- There are no white eggs... at least not in the shops. I checked, I really did, and opened package after package of different egg producers, but no white eggs to be seen, only brown ones (I was told though that apparently there ARE white eggs in Australia, people with their own chucks do find white eggs... no idea why there are no white ones in the shops though... strange).
- Chickens are called chucks, by the way.
- One of Australias most favourite vehicle is called a UTE!!! It's NOT to be mistaken with a pick-up truck, cause it is NOT a pick-up truck but a utility coupé. Apparently back in 1934 (or somewhere around then) a woman wrote to Ford and asked them if they could built a car which they could use to go to church on Sundays and bring the pigs to the market on Mondays. Voila, the UTE was invented (good that I really like watching TOP GEAR or I wouldn't have the slightest idea about this important historical fact).
- You know, those signs: "KEEP OFF THE LAWN"???? Well, you will hardly ever find them here.. everyone seems to LOVE parking on the front lawn of peoples houses. My husband loves it so much that he parks on the lawn even if the driveway is all empty. If it happens that the lawn is all parked up already and he just HAS to park on the driveway he makes sure that at least one tire touches the grass.
- Talking about parking, Aussies also LOVE to park their cars right on the beach, or at least their 4WDs. Whereas at European beaches one sunburned body is packed next to the other here one 4WD is lined up next to the other.... at least on public holidays when all of Albany goes to the beach (minus my father in law, who doesn't like the beach at all. Too much sand, and I'm totally with him, I just can't stand the sand part of the beach neither).
- Everything is run according to school terms. There are 4 terms and a couple weeks holidays in between the terms. During the holidays as good as nothing is on. No bible studies, no swimming school, no Sunday school, no book club. It's actually really smart and practical that way. Unfortunately, even though I have one kid in kindy now, I still don't have a clue of when which term ends or starts, but I'll get there eventually.
- If you ask someone: "How old is your daughter?" More often than not the answer is: "Ou, she's in year 2 or 5 or 10". Which doesn't help me much. I don't have a clue how old that makes them. I have to confess though, that I've started to do the same thing. "How old is your son??" "Oh, he just started kindy this year"... duuhhhhhhh
- It's so easy to have a conversation with a random person in the supermarket or playground or swimming pool. Aussies are so easy-going and friendly.
- There are no cellars in houses... at least in none of the houses I have ever been to or in none of the houses I've seen built around here. At least you can't really be scared of going to the cellar. There are also no attics really, which is rather sad... I always though attics have a certain charm to them. There happens to be lots of space between my ceiling and the roof, and we actually have some paint stored up their, but you have to make sure to store it on top of the cross beams and not the ceiling itself as that would just plain break through. It's not built to store things in.
- All Australian boys need a shed though. I think I can safely say, next to the ute and TimTams having one or two of fifty sheds in your back yard is the most Australian thing ever!! We have one too. I don't really like going there. It's spider kingdom I tell ya, and those big, fat black ones look rather poisonous.
- 90% of stove tops are gas burners, cooking with gas still makes me a bit uncomfortable. I never had an accident though, but as Ned so very kindly informs me: "There is a fire burning in the kitchen" which makes me want to get out the fire extinguisher right away (that's what living on a ship and having safety awareness drilled into your brain does to you).
- Albany and Mosbach have roughly the same population (okay, what is 10000 people between friends???). We went for a bike ride a couple days ago. It was 30km round trip... and we never left Albany.... that would have never happened in Mosbach. But talking about bikerides leads me to the next point
- bike paths are just plain AWEFUL!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, there are some nice ones along the coastline and the average Australian family would pack their bikes in their ute and go and park it on the beach (okay, they park in in the car park most of the times) and then go for a bike ride along that one really beautiful bike paths along the coast which adds up to maybe 8km one way, so it is 16km return from one end to the other. However, good Europeans that we are (and in this Ben is rather European, I guess it's his English roots, even though the English hardly qualify as Europeans) we ride our bikes from our house to the good bike path. Getting there though we rather ride on the road than on the "bike" paths next to the road. Riding your bike on those paths almost breaks your spine and shatters your teeth. Another reason why we ride on the road instead of the bike path is that on the path you have no right of way. Every time you want to cross a side street you basically have to stop and let the cars go past, whereas in Germany you still have the right of way, even if you are on the bike path
- Most Australians have their bike saddles way too low by the way, which makes them rather slow... and funny lookin'.
- cutting cakes... I tell you, 90% of the times I see Aussies cut cakes I almost have a heart attack. My German sense of perfection and accuracy gets cruelly offended. It hurts my eyes to watch. I think in Germany you have it drilled in as a baby HOW TO CUT A CAKE THE RIGHT WAY. I think you can't be German if you can't cut a cake correctly (I bet ya that's one of the things you have to do if you apply for German citizenship. Forget about language knowledge it's all about how to cut a cake): take a long knife (often there is even a special cake knife) and cut the cake into two identical halves (okay, I always struggle to get the halves 100% perfect, but as I said, I'm not typical German). If there aren't many people around to eat the cake you only proceed with one of the halves and cut that again precisely in two part. Finally you cut those two parts into three identical pieces each. If the whole cake is required you do the same to the other half. You will end up with 12 almost identical pieces of cake (even though I practised this method from infancy I have to admit that I still struggle to have totally identical pieces, there's always one smaller or bigger piece... sigh, so far they haven't taken away my German citizenship). In Australia on the other hand you grab the cake and any old knife and start cutting away somewhere roughly from the middle. However big or small you want your piece which make everything else end up rather crocked and wonky. BUT there is hope, I know that a couple of people have seen the light and are able to cut a cake the right way, yay!!
- Gardening is cool and not only for old people... I guess fruit and veggies can be quite expensive so it is a smart thing to do.
- You can't buy booz in a normal shop but only in a bottle shop. No buying alcohol at a service station here, GOOD ON YA, MATE!!!!!And no drinking in public places either (at least drinking alcohol that is). Sometimes even restaurants are none alcohol restaurants. And with other restaurants they don't sell it but you're allowed to bring your own booz and drink it with your meal
- Smoking is consider VERY uncool here (YAY!!). Getting ciggies is way more difficult than in Germany. There are no vending machines just outside schools or around the corner of your house. You can only get them in a special place in the supermarkets and geeee, it is SO expensive... it is SO sad to see all those very young girls in German smoking like a chimney, because it is considered cool. Here you really don't see may young people smoke... maybe at night clubs, but I don't really go clubing. The focus is on sports. And sport and smoking don't really go well together, so their strategy seems to work
- Shoes in houses. In Asia that a BIG, big NO, NO. No one does it, it is very rude to do so. Also in the Arab world, it's an unthinkable thing. You take your shoes OFF when you go inside. I think it is understandable, just think of all the thinks you might have stepped in during the day... no, I rather not want to think about it. Germany is divided in two groups though: the once taking their shoes off and the once who don't.... but generally there is a good understanding between the parties. You might have guessed I'm from a "taking-off-shoes" kind of family. That's what we do at our house... but I almost have to defend my reasoning to others, which makes me feel rather odd.... but I really don't like street dirt inside my house plus all the other things which might be on the bottom of shoes... plus, I hate cleaning... I have to vacuum clean almost everyday around the table already, I really don't fancy doing the entire house.... so I continue being a pain in the neck for our visitors and make them take their shoes off (except for my father in law, he's got special permission, and that's okay), please don't be mad at me that I make you do it, my dear visitors, and continue to come.
- Roller balding isn't really known here. And I love roller blading.So that's what I do to get some exercise, I drive down to the good bike path and go back and forth along on part of it (I can't do the part with the bigger hills in it, I'm lousy in using my brakes). And it is fantastic, it is SO, SO, SOOOOO beautiful and so often it takes my breath away (not the exercising, but the beauty around me), BUT there are two challenges: snakes (poisonous snakes that is) crossing my path making me almost roll over them and slow moving pedestrians blocking the whole path and not really reacting at all even if you yell at them "excuse me" several times and them becoming rather enraged with you when you almost run into them because in the last second they decided to finally move right into the one open space you were making for.
- Looooong summer nights are not to be had, sigh!!! Presently it's dark around something like 6pm. It feels like deepest winter to me. Even in the hight and glory of Albany summer (which was a REALLY fantastic one this year) it is dark at 8 o'clock. On the other hand it's light at 4am... who in his right senses wants to be up at that time of the day????? My solution is to change the time zone... starting to get light at lets say 6am and getting dark at 10pm is so much more sensible... at least in my humble "night owl" opinion *SMILE*
- distances... you just drive way more than back in good old Germany, not only if you wanna go to the next big city which happens to be Perth and is 500km away, but also just around town. The other day I drove to a beach and I realized it was a 40km drive.... one way!!! That's what I used to go to work to and everyone thought it was SO FAR AWAY!!! Driving 40km from where we used to live in Germany would have taken me to at least 2 bigger cities.. and here... here I managed to go to the beach, which is extreme pretty and happened to be the beach we got engaged.
- There seems to be a conspiracy in the local supermarket against me. They seem to think it funny to take articles out of their regular stock which I happened to get used to buying over the last year... and I can't just drive to the next town to look there because, lets face it, ther IS no next town close by.
- mattresses... I don't know what exactly they put into mattresses here but they feel like they weigh a ton... or two. Changing your sheets involves lots of hard work pulling the jolly things up and fitting the new sheets on.... and EXPENSIVE are these lovelies... no 50$ bargain at ALDI.. o how I miss my 50$ ALDI mattress, sigh
- speeding... generally people don't speed... at least not here in the country.... at least not what I consider speeding. I Germany I was ALWAYS at least 10km/h too fast... it was going with the flow, out of town it was normal to be 20km/h over. If I'm driving 65 here instead of 60 I get nervous and feel strange... I don't DO speeding here anymore... it feels just wrong... and that's coming from a German speed-bug.... I have to confess though: I got flashed the other day... but due to dreaming... I didn't mean to speed, my mind was just otherwise occupied.... and it has been more than 2 months already and still the ticket hasn't arrived here.... weird.
Well, I finish off with one of my offsprings quotes yet once again:
"I'm three years old!! I'm careful!!!!"
No comments:
Post a Comment