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,
caf?’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.
