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Sydney Opera House Moving to another country one can expect a bit of culture shock.  However, when my family and I decided to seize an opportunity to live in Australia we were fairly certain we could adapt easily.  After all there is no language barrier and the culture is decidedly similar to the United States.  What we found was that it was the little things that took us by surprise, things we hadn’t considered or prepared for. The first problem we had to deal with was the simple issue of mobility.  When we arrived Down Under we secured a rental car from the airport. Upon locating our vehicle, we loaded our luggage into the trunk (or boot, if you want to start sounding Australian) and hopped in the car. My wife, Laurie, and I quickly hopped out and did our own little “Chinese Fire Drill” so that I was properly located in front of the steering wheel. In case you were unaware, Australians drive on the left side of the road, right hand drive vehicles, same as England and half a dozen other countries.  I read once, in a National Geographic article, that this difference between nations in driver/vehicle/road proximity harkens back to the days well before motorized travel. Apparently, in jolly old Britain (and presumably most of Europe) people passed to the right of each other due to the knights and cavaliers who maintained this in order to be able to draw their swords on one another as needed. As the world is predominately right-handed, it stood to reason that you could best defend yourself (particularly from horseback) if you kept your potential adversary to your right side. Alternatively, in the fledgling United States, such medieval practices never existed and it fell to the horse drawn coaches to point the way.  For whatever reason, teamsters generally sat behind and led the left, lead horse.  Thus, when coming upon another stage or coach approaching from the opposite direction on the narrow, rudimentary roadways, they would tend to pass on each other’s left, so that they could lean over to see that they could get by clearly. When the automobile crept into the scene, the various countries had already established their respective roadway etiquette and the new infrastructures and vehicles were made to suit.  I can only imagine the time and expense, not to mention the inevitable amount of accidents, that would result if an established country tried to make a change now.  I imagine we will be stuck with right and left hand drive for a long to come. After 16 years of honing my driving skills until they were as sharp as a Mach 3 razor, I threw it all out the window by moving 4 feet to my right.  All in all, it wasn’t too bad.  It was especially helpful to be following someone else to start off.  I noticed if I lost concentration, I would tend to wander to the left.  Apparently, my mind wanted to line my body up at a comfortably familiar point within the lane.  This became increasingly worrisome for Laurie, in the passenger seat.  The lanes on Sydney roads are not very wide.  Actually, it appeared that most buses and large trucks could just fit into one. T he bus lane, of course, is on the left side of the road, nearest the curb, and there are a goodly amount of buses tooling around Sydney.  This meant that whenever I wandered toward the left, my wife became intimately familiar with the side of one.  Eventually, she just closed her eyes and told me to tell her when it was over (and no, that is not a regular occurrence in any other situation, thank you very much). During our first week in Australia, I was actually quite pleased with my driving.  I managed to traverse Sydney (no easy task in itself) and also the Northern suburbs without hitting any pedestrians, animals, plants or buildings.  I must confess that there were a few curbs a little worse for wear and the passenger side tyres might have been a bit scuffed from some of my parking forays.  We (okay, I) got lost returning to our hotel one evening and I was forced to keep pulling over to check the map and get my bearings.  It is surprisingly difficult to judge the distance to the curb from the right side of the car and, eventually, I just opted for hitting it to know I was close enough. I must admit, it seemed a little foolhardy of the rental car company to let me drive at all.  They did offer the “extra insurance,” as rental companies are apt to do, but I declined it.  The agent graciously pointed out that, even if I just lost a hub-cap, I could be subject to the entire deductible.  To this I replied that if I did, in fact, lose a hub-cap or had some other such minor damage occur, I would promptly drive the vehicle into a bridge embankment to make sure I got my money’s worth. The fact of the matter is that you can drive on your foreign license for three months, when arriving in Australia.  If you are staying longer, you must apply for a license for your State.  This means that, at any given time, you are likely to be driving next to someone with absolutely no experience with right hand drive.  Believe me, you can spot them a kilometer away, and I am sure there were a number of people pointing at us as we drove along, thinking, “Damn Canadians!”  (Sorry, it’s just fun to pick on them). 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.

. RESOURCE LINKS FOR AUSTRALIA About Moving To Australia Including articles, moving companies, immigration procedures, jobs, healthcare and insurance. Australia Tax Haven Resources - Services, Banking & Real Estate The bargain comes with living in a civilized and pleasant place. - Also see: Real Estate In Australia - Current Property Listings - Also Real Estate in other countries in Oceania and Asia Pacific including New Zealand - Australia Travel & Tourism Information about hotels, restaurants, travel agents, guides and virtual tours. Banks of Australia See banks of Australia at our Banks of Asian Pacific section. Books about Living & Working in Australia Books on Living in Australia. Australia: Country Information Weather, government, statistics in Australia. Embassies & Consulates of Australia Embassy Resources for Australia - On our sister site EmbassyWorld. Emigration / Immigration To Australia If you want to move to Australia it helps to hire a professional who can assist you. On this page we have both government and private agencies that can help you with your quest. Hospitals in Australia Hospitals Around The World by Region. Immigration Resources Immigration World Wide. Interview with an American Expatriate to Australia An interview from the book Escape From America with an American who migrated to Australia. Jobs In Australia Part of our jobs pages, a complete page off links to help you with you job search. Links to Australia Including search engines and education resources for Australia. Real Estate In Australia Current real estate listings of Australian properties. Maps of Australia A large number of differing Australia maps, including city maps. . . Previous Articles on Australia NOW is the time to invest in Australia’s East coast cities As a property investor, you like most are probably looking for excellent value today as well as solid projected medium to long term growth. Australia: Wilson's Promontory Australia has no shortage of national parks providing magnificent scenery. When it comes to wildlife, however, one stands out from the rest – Wilson’s Promontory National Park. Referred to as The Prom, this national park protects 50,000 hectares of diverse landscape; untouched beaches, swamps and rainforest Adventures in Australia's Outback As much as I love setting out on my own to explore an area with nothing more than my guidebook to direct me, there are certain situations and locations that justify, or even necessitate a guided tour. Australia’s Red Center is one of those places. Not only is the area inhospitable, but there are huge distances between places of interest to travellers.And so I find myself jumping on an Adventure Tours bus leaving Alice Springs very early one November morning. .

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.
 

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