I particularly enjoyed the roundabouts in Australia. There are not many of these in the city, but a fair amount of them in the suburbs.  If you are not familiar, they are circular intersections at which everyone yields to the right. They are very nice to keep the flow of traffic going because you don’t sit at traffic lights uselessly, but they can be very annoying at rush hour.Often you can be stuck for several minutes waiting for the traffic to your right to clear. I imagine they play hell with tyre wear and wheel alignment, as well. The best thing though, is when the traffic is light you can whip through them swerving left and right like Mario Andretti.

It took only a short time to become comfortable with driving on the “wrong” side of the road, but I am sure the rental company was pleased that we quickly purchased our own vehicles to abuse during the adjustment period. With this skill comfortably under our belts it was time to start travelling more than a few blocks from our home. This is when we encountered our next little problem.

Not really knowing anyone, we were forced to rely on the internet and maps for directions. The difficulty in this is it is a common theme throughout Australia that when you stick a name on something, you use that name for as many different things as you can.  Bill Bryson comments quite humorously on this phenomenon in his book, Down Under.

I can picture the conversation among the Naming Officials:

• “Hey mate, what say we call this bit of water “Bob’s Stream’”.
• “Right-o! But we’ll need to christen a Bob’s Street, Bob’s Road, Bob’s Avenue, Bob’s Highway, Bob’s River, Bob’s Drainage Ditch and Bob’s Footpath, to keep things square.”
• “No worries! And just because, let’s make sure that some of them are far apart and some very close together to make things confusing.”
• “Good on ya!”

Having existed primarily on fast food and pizza delivery for the first week or two of our time in Australia, we decided that we had better do some serious grocery shopping.  Five wrong turns, three curbs, one bush and two badly scraped tyres later we arrived at our destination. While getting to the grocery store was interesting, the actual shopping experience was a bit of an adventure in itself.

I grabbed a shopping cart and immediately ran it into a display of canned goods.  Chalking it up to the infamous “bad wheel” on most shopping carts, I grabbed another and repeated the event. The third time I finally realized what was going on.  The rear wheels are not in a fixed position on the carts. They are designed so that all four wheels are independent. This is handy if, for some reason, you have to move sideways.  Otherwise, it is just a big pain in the ass, and the effect is a cart which is ridiculously hard to control.  It gets worse as you put more weight in the cart. I thought that maybe it would just take a bit of getting used to, but then I noticed people in the carpark taking their groceries to their cars. Carts were pushed sideways, moving at strange angles and generally out of control. Old women were scuttling down minor inclines in pursuit of their escaping groceries. This would continue to be a pet peeve of mine throughout our stay in Australia.

We also found, on this and subsequent visits, that there were a lot of things we couldn’t get in Australia.  In general, you have a minimum selection on all items, as compared to the States. Being used to a mile long aisle of cereal selections, with at least forty varieties of sugary oats with various marshmallow shapes, it came as quite a shock to have only the choice of various muesli and cornflakes. I don’t think I saw one cereal with a marshmallow anything. Wandering over to the Campbell’s Soup area, I wondered what happen to the other 200 varieties I was used to seeing in addition to the four or five in front of me.

We would often find that we had a taste for something, only to discover that it is not sold in Australia. They don’t even know what a Sloppy Joe is, for Pete’s sake.  Well, actually, that’s what they call a sweatshirt.  You can imagine the confusion when I went scouring the groceries in search of Sloppy Joe mix of some sort.  People kept directing me to knitting supply stores. (We resorted to requesting Manwich in the care packages that we were sent). 

If you can fathom it, people in this country didn’t even know what a S’more was. Well, something had to be done about that, so we introduced the staple campfire delicacy to our social group.  Of course, we had to have Graham crackers sent over from the States (another unavailable item in Oz). Subsequently, our home became extremely popular with all the neighbourhood children.

Then again, we were introduced to some things in Australia that we had never had before. My favourite was “chili philly.” This is Philadelphia Cream Cheese top with sweet chili sauce (a traditional Thai sauce). It is served with crackers, as an hors d'oeuvre.  It is so popular that, while we were in Australia, the Philadelphia Cream Cheese company brought it out as a pre-made item.  Man, that was good stuff.  I loved sitting around the pool (in December, no less) with a beer or a glass of wine, some sausage, cheese and crackers, and my “chili philly.”

On the flip side is Vegemite. Like most Americans the only thing I knew about Vegemite was that it had a mention in a Men At Work song from the ‘80’s.  Vegemite is, basically, a spread like peanut butter. It is common for breakfast, on toast or crackers or on bread, as a sandwich.  In an effort to be as Australian as possible, I made sure we grabbed a jar on our first shopping excursion. Friends told me that it was best just to spread it on thinly. I should have recognized that being instructed to eat something in this matter, “just put a real thin spread on,” implies an imminent danger. It should have set off the alarm bells.  I gave it a try and can honestly say that it is probably the vilest thing I have ever put in my mouth, and I have put some weird shit in my mouth over the last 33 years.

“Oh, that’s just because you haven’t grown up with it. The kids’ love it,” my Australian friends and colleagues replied.Not my kids. You know why? Because my kids have taste buds that function properly.  My kids do not like the taste of road paving materials. The only way I can think of to describe the taste is that it is like salty tar.  Very salty tar.  It’s just crap. I  have no idea how someone can like this stuff.  I suppose if you were fed belly-button lint from birth, you might acquire a taste for it. This is the only explanation I have for someone being able to enjoy Vegemite. I sent some home to my brother and told him to see if it would work as a deer bait. I’m thinking I could import it as “Deer Spread” and make a fortune during the hunting season.

More than anything, I think it is these little differences that have a tendency to make a person homesick.  If you are moving to another country you are probably prepared for the major differences you are going to encounter, but the little ones take you by surprise.  I would suggest that Australia has more in common with the United States than, maybe, any other country in the world, but it is still another country. 

Did I enjoy living in Australia?  Without a doubt. Did I miss the good, old USA?  Nearly everyday.  In the end, the old adage is true, “There’s no place like home”. And anyplace that doesn’t have a Taco Bell is just not going to be a place that I can call home.

Little Things on a Big Island an article developed from the book All Over the Place Like a Mad Woman’s Breakfast

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