Country kids in the big city

THERE is no better reminder of your country town origins than a trip to the city. My friends and I discovered this at the weekend.

We recently celebrated some 18th birthdays within our group, so it seemed like the perfect time for us to spend a weekend in Perth.

First reminder of our country origins came on the freeway. To this point, our trip had been relatively uneventful. The birthday girl was driving and was directed from the passenger seat.

We were in the far right lane, flying past the other cars on the road.

I glanced over our driver’s shoulder, thinking, “wow, she’s really living on the edge today”.

The speedo was above 100kmh. Our navigator finally spoke up, “You do know it’s 80, right?”

“Great, that speed camera just flashed you,” our navigator added.

So, that’s how we arrived in the city, a combination of laughs and grimaces as we pondered how big the fine would be.

Our air-conditioned hotel was a welcome sight as we trekked from the car park, laden with luggage. All we had to do was make it to the fifth floor. Shouldn’t be too hard.

Seven of us piled into the elevator, patiently waiting for the elevator’s movement. I pressed five again, although it didn’t light up or show any indication of life.

Eventually we figured out we needed to use our room key. We put it in the slot and pressed five. Nothing.

At this point, we are all talking over each other with suggestions of how exactly the card needs to be used.

“Put it in, quickly take it out, press five;” “Press five, put it in 10 times, press five again;”

“Turn the card upside down, swipe, turn it 90 degrees, swipe, press five.”

By some miracle we eventually made it to our room and decided to relieve our stress at the pool. Our room was directly across the hall from the elevator, so we thought we could quickly jump in with our towels and go straight to the pool. Sigh. If only it was that easy.

All signs said the pool was on level 13. No problem, except the elevator only went as high as level eight.

Eventually, we came to the conclusion that we were in the east tower and the pool was in the west. Shortly after, we found ourselves searching the hotel lobby looking for any sign of the elusive west tower.

The birthday girl had opted to forgo clothes over her bathers and had created a makeshift dress with her towel. It was a great look as we wandered aimlessly among classy businessmen.

Our next consideration was that maybe the pool was in an entirely separate building and we needed to walk onto the city streets to find it.

Thankfully, before we made that decision we thought to check around one last corner.

I would like to blame the hotel for having poor layout and signage, but I think that perhaps our errors were evidence of country kids in the city.