So Mom has gone home now, but in light of her visit (and, more importantly, my own observations!) I thought a top ten list of major differences you really ought to be aware of as an American traveling to Australia might be in order. Thus, without further ado:
10. The seasons are switched.
9. They use metric instead of imperial measurements. (i.e., Celsius, liters, grams, kilometers, etc.)
8. The dates are switched (i.e., my February birthday is 9/2 and not 2/9).
7. The electrical outlets are different.
6. Floors are labeled starting with "ground" instead of "1."
5. Tipping isn't ever necessary. (and even wrong, some may protest ...)
4. Tax is included in prices.
3. There are numerous lexical differences.
2. They have accents! (great ones, no less!)
1. They drive on the left.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Please, please, please spell metric terms correctly - it's "litre" and "metre".
Ah, yes - no. 4 - that I found hard when visiting the USA. I'd calculate how much I had to pay to try to have the right change at the checkout only to have dome random tax figure added to my total.
Tipping is fine in situations where you can't be bothered waiting for the change (such as taxis) and the done thing is to say, "keep the change".
Some things from our recent trip to WA and back via SA - WA and SA (and Tas) have their own quarantine (generally to reduce the spread of fruit fly or GM material). One has to dump (or eat) any nuts, uncooked fruit or other unprocessed / raw foods on entering WA; SA doesn't allow fruit. Tas is similar.
Post a Comment