Australian differences
Filed under Travel |Nobody cares about the things that are the same between the US and Australia. The flags are pretty much the same damn thing. The only two flags which are possibly similar are the Aussie flag and the New Zealander flag. Anyway, I’m going to dive into a few observations and whatnot about Aussieland.
Driving
Driving deserves it’s whole section to rant about. Because it’s all BACKWARDS. Ridiculously so. Not only do they drive on the left like their imperial roots, but they also have the steering column on the right side. This is ridiculously confusing. Every day, driving to the office, I’ve continuously sat behind the driver. Our driver is an America… my reason for sitting behind him? Humans, by nature, preserve their own life. We’re much more likely to sideswipe someone on the left of the car, than we are to run headfirst into traffic and hit the right side of the car. Seriously… read that again. backwards.
First day driving, we managed to take down a couple side view mirrors of some parked cars on our left…
Now that we’ve established they drive on the left, driver on the right, we need to establish that they only reverse SOME aspects of the driving. Blinker still functions the same, but it’s on the right of the steering wheel rather than the left, and the windshield wiper functions are on the left. However, Gas and brake are still right/left, to completely match the US. And of course, ebrake is on the left.
Now, this doesn’t only influence driving. While walking around the streets, everyone in the US is accustomed to looking left for traffic. You need to reverse that way of thinking too. Entertainingly, if you approach a crosswalk and look at the ground in front of you, on the lowered part of the curb they will tell you, “Look Right” or “Look Left” for which direction the traffic is coming from. I don’t doubt that some American sued Sydney for being ass backwards when it comes to driving, and not knowing where the hell traffic was even coming from to be able to cross a street safely.
Moving on, the streets are confusing as hell. We have a GPS in the car, but there are so many layers in the city between bridges, tunnels, 4-5 lanes of every street, that it’s a very common problem for the GPS to mix up whether or not your on the lower level of a bridge, the upper level, or on a street below it. Then of course, it loses all reception in a tunnel. The lanes are so narrow, and there are so many cars, it’s impossible to cross 4 lanes of traffic within 1 kilometer to turn. Seriously, if you go to Australia, ride a bike, or rent a motorcycle. We have only managed to take the most direct route from the hotel 2/10 attempts. The other 8 attempts we’ve taken an extra 30/60 minutes due to just getting lost.
Lets not forget the impact of driving on the left side of the road when it comes to something as simple as walking around the office. People don’t just drive on the left, they walk on the left. Pay attention next time if you have a crowded office, people will stay to their right (you know, the proper side), people here stay to the left. Furthermore, if you ever find yourself about to walk into someone, their natural reaction is to shift to their left. This makes for awkward scenarios, as the US person’s reaction is to shift right. Their left, our right is shifting together… endless awkwardness, amazing results. Good times if you’re walking towards a hot chick.
Ok, that’s enough about driving, lets touch on some other subjects.
Food
Food here sucks. They can’t do ANYTHING right. I’ve decided to stick to unhealthy fried food because they can’t mess it up. They’ve messed up stir fry, they’ve messed up burgers (who decided it was a good idea to put a beet on a burger without including it on the menu?), they’ve messed up stir fry, sushi, Brazilian barbecue, hot dogs, pizza, and sandwiches. French fries (ie: chips), and potato chips (ie: crisps) are the only things they do right in this place. The safest places to eat are subway and Pepper Lunch (a Japanese chain restaurant). I haven’t even tried their Vegimite crap, but whenever I hear the name or think of the green texture, I think of those parasites bars that Carl ate on Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Actually, the best potato chips I’ve ever had are here. Instead of sour cream and onion, they do a sour cream and sweet chili. I’ll try to bring some back to the states with me…
City/weather
City itself is absolutely beautiful. I haven’t seen any trash on the street anywhere. It reminds me a bit of Stockholm in that respect. Tons of people walking around (more like Stockholm than Tokyo), but there are so many places to go, that things are typically empty.
The weather here reminds me of early October at Bentley. Mid day is nice and warm, but not hot, and nights have a crispness about the air. Warm enough to wear shorts, but cold enough to wear a jacket over a tshirt. The weather just reminds me of nights after class at Bentley. I’ve talked to many of the natives about the weather, they say that this is as cold as it gets. Their winters get to 40-50F, and their summers no higher than 90F, with the occasional heat wave up to 100F, that they said typically doesn’t last.
Also, southern hemisphere is backwards also. The guy I was talking to about the weather kept telling me I need to go further north to get warming, and that they only get snow in the southernmost areas of Australia… backwards…
Sports
This deserves it’s own, small section. While I was wandering the streets this weekend, I noticed a pickup game of soccer/football/whatever in a park. They were ridiculously amazing at the game. I’ve never seen such professionalism in a pickup game of anything before. They were drawing a crowd of spectators, and I could understand why. I must have stood there, dumbfounded, watching them for about 10 minutes.
Besides the pickup soccer game, I also watched some Australian rules football. This is their take on American football. I’ll do my best to describe it. 10 guys line up on the field, about 3 meters apart from each other. One person has the ball, and they run straight into the opposing line of players, who are also lined up on the field, about 5 meters away from their opponents. I didn’t really see any blocking occurring on the offensive side, just the 3 closest people on the defense line tackling the guy with the ball (the other people down the line barely reacted). Once the handler was tackled, the action would not stop. While he was getting up, he would roll the ball back towards a person adjacent to him in the line, and it would be that person’s turn to run.
Supposedly, they can only pass by kicking it, and there’s no such thing as an incomplete pass. But I didn’t see that when I was just watching the game out of the corner of my eye this weekend.
Wildlife
We hit a zoo this weekend. Koalas are the most lazy creature in the world. Seriously. It was a waste to even try to see them. They sleep or eat, and nothing else. They barely even move when their awake, as all they sleep in the trees with the leaves they eat. They went into a long explanation about how their diet causes them to sleep and whatnot. It really doesn’t matter, all they do is sleep. Makes for an uneventful zoo trip.
Birds here are messed up too. Long beaks, sound like catbirds, all in all weird things. I have some pictures I’ll post.