Australia /
I'm Polish - moving to Perth from UK [6]
Perth is a nice place but it doesn't really have that big city feel. My first impressions go back to 1994 when I first went there, and I thought it was a real big country town, everything was shut on Sundays, including petrol stations, and they'd turn all the lights off in the city at night, but thankfully it has changed over the years and is now growing into the city it should be. It is a great place if you like to be outside, the weather means that for most of the year you can do almost any outdoor activity. It is a good place for family life but it is now extremely expensive there, rents, food, alcohol etc have all gone through the roof, some places are now charging between $17 & $20 for a pint of beer!!
How much did I like it? After originally planning to spend only a couple of months there I ended up spending 15 years, though after 15 years of being there I had to move (I'm in Poland now) as it's isolation from any other major city was starting to get to me, having to fly 5 hours to the next major city is quite a distance. Though the countryside in Western Australia is extremely varied and would take you many a year to explore it all.
Are people friendly, yes and no. Like every place in the world there are nice people and nasty people, some Australians can come across as being quite rough at times. There is such a diversity in the people that you will have no problem meeting other people and there are two Polish clubs there as well, but in my 15 years of being there I only had a couple of Australian friends and they weren't from Perth originally. The people born and bred in Perth tend to be more insular and stick to the friends they had during their school days. If you want to compare it to the UK I'd say it feels like half the UK has moved there in the last 5 years so no need to worry :)
Vegetables - are rubbish, tomatoes etc don't taste anywhere near as good as in Poland, and forget strawberries etc as they just taste like water, having said that one of the things I miss most there is the fresh food & salads you can get all year round, and the seafood is fantastic.
Sharks - never saw one, and I used to swim every day at the beach, they tend to attack surfers that look like seals from under the water, swimming in the dark, at dusk or dawn are the riskiest times, so don't do it! and if all else fails make sure you are near someone in the water that you think might be slower than you ;) I would safely say that swimming in the water is 10x safer than driving on the roads in Poland!
If you can afford it and can get the visa i'd say go for it, all you can lose is a little bit of time and money but could also gain a whole new experience in life :)
