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What to Expect:

Plan your exodus to Australia for the right time of year. Mid-summer is December and January, mid-winter in July and August. So if you’re planning to stay for only six months, it’s good to plan where you will be in accordance with the seasons.  Although the seasons are milder- it does get cold in the more southern regions. In the northern parts of Australia, there is a dry and wet season, which is also at opposite times of the year. It’s best to avoid northern cities such as Cairns from January to March, unless you really like rain.

Think of it as playing opposite day in grade school. The further north you travel, the warmer it gets. Everyone drives on the opposite side of the street, and when you are behind the wheel, even the turn signals and gear shift are on the other side. Although we speak the same language, many words and pronunciations are quite different. Just as immersing oneself in a culture works for learning a new language, other aspects of daily life soon become ingrained as well. Soon, you may be thinking that winter begins in June. However, there are many tips which can instantly ease your adjustment to Australian life. For example, the first (and possibly best) advice I was given my first day here was, ”Look right.”  This knowledge helped me to avoid situations such as being hit by a car when crossing the street. 

When packing for Australia, I had no idea what to expect, and therefore what would be necessary to bring. As a low maintenance traveller, with intentions of surfing as much as possible, guidebook lists with information about evening wear and umbrellas did not help. So what do you need on your checklist? Common sense dictates that when preparing to depart overseas, certain necessities are essential, such as toothpaste, first aid kits, or shampoo. Often replacements for these items may be unattainable at the destination. Or, if they are, the quality may be highly questionable. This is never the case with Australia. When packing, think in terms of travelling to a new part of our own country. Every “just in case” I thought I might need to bring was useless. It’s better to pack too lightly, I discovered, as everything is accessible, and the Australian version of the American product is often even better. 

Everything you could want, be it low or high maintenance, can be found. Although certain exact brands may not exist, there is always an equivalent. The standard of living here is greater per capita than our own. The socialist-leaning nature of the government provides national health care and everything in between. This is a population very concerned with health. Fresh food and clean water is not just common, but standard. Unfortunately, so is Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hutt.  Yet as frequently as you find McDonalds or 7-11 at home, you’ll also find fresh juice bars, café’s which specialize in your choice of apple, carrot, spinach, pineapple, you name it, kind of juice. You pick which fruits and vegetables for the juice, and it is made right then, for the same price as the concentrated juice from any gas station. Just as at home, there are a huge variety of types of food in every town. Thai, South Indian, felafels, pizza, anything and everything. And when driving through the country, you’ll pass everything from banana farms to macadamia farms, selling buckets of product for a few dollars. This also is the case with the many vineyards throughout the countryside as well. 

The Australian people are as varied as the wide selection of cuisine. This country is not only filled with blonde, blue-eyed descendents of British tax-offenders. It is a very multicultural country, much as our own. The difference, of course, is in the location and age. Australia is a newer country, still accepting immigrants more readily into the country. Ten-thousand Indonesian refugees were recently admitted into Darwin, the seaport of the Northern Territory, a state which has a total of only about 3 million inhabitants.  Here you’ll meet many people who were born in other countries, but have lived in Australia for more than ten or twenty years, similarly to immigrants in our own country during the earlier part of the twentieth century. And, as our neighbors are Latin America, we have a greater Hispanic population. While this part of the population is very small, there is a huge Asian population in Australia. And Indian. Look on a map at all the countries surrounding Australia, and you’ll understand why. The land down under is the new world of the South Pacific. 
There are so many creature comfort similarities, you’ll often feel as though you haven’t left home. That is, of course, until you hear someone speak, or look at the land, or walk into any store.  Two Canadian friends of mine who arrived in Australia via Thailand and Malaysia were always telling me how disappointed they were. “It’s so…normal!”  But, they spent their entire time in Sydney. If you’re searching for ancient temples, don’t visit. If, however, the aesthetic holiness of natural land moves you (especially while living as close to creature comforts as we do), you may be reading the right article.

GETTING ALONG (MAKING MATES):

Contrary to the claims of most guidebooks, Australians are not in love with Americans. Understand, of course, they don’t dislike us! Americans are often viewed with the same amusement one would characters on a television sitcom. Perhaps this is because so much of our own entertainment culture is incorporated (or imposed, depending on your opinion) into their own. Turn on the television, and you can expect to see anything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Southpark. Walk into your local Coles or Woolys (supermarket chains) and the same mildly distracting fluff magazines await you at the checkout line next to all the chocolate bars. Australians understand Americans as most peoples of the world do. As Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and Baywatch. 

Almost every Australian I’ve met has a story about a loud American. The stereotype fits into the commercials and Hollywood overload. According to them, we’re all loud and rude. Without a clue about decorum, or possibly not a care. Take your own images of Pamela Anderson or stereotypes of fat old tourists with Bermuda shorts, weighed down with cameras and brochures, wandering as aimlessly as a housewife in her third hour at Walmart, and   you’ll see what is expected of you.

Australia’s educational system is comparatively superior. The literacy rate is 100%. What’s the literacy rate of our supposedly advanced nation? Many Aussie friends of mine have complained about the lack of world knowledge Americans have. I can’t argue with them, as it’s true that World History was never emphasized, while our domestic histories have been repetitively required, from grade school to university levels. 

“With your manifest destiny and 'ours is bigger than yours' mentality, you Yanks never know anything about anything outside  your own country,” my friend Rebecca complained. I can't argue with her, either. It makes sense that everyone should be well-rounded enough to know about cultures outside their own and Australia has a better quality of overall education.

The Australian tourism industry is huge. This can work for and against you. Because the tourism industry is as large as it is, it's relatively easy to find activities, from some of the cheapest scuba diving and skydiving rates in the world to competitively priced accommodations due to price-warring hotels and hostels. Most Australians encounter tourists on a daily basis. While this prepares a person to work easily with other cultures, it eventually allows sarcasm. Because so many American tourists expect to see kangaroos hopping down the road or Crocodile Dundee jumping out of the bushes, a pastime has evolved: locals exaggerate or create stories with which to fool you. People you meet, who will seem the kindest people you've ever met (and they ARE) will often engage in a story or two, just for fun. While driving through southern Victoria late one night, two petrol (gas station) attendants told me to watch out for the womabats, who would attack me and my campervan if I stopped on the side of the road. There is a bit of reality to this. Wombats, which look like a pit-bull-sized guinea pig, are often the subject of late night road kill, much like deer and skunk at home. However, they will not attack you. If you see a wombat while walking through the bush, it will run away from you. Or, some friends in Noosa, Queensland, told me to drive to Newcastle and sell my old surfboard to surf legend Mark Richards. "Oh, he'll buy it, for sure," my friend told me, looking as though he innocently believed what he said. Watch out for these traps. Australians are definitely friendly, and probably know more about world politics and happenings than most average Americans, yet many will act very simple, playing as though they haven't a clue, similarly to the way a southerner will feign "dumb redneck" around a New Yorker. These are all harmless activities, and no offense should be taken to it. Think about it. How many people come to their country, knowing absolutely nothing, and believing everything? Dealing with this daily would affect you too. Rather than becoming bitter, locals use this lack of knowledge to their advantage, and turn it into a joke. And they have an additional upper hand with us, since they are constantly inundated with our culture. So rather than taking offense, be aware when someone tells you a story, and decide whether it makes common sense or not. Obviously, people don't keep koalas as pets as much as you don't have bald eagles nesting in your backyard. If you catch someone in a tale, or better yet, know enough Australian information to answer the tale with its factual similarity, you may have made yourself a friend.