River Views

Last night after dinner, H and I loaded our 60 kilograms of checked luggage, two laptops, ~20 kilograms of additional carry-on luggage, recently arrived DHL carton of ~30 kilograms of H’s office possessions, and all the remaining food in our hotel apartment into our rental car and set off to move into our new apartment in East Perth. H was unable to see the apartment before we submitted a rental application and I was excited/nervous for him to see it for the first time. I shouldn’t have worried because he walked in, walked through the living room and out onto our river front balcony, and declared that I could be the official family realtor. And that was before he even saw the huge master bedroom, the two rain showerheads (one in each bathroom, both with excellent water pressure), and our very own washing machine and dryer, neither of which run on two hour cycles like the machines in our house in Doha did. Some days it’s hard to believe that this is the same company/job/pay/benefits that H was working for/receiving in Doha.

Perth Apartment	Qatar House
3 bedrooms	3 bedrooms
2 parking spaces	1 garage space
2 beautifully finished bathrooms, rain showerheads	3 very blue bathrooms, with a master bath prone to mysterious flooding from the floor drain
Gorgeous Swan River views	No view
Walking distance to grocery stores, restaurants, and liquor store	Walking distance to NOTHING
Free buses running from just outside the front door into the heart of the city	No public transportation
Pool overlooking the river and gym with working television	Pool overlooking nothing and gym with occasionally functioning television
Ducted air conditioning	Air conditioning wall units, one in each room, prone to breaking or shorting out the circuits
Drinkable tap water	Hand carried 6 packs of 1.5 liter water bottles from Carrefour
Clean air	Sand filled air, coating every surface of the house

Winner? Perth, hands down.