You Know You're In Australia When.....

Only 10 days into our adventure Down Under, and it seems like we've already been here for months!  

We started out in Bondi Beach (Sydney) for a few days to acclimate to the ridiculous time change (17 hours ahead of LA), moved on to a long weekend in Canberra staying with our Aussie friends, Mark and Amanda Pearson, who we befriended on an overland safari in East Africa 10 years ago, and then on to Adelaide for a brief stay (including a day of wine tasting in the Barossa Valley) before taking the ferry to Kangaroo Island this afternoon.

Kangaroo Island is the 3rd largest island in Australia (not including Australia itself).  If you can name even one of the two Australian islands bigger than KI (without the benefit of Google), you win big bragging points (answer to follow in next post)!

Some early observations from our trip:  You know you're in Australia when:

$1 is worth $1.50

People drop their “r’s” but still don’t sound like they’re from Boston

Seemingly nearly everyone is young, fit, friendly and spends every day surfing

You put vegemite on your crumpet for brekkie 

The hazards on the golf course are trees, sand, water and kangaroos!

You spend the evening at the Oval with your mate watching an AFL footie match and getting a bit wobbly in your boots, while your wives stay home and have a coronation party

You eat too much during a late night trip to the drive-thru at Macca’s (what we call McDonalds) and feel as full as a cattle tick 

You do afternoon Board calls at 5:30 in the morning 

You ask a guy standing outside the National War Memorial for directions to the entrance, he turns out to be the director of the memorial and gives you a private tour

Major Pearson showing off the Bushmaster that served as his ride 

during his deployment in Afghanistan

The birds at the botanical gardens don’t look like pigeons (and even their equivalent of pigeons look exotic) 

The dog treats are made from random kangaroo parts

And for the more politically inclined, you know you’re in Australia when…..

• The new national budget is in surplus 
• A whole week goes by without multiple mass shootings
• The streets, beaches, parks and airports are clean and (unlike LA) you don’t have to walk through homeless encampments to get around 
• Voting is compulsory
• They’re not trying to take away women's rights
• The country has apologized for, and seeks to take responsibility for, its historical mistreatment of its original native inhabitants

And finally, you know you’re in Australia when within a week your wife is nearly ready to sell your house back home and move here!

I'll be back next week with a post on our experiences on Kangaroo Island.  Just based on what we've seen in our first afternoon here, I'm confident it won't disappoint!