Black) I mainly use our TV for background noise. And when the Jarhead is in a TV coma, he may as well be in a regular coma because he acknowledges and remembers very little—sort of like Jeff Sessions, except when the Jarhead doesn’t answer it’s because he hasn’t heard you and not because he’s trying like hell not to incriminate himself.
And so, as we had before, we walked out of the hotel with no idea how we were going to spend our day. The options were limitless and I’ll admit to having been somewhat paralyzed by the plethora of choices.
The one and only thing I truly wanted to accomplish that day was to purchase a new curling iron. Scratch that. The only thing I truly NEEDED to accomplish that day was to purchase a new curling iron. It’s an important distinction because, although I needed a curling iron, I most definitely did not WANT to buy a new curling. What I WANTED was for MY curling iron to work just as it had when we left the states.
But that was not going to happen. Because although one can power an American curling iron by plugging it into a US/Australia adaptor and then plugging the adaptor into an Australian outlet, one can only plug said curling iron into a US/Australia adaptor and then plug it into an Australian outlet so many times and for so long before you overheat and fry the bloody thing.
So…I needed a new curling iron. We needed sunscreen, too—not because of any mishaps involving electricity, thank goodness. Fortunately, I had remembered to pack my industrial-sized claw clamps and, therefore, was fully prepared to weather this and just about any other hair emergency, or the Jarhead would have been forced to set off for breakfast on his own and then pick up a curling iron and sunscreen on his way back.
For a change, it didn’t take us long to decide where to eat that morning, and soon we were sipping coffee and chatting with a staffer named Christine at a place called Salted Board. Salted Board has a funky yet cozy atmosphere with a décor that blends rustic and industrial elements and features bold earth tones and black accents to create a modern vibe that looked so positively chic that I started taking notes and making plans to remodel my home (again.)
And the food looked just as awesome as the décor, as you can see from the photos below.
My ‘brekkie’ consisted of eggs Benedict, minus the bread, with salmon, smashed avocado, and a side of bacon. The Jarhead had sausage, ham, and eggs with crusty bread.
This was by far the best breakfast we had enjoyed so far. In fact, it was so good, that we ate breakfast there again on Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and each time it was just as good as the last.
After breakfast, we began our quest to find a new curling iron. I say ‘a’ new curling iron because I knew better than to become attached to something I did not plan to keep. I would be leaving Australia in four days, after all, and it would be of no use to me back in the states—that is, unless I wanted to pick up an Australia/US electrical adapter and see how long it would last plugged in to a US outlet.
Turns out it’s fairly hard to find a large barreled, ceramic coated, variable setting curling iron in Fremantle, Western Australia. In fact, the only place we found that even carried curling irons, was Target. Not one of the three other stores we were advised to check had them, which I suppose is why we paid twice as much for that one than I had paid for the one that had died.
In the hunt for the new curling iron, we got to take in some more of the local scenery, wandered through a market, visited a shopping mall, and bought a few souvenirs. We also found the public library, and got up close and personal with some colorful parrots as well as a woman in the park whom I suspect was not dealing with a full deck because she kept shouting and swearing at the air above the bench beside her.
Dinner that night included cocktails and hanging kebabs which you have to see to believe, so here is the evidence:
We had put it off eating as long as we could by walking around for a while before heading back to the hotel restaurant. Our goal, again, was to stay out as late as we could in the hope of finally resetting our body clocks to local time.
The effort was valiant but, like our attempt to stay in bed that morning, was ultimately futile. The loud music and lights around the area kept us from falling asleep at our table, this time, but all that fresh air, food, and drink had left us sedated.
Fortunately, there was only one short elevator ride between us and our bed. So upstairs and of to bed we went. We had made it to 11pm!
the uncommon blonde 