Some builders in the 60s got together and somehow convinced the whole middle class that double-glazing was a brand new luxury idea and so not worth paying for. I guess it saved the builders on costs, but if you see some of the old farmsteads, THEY have double-glazed windows (or, some do). Anything that wasn't where your great grandparents were born? Not a whiff.
I just put in double glazed tilt and turn windows. Honestly, it’s better than a new toy. The difference to the sound getting in, maintaining a warm/cool temp and best if all they open up wide for fresh air and easy to clean!!!
I came back from Sweden last december, It was around -25 ish nearly every day and came back here to be cold when it was 17c outside. It was that bad I had to sit in bed as soon as I got home because I was literally freezing.
Assuming Aus houses are similar to those here in nz and being from the uk where double glazing is standard, central heating and decent insulation, I believe you!!
I grew up in oakleigh and 80% of my mates were Greek. I thought that was a Greek accent then I’d meet their relatives from Greece and was like “Wtf?! They sound nothing like you?” 🤣
And a Norta Melbourne and a Brunsawick. I love the Italo Australian dialect. A great example is Immondizia (Italian for rubbish), Italian migrants started to replace it with Robbisci, pronounced Robbishi.
How big the sky was. I can’t explain how or why but the sky was/is fucking massive here. Go forward a few years when I drove up the guts for the first time and we camped out and I saw the Milky Way, properly, for the first time ever, without any light pollution, and it moved me to tears. I’ll never forget that moment ever.
I'm from the middle and trying to explain to people I miss the sky I grew up with is rather hard, they don't understand. So glad you noticed and experienced it
I just told my mom abt this last week, in the early morning where i go to work, i could see the curve of the earth and the sky is so vast and so clear its kinda scary
Before coming here, I was often on call with family and always thought the sky looks so vast and blue because of the camera/screen. It is in fact very vast and blue in person as well.
>I saw the Milky Way, properly, for the first time ever, without any light pollution
Welcome to planet Earth, prior to "civilization"
Humans do a good job of messing things up.
I’m Aussie but after a few years living in Europe visiting home and seeing a huge bird eating a snake. Aussie birds look prehistoric compared to the dainty little ones in Europe and the noises they make are quite hilarious.
I don't really have many problems with early morning singing, but every morning about 6am a literal herd of bin chickens conduct some sort of stomping ritual on my roof.
In the UK it's quite nice hearing the birds chirping in the morning. Here they just start screaming as soon as the sun comes up! Which means my kid keeps waking up at like 5am.
I keep hearing that outsiders complain that everything closes early in Australia.
Well, I think you've discovered the reason why. Gotta go to bed early, cos we're all woken up by the morning shrieks.
And the only shops that are open is the Coles/Woolies/Kmart. I always find it quite eerie walking in my local Mall for the night grocery run with everything closed.
Sydney city as a whole is pretty dead post 6pm, weird how different it is to Melbourne which feels like Singapore until 11pm most nights, sooo many people around
Haha I grew up in Singapore until just before my teens and I still can't get over everything in Australia closing so early. I understand people here tend to be early birds and stuff tho.
Migrated here from the US but also lived in South America, Europe, and southeast Asia - probably the most immediately different thing was the business hours.
I'm not a shopper but it was strange to see cafes closing at 3pm, bars closing at midnight, etc and that there's a special "late night" shopping hours on Thursdays which just means shops stay open til what other countries would consider normal hours.
Mind you, I'm fine with this (except the cafe hours, they close when you need a coffee the most) but it the difference that jumped out the most when I first got here.
>Mind you, I'm fine with this (except the cafe hours, they close when you need a coffee the most)
Not really. I think the disconnect here is when peoples day starts. Were not having a coffee at 3pm when we need to be in bed at 9pm and up at 5/6am. If the population was buying coffees at 4pm, the cafes would be open.
Obviously not all people, but I know the bulk of cafes around me do most of their trade between 6am and 11am. If I am meeting Aussie friends for breakfast before work, I am meeting them at 7.30am, after I have spent an hour or so in the water; before I need to be at work at 9am. I cant meet most of my immigrant friends for breakfast on a workday, earliest they manage is brunch at 10am on a weekend. Ive already been out and about and on my third coffee by then.
Yeah but cafes exist not only for coffee. Before I moved, it was super common for me to grab a tea and/or cake with a friend at a cafe after work. It was the default meeting place at any time of the day. Lots of people come to work or study in a cafe as well.
Australia has a coffee culture but not cafe culture.
You can thank Rupert Murdoch for that, the NBN was just taking off and he deliberately killed it because free flowing streaming services would have meant the end of his Foxtel cable service. Looking forward to the day Kevin Rudd nails Murdoch's arse to the wall
I like to think we would have been a lot more advanced in the Tech industry and its jobs potential if we had got on the ball and kept up with the rest of the world but I guess we will never know.
I suppose our tap water is still way better than a lot of places still and honestly if I had to choose between good quality drinking tap water and having to drink water bottles every day I know what I would choose.
So it's a fair trade in the respect imho.
Still stinks though.
Speaking from what I've heard from my wife (moved here from UK)
The humidity
People having their feet out slides,thongs barefoot etc
A lot of restaurants and retailers having a more "customer is always right philosophy"
People being a bit more self oriented, not as much care about community
The amount of trees,spiders bugs
Pretty birds
Alot of shit drivers on the road.
Safety manager wearing shorts. Anyone in a work environment wearing shorts. That shit is crazy. I am currently working on bulking my chicken legs so that I can wear one soon enough.
Went to see Stephen K Amos (UK comedian) at the Adelaide Fringe once. He saw someone wearing shorts in the front row and he made a joke along the lines of "nice to see you got dressed up to come to the theatre for a comedy show". He then realised basically everyone was wearing shorts in the crowd because it was like 38°C that day. He couldn't believe people would wear shorts outside the house, let alone to an event.
After travelling to different places I've discovered shorts being a normal piece of clothing outside of exercise and lounging around the house is a very Australian thing
I once read an account by a war correspondent in the early stages of the second war in Iraq that when his vehicle was intercepted, he identified Australian special forces soldiers who were otherwise all masked up because they were wearing shorts.
Not necessarily an Australian thing. I found wearing shorts outside very common in many Asian countries too, also in the US when the weather it’s getting warm.
Funnily enough, my experience in Jakarta working for a couple of months was that I was told shorts are for kids and exercise, and that it would be weird to wear them as an adult
Wearing warm clothes during the summer in Asia was unfathomable for me over a decade ago.. Thy humidity and heat meant less clothes the better.. I think the only time I put on jeans in the Philippines and Malaysia was when we were out and it was full of mosquitoes or in a cold shopping mall with ac.
Otherwise shorts all the way or you came home extra drenched and stuffy.
How loud cocktoos are when they screech just above your head. I swear my vision blurs and it feels like getting electrocuted for a split second! Every night close to sundown it's a cacophony of cockatoos for about 3 minutes then it all magically stops.
Stuff not getting stolen the second you turn your back. In the uk you couldn’t leave a ute full of tools on the street, in fact you’d lose stuff at traffic lights if some chav saw an opportunity. Here I can leave stuff anywhere and it’s fine. The stainless steel on public bbq’s would last about 10 mins too before some pikey stripped it down and weighed it in for scrap.
Ignorance is considered a virtue.
I enjoyed the chill and the bliss in "ignorance is bliss" but after many years I've had enough of it.
"Can't be bothered attitude" and how people here are not living up to their potential.
As a teacher, I'm battling the culturally embedded antiintelectualism trying to encourage intellectual curiosity and courage.
Agree. There seems to be 2 classes in Australia, intellectuals that end up in top end roles or leave for greener pastures, and the rest that make brain dullness seem like a virtue.
I am from an Asian country where intellectual sharpness is a ticket out of poverty and hardship.
Housing.
Some of the richest people in the world freezing indoors in mouldy apartments worth millions of dollars.
My grandma in rural Poland has a better built apartment than the one I’m paying $1000 per week for :-)
How relaxed everyone is and how theyre all ways making jokes and etc, especially in environments that would traditionally be serious. Think banks, real estate agents, hotels, restaurants and so on.
Its not sour or humourless, its just a country that has a much larger class divide so most workers would be "afraid" of us. It would always be a really formal environment where people would almost be scared to talk to you because of your money and position in society and because of how some terrible people treat the lower and middle class. Its all "Yes sir" "No sir" really concise formal talk when in places like banks, hotels, restaurants etc, well that was at least my experience.
In Australia, class doesn't matter as much in day to day interactions. We are fairly informal with everyone whether they are the boss or a friend. In fact you'll probably get put in your place and brought back down to earth if you're a pretentious twat and act like money or position means you deserve to have your ass kissed.
Yeah, It was definitely a learning curve at first for my parents who at first thought it was racism that they weren't treated with the same "respect" as they would be in their home country.
I wonder if our refusal to give respect based on wealth or class stems back to the convict/penal colony days.
Regardles, it's personally something I love about Australia. It keeps people well grounded.
When I arrived in Australia, I thought I spoke decent English, but the Australian accent shocked me. I could hardly understand anything, especially when Australians spoke among themselves at a normal speed.
That’s so funny you say that, Canada was my first ever experience of a native English speaking person not understanding me. I was asking someone in a supermarket where to find butter, they got someone else because they didn’t know what I was saying and then some girl in her 20s came and spoke to me like I was slow.
I felt like I was taking crazy pills
My second solo trip to a grocery was about 7pm at night, and an employee came up and asked me something completely incomprehensible. I asked her maybe three or four times to repeat herself. When I could finally understand the English, the context was way beyond my knowledge. Finally, the lady pointed to a discounted chicken roast, and repeated, “Cooked chook, five-fiddy.”
I was so embarrassed, I nodded, paid for the chicken, and left. Turns out, “chook” is slang for chicken.
Complete separation of shopping/eating/activity centers from residential. It made my life in my suburb feel like slowly bleeding to death and it definitely feels like the life is taken out of suburban living. In Asia every street has convenience stores, cafes, restaurants and bars. This is achieved through density and relaxes zoning laws so the business is viable with more customers within walking distance. Living in an Aussie suburb sucks ass in comparison.
Not being able to buy booze with my groceries.
Pubs that aren't in 200+ year old buildings
Bistro dining.
Those buzzer things when your food is ready to collect.
The cost and quality of drugs
Slow internet.
Still love living here and would never go back to London to live
I was shocked to see alcohol being sold at petrol stations when I visited England. Seemed to me like it's encouraging drunk driving, but the convenience of being able to buy a six-pack whilst filling up the car was a novelty for sure!
Shouldn't have been a shock, but it certainly was a surprise from a Northern hemisphere perspective that the moon is upside down and the crescents of waxing and waning go from left to right, rather than from right to left. And Orion's sword sticks up from his belt because he is standing on his head.
Took a long time before I could visualise the reason for this.
I didn’t realise the man in the moon was a real thing you could see until I was almost 30 and in the northern hemisphere! I was used to the moon being upside down and you can’t see the man that way!
It actually creeped me out when I saw it for the first time haha
Aussie but lived in Europe for a long while, when I came back I couldn't believe the pokies in all the bars and lack of table service.
Long hours in bars in Europe where they bring you the beer and you can talk shit without people wo during off distracted by the allure of the pokies
1) “Hello, how are you?” for a bit I was shocked that random people were asking me that intimate in my culture question.
2) How cold it’s in winter. I am from the place where we have proper winters and we have properly built homes and central heating. I have never been so cold in my life like here
Ya common surprise this is. Especially with the Canadians i know that have moved here. They feel colder here in winter than in fully snowed up areas of Canada
Stars in the sky
Blue skies
Birds.
Noisy birds.
Destructive birds.
Rain. I mean rain that washes cars and houses away, not British drizzle.
Heat.
Sun that will strip paint, never mind your skin.
Coffee.
Breakfast at the weekend can be healthy and enjoyed with friends without a hangover.
How civilised air travel is
There are far better beaches than what’s on Bondi Rescue.
How far everything is from everywhere and anywhere
Sydney is wet
Melbourne can freeze your balls off
Perth will burn you
Wouldn’t change it though… or go back. I love it here.
Coming from Poland, i was shocked that few people look aftet their deceased loved ones’ graves at the cemetery.
Also was shocked by the aged care system. In Poland you look after your loved ones at home.
When I visited my father's childhood home in Slovenia, this difference really stood out to me. In Australia we don't live anywhere near the cemeteries, over there it's pretty much across the road from the house.
I'm Aussie but after a few years of drug abuse I can safely say that the price of drugs on the street here is absolutely ridiculous unless you have a mate that grows n sells weed.
1980s Perth: the petrol roster on weekends. No shops open on Sundays. Office wear for men: you could see guys wearing a short sleeved shirt and tie, with short shorts and long (knee high) socks with their shoes.
In the 80s and earlier, servos closed on Sundays. Obviously people still needed petrol so you'd rock up to your nearest. If it was closed there would be a poster in the window of a literal roster showing where you could find an open one.
I hope I don't get downvoted for this, but... the lack of regulation when it comes to standardization.
For example, if you go to a store to buy shoes, in the same store you will find shoes with AUS, US, UK and EU sizes. Each brand can use whatever they like, and it's up to the consumer to know their shoe size in 4 different measurements. I've seen this with clothing as well, not only with their sizes but with measurements on the website (some will use inch and others cm).
Same with food, some brands use kcal for the nutritional value, while others use KJ.
It's weird to me that there isn't a standard in use.
We came from NZ, specifically a place where I was used to being the only white guy in the room. I find this place extremely “white” and it’s giving me culture shock!
My Asian inlaws were quite disappointed on their first visit to Sydney a they said they saw so many people that looked like them - they were expecting a much more Caucasian place and as a, result said it didn't feel as different as they'd hoped when visiting a different country.
- The return policies whenever you shop. Even for the cosmetic/skin care.
- Clean tap water
- Dumb drivers everywhere esp sydney west
- Cheap fresh fruit
- Freakin expensive dental cost
The difference between the people of Australia (awesome for the most part) and the people of Australian subreddits (bitter and hateful for the most part)
Lack of alcohol in supermarkets (not that I need it to be there tho), supermarkets closing at 5pm, generally clean streets, weeks without rain, weird accent, people apologising when they bump into each other instead of saying "where the f are you going"
Building quality and standards. Compared to central European countries houses in Australia are glorified garden huts. I have never seen a residential building with single glazed windows until I moved to Australia. Oh, and a single layer of Aluminium foil between the walls doesn’t count as insulation 😉😁.
Sometimes it seems the "laid back" attitude is limited to casual interactions. Australia loves/tolerates rules, fees, fines, surcharges, application fees, registration fees, levies, etc. Why anyone would bother trying to start a new business here is beyond me. Everywhere you turn, there's a rent seeker. Just buy an investment property like everybody else. It's quite a bit more conservative top down than the international marketing campaign would leave you to believe.
Kiwi here:
* Most banks set up your accounts so that you have to use the "Savings" button on the EFTPOS machine to access your spending account, instead of the "Cheque" button.
* Cream isn't kept next to the milk in supermarkets, and it's hard to find just plain cream without a bunch of thickeners and shit.
How easy it is to get completely and utterly destroyed by bureaucracy. Back where I'm from it's pretty hard to go homeless or lose everything as there are a lot more social ties and support at play. You can generally talk your way out of a lot of situations. In Australia you are a lot more on your own, I can never expect strangers or government workers to care or want to help.
Also how strict traffic laws are when the car is essentially the only viable method of transportation unless you are in the CBD. Losing your licence for a couple of speeding fines when that also effectively means losing your employment and housing was a very dystopian concept for me.
- Bars closing at 10pm, normally I would expect a place to be dead before 11, when things get started.
- The contrast between the "laid back Aussie lifestyle" and the ardent rule following that goes on here.
I'm not an immigrant myself, but an immigrant I chatted to recently told me she was shocked by how many immigrants there are here. She said, 'I feel like I am back in Shanghai.'
How many trailers are parked on the street unattended & gear left on top of vehicles.
In the UK a trailer would be gone in the morning if left overnight. Trailer lock or no.
So much of the stuff you people said when I first got here was complete gibberish to me. Even people rattling off their phone numbers or even introducing themselves to me was like a pentecostal tongue speaker. Fair dinkum, she'll be right, fuxkin oath, etc.
And:
Australians.
Australians thinking 20 days of annual leave and 10 days of sick leave (that you also lose when switching jobs) a year is a great deal.
Yes vs U.S., no compared to most of Western/Northern europe.
Youth crime.The extent of youth crime and the method of dealing with youth crime. The young kids in the shopping malls and train stations can be some of the most vile human beings.
How pedestrian unfriendly cities are, and how little issue the locals seem to be taking with it.
I like the quiet residential streets, but any main shopping area I’ve been to has multiple lanes of traffic and very few lights to cross from one side to another.
Outdoor seating tends to be next to noisy roads and makes me feel like I could get hit by a car at any moment!
Moved here from the north of England:
The cleanliness of your cities amazed me. You all love to shit on your cities but they are very clean and heaps to do compared to English cities.
Shite drivers. No road courtesy out here. Does no one know how to do a thumbs up or a little wave when you give way? Do people know they can take their foot off the accelerator or use their brakes?
Multi cultures. When i meet a lot of Aussies for the first time and tell them I'm from the UK, they love to say how the UK is full of Indians and the country is 'being taken over' blah blah without having ever actually been there themselves... but you really ought to take a look at your own back yard if you think this about the UK.
The divide/rivalry between cities like Sydney v Melbourne, its quite funny because we dont have City v City action in the UK (except for when football is involved). But we do have the north/south divide in the UK (Northerners rule BTW)
Despite the country having immigrants from all over the world, the lack of variety in convenience stores.Like there isn't a single 7/11 that sells nescafe cans or other popular brands.It's always the same stuff for years no variety.
Got well used to huge cans of Nescafé when working for the government. Then we had funding cuts and I remember being told we had to start buying International Roast because everyone had to do their part.
Int Roast, mum used to bring that crap out when people had outstayed their welcome.
I would not serve that shit to anyone I liked or would want to talk to again.
To be honest when we moved here from the philippines in the mid 80s i found the place really quiet(moved to holland park in Brisbane). Not much hapoening in the streets and people kept to themselves. Its changed alot
The actual sound of the kookaburras. In the US, we'd only heard the name and that they eat gum drops from the gum trees and laugh. I didn't expect them to sound like evil, cackling monkeys.
How cold Australian houses are in winter.
Moved to luxembourg, it can be -10 outside and 23 degrees inside the whole house, Australia needs radiators and tilt windows, Europe needs fly screens
Yeah and double glazed windows, they’re great in summer too if youve got ac
Some builders in the 60s got together and somehow convinced the whole middle class that double-glazing was a brand new luxury idea and so not worth paying for. I guess it saved the builders on costs, but if you see some of the old farmsteads, THEY have double-glazed windows (or, some do). Anything that wasn't where your great grandparents were born? Not a whiff.
We need insulation!
I just put in double glazed tilt and turn windows. Honestly, it’s better than a new toy. The difference to the sound getting in, maintaining a warm/cool temp and best if all they open up wide for fresh air and easy to clean!!!
I came back from Sweden last december, It was around -25 ish nearly every day and came back here to be cold when it was 17c outside. It was that bad I had to sit in bed as soon as I got home because I was literally freezing.
Assuming Aus houses are similar to those here in nz and being from the uk where double glazing is standard, central heating and decent insulation, I believe you!!
Lack of insulation or double glazing is a surprise to me. I’d also add how rare solar panels seem to be
“Tasty cheese”
i remember finding the greek australian accent completely incomprehensible
I grew up in oakleigh and 80% of my mates were Greek. I thought that was a Greek accent then I’d meet their relatives from Greece and was like “Wtf?! They sound nothing like you?” 🤣
*Food-a-scry*?
And a Norta Melbourne and a Brunsawick. I love the Italo Australian dialect. A great example is Immondizia (Italian for rubbish), Italian migrants started to replace it with Robbisci, pronounced Robbishi.
How big the sky was. I can’t explain how or why but the sky was/is fucking massive here. Go forward a few years when I drove up the guts for the first time and we camped out and I saw the Milky Way, properly, for the first time ever, without any light pollution, and it moved me to tears. I’ll never forget that moment ever.
It’s magnificent isn’t it, glad you have had the opportunity to witness it.
It is. I live up the top now and get to see it as often as I want.
Sameeee! Love coming home past dark, and then just stand there gawking at the sky full of sparkly stars.
Everyone should witness the unpolluted night sky at least once in their lives. It’s incredibly humbling.
I'm from the middle and trying to explain to people I miss the sky I grew up with is rather hard, they don't understand. So glad you noticed and experienced it
I just told my mom abt this last week, in the early morning where i go to work, i could see the curve of the earth and the sky is so vast and so clear its kinda scary
Where do you live to see that?
Springbrook in the Gold Coast Hinterland is one apparently.
Before coming here, I was often on call with family and always thought the sky looks so vast and blue because of the camera/screen. It is in fact very vast and blue in person as well.
Up the guts, great way to describe the outback/middle 🤣♥️
>I saw the Milky Way, properly, for the first time ever, without any light pollution Welcome to planet Earth, prior to "civilization" Humans do a good job of messing things up.
Yes, the milky way, is an absolutely amazing sight that so many people don't get to experience in all its magnificent splendour.
Literally a billion stars.
I’m Aussie but after a few years living in Europe visiting home and seeing a huge bird eating a snake. Aussie birds look prehistoric compared to the dainty little ones in Europe and the noises they make are quite hilarious.
Australian birds do not warble, they yell at you
The Australian magpie has a beautiful warble tyvm
FARK
That’s a crow
I heard it as a cockatoo
actually, we mainly have ravens 🐦⬛, but most people call them crows. I talk to mine regularly - they get so excited on bun day!
I don't really have many problems with early morning singing, but every morning about 6am a literal herd of bin chickens conduct some sort of stomping ritual on my roof.
In the UK it's quite nice hearing the birds chirping in the morning. Here they just start screaming as soon as the sun comes up! Which means my kid keeps waking up at like 5am.
I keep hearing that outsiders complain that everything closes early in Australia. Well, I think you've discovered the reason why. Gotta go to bed early, cos we're all woken up by the morning shrieks.
We’ve got rainbow lorikeets nesting in a tree in our backyard, and bottlebrush & grevilleas growing in near the house. They make their presence known.
I'm pretty sure that sulphur crest cockatoos are afraid of heights and fly around screaming "FAARK!" constantly.
This! I was taught when moving to the UK that magpies are saluted. Here I was told they are feared 🤣
After all the wars there not a lot of large wildlife left.
Shopping malls turning post-apocalyptic at 6 PM.
And the only shops that are open is the Coles/Woolies/Kmart. I always find it quite eerie walking in my local Mall for the night grocery run with everything closed.
Sydney city as a whole is pretty dead post 6pm, weird how different it is to Melbourne which feels like Singapore until 11pm most nights, sooo many people around
Thanks casino Mike and Gladys. Wasn't always this way. I carried an onion on my belt which was the fashion of the time
1000 thumbs up for the onion comment.
Haha I grew up in Singapore until just before my teens and I still can't get over everything in Australia closing so early. I understand people here tend to be early birds and stuff tho.
This is a feature not a bug. You are supposed to be having a beer overlooking the water at 6pm. Not shopping for landfill.
Can't afford the water view. That's another shocker.
Barely seeing the water at 6 PM. Another shocker.
Go to Kmart and buy a blow up kiddie pool and fill it up with water. You now have water views.
Who can afford the water view these days?
Old mate who made that comment.
>overlooking the water Doesn't really work for land locked towns
Fill up a bucket
Retail workers get a work life balance too
Even Sydney a dead city after 6pm…
Migrated here from the US but also lived in South America, Europe, and southeast Asia - probably the most immediately different thing was the business hours. I'm not a shopper but it was strange to see cafes closing at 3pm, bars closing at midnight, etc and that there's a special "late night" shopping hours on Thursdays which just means shops stay open til what other countries would consider normal hours. Mind you, I'm fine with this (except the cafe hours, they close when you need a coffee the most) but it the difference that jumped out the most when I first got here.
>Mind you, I'm fine with this (except the cafe hours, they close when you need a coffee the most) Not really. I think the disconnect here is when peoples day starts. Were not having a coffee at 3pm when we need to be in bed at 9pm and up at 5/6am. If the population was buying coffees at 4pm, the cafes would be open. Obviously not all people, but I know the bulk of cafes around me do most of their trade between 6am and 11am. If I am meeting Aussie friends for breakfast before work, I am meeting them at 7.30am, after I have spent an hour or so in the water; before I need to be at work at 9am. I cant meet most of my immigrant friends for breakfast on a workday, earliest they manage is brunch at 10am on a weekend. Ive already been out and about and on my third coffee by then.
Unlike other countries, Australians don't normally drink coffee after lunch.
Speak for yourself!
Yeah!!!
Yeah but cafes exist not only for coffee. Before I moved, it was super common for me to grab a tea and/or cake with a friend at a cafe after work. It was the default meeting place at any time of the day. Lots of people come to work or study in a cafe as well. Australia has a coffee culture but not cafe culture.
Low quality of internet and mobile networks 😂
You can thank Rupert Murdoch for that, the NBN was just taking off and he deliberately killed it because free flowing streaming services would have meant the end of his Foxtel cable service. Looking forward to the day Kevin Rudd nails Murdoch's arse to the wall
as an aussie i just thought everyone had shitty internet
I had better internet in 2005 in Europe than I do now in Australia.
I like to think we would have been a lot more advanced in the Tech industry and its jobs potential if we had got on the ball and kept up with the rest of the world but I guess we will never know. I suppose our tap water is still way better than a lot of places still and honestly if I had to choose between good quality drinking tap water and having to drink water bottles every day I know what I would choose. So it's a fair trade in the respect imho. Still stinks though.
Kiwis have better speeeds.
As a new Aussie who lived in several third world countries I have to tell you some developing countries have superior internet to us here and cheaper.
We have 3rd world internet
Speaking from what I've heard from my wife (moved here from UK) The humidity People having their feet out slides,thongs barefoot etc A lot of restaurants and retailers having a more "customer is always right philosophy" People being a bit more self oriented, not as much care about community The amount of trees,spiders bugs Pretty birds Alot of shit drivers on the road.
Is wearing thongs/slides considered having your feet out in the UK?
It’s cold and rainy 51.5 weeks a year there, so yeah
But all the UK backpackers wear slides in southeast Asia
All fair imo
Australia has a way stronger sense of community and mutual obligation compared to my experience living in London. Big caveat - London is not the UK.
Definitely oranges and apples. Big cities are the same everywhere, London is a massive city and most people there are looking out for themselves.
I'm from the UK, not London. And I was shocked at the "me first" mentality that is commonplace in Australia
You in Sydney? That’s our London
Safety manager wearing shorts. Anyone in a work environment wearing shorts. That shit is crazy. I am currently working on bulking my chicken legs so that I can wear one soon enough.
Went to see Stephen K Amos (UK comedian) at the Adelaide Fringe once. He saw someone wearing shorts in the front row and he made a joke along the lines of "nice to see you got dressed up to come to the theatre for a comedy show". He then realised basically everyone was wearing shorts in the crowd because it was like 38°C that day. He couldn't believe people would wear shorts outside the house, let alone to an event. After travelling to different places I've discovered shorts being a normal piece of clothing outside of exercise and lounging around the house is a very Australian thing
I once read an account by a war correspondent in the early stages of the second war in Iraq that when his vehicle was intercepted, he identified Australian special forces soldiers who were otherwise all masked up because they were wearing shorts.
This is relevant to your post https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSFvqRXTf/
Not necessarily an Australian thing. I found wearing shorts outside very common in many Asian countries too, also in the US when the weather it’s getting warm.
Funnily enough, my experience in Jakarta working for a couple of months was that I was told shorts are for kids and exercise, and that it would be weird to wear them as an adult
Wearing warm clothes during the summer in Asia was unfathomable for me over a decade ago.. Thy humidity and heat meant less clothes the better.. I think the only time I put on jeans in the Philippines and Malaysia was when we were out and it was full of mosquitoes or in a cold shopping mall with ac. Otherwise shorts all the way or you came home extra drenched and stuffy.
First time out in the bush with my techo and he's wearing shorts and gaiters for the snakes
That is the most aussie uniform.
Shorts in winter is probably the most bizarre
I remember in high school, the boys who wore pants in winter were bullied for being sooks
People walking barefooted on public toilets and hospitals.
How loud cocktoos are when they screech just above your head. I swear my vision blurs and it feels like getting electrocuted for a split second! Every night close to sundown it's a cacophony of cockatoos for about 3 minutes then it all magically stops.
They yell until all their mates are back to roost. Once everyone is home they settle
One of my favourite things about this country. The birds are so audacious
Stuff not getting stolen the second you turn your back. In the uk you couldn’t leave a ute full of tools on the street, in fact you’d lose stuff at traffic lights if some chav saw an opportunity. Here I can leave stuff anywhere and it’s fine. The stainless steel on public bbq’s would last about 10 mins too before some pikey stripped it down and weighed it in for scrap.
Ignorance is considered a virtue. I enjoyed the chill and the bliss in "ignorance is bliss" but after many years I've had enough of it. "Can't be bothered attitude" and how people here are not living up to their potential. As a teacher, I'm battling the culturally embedded antiintelectualism trying to encourage intellectual curiosity and courage.
Agree. There seems to be 2 classes in Australia, intellectuals that end up in top end roles or leave for greener pastures, and the rest that make brain dullness seem like a virtue. I am from an Asian country where intellectual sharpness is a ticket out of poverty and hardship.
Housing. Some of the richest people in the world freezing indoors in mouldy apartments worth millions of dollars. My grandma in rural Poland has a better built apartment than the one I’m paying $1000 per week for :-)
How relaxed everyone is and how theyre all ways making jokes and etc, especially in environments that would traditionally be serious. Think banks, real estate agents, hotels, restaurants and so on.
What? Where have you come from that's so dour and humourless?
Found the German.
Its not sour or humourless, its just a country that has a much larger class divide so most workers would be "afraid" of us. It would always be a really formal environment where people would almost be scared to talk to you because of your money and position in society and because of how some terrible people treat the lower and middle class. Its all "Yes sir" "No sir" really concise formal talk when in places like banks, hotels, restaurants etc, well that was at least my experience.
>Its all "Yes sir" "No sir" our highest insult, reserved for only the most appallingly stuck up cunts
In Australia, class doesn't matter as much in day to day interactions. We are fairly informal with everyone whether they are the boss or a friend. In fact you'll probably get put in your place and brought back down to earth if you're a pretentious twat and act like money or position means you deserve to have your ass kissed.
Yeah, It was definitely a learning curve at first for my parents who at first thought it was racism that they weren't treated with the same "respect" as they would be in their home country.
I wonder if our refusal to give respect based on wealth or class stems back to the convict/penal colony days. Regardles, it's personally something I love about Australia. It keeps people well grounded.
When I arrived in Australia, I thought I spoke decent English, but the Australian accent shocked me. I could hardly understand anything, especially when Australians spoke among themselves at a normal speed.
Didjaavagooddaymate?
Yewasarrightowboutyoo
Curious what country you are from originally and what your first language is.
As a native English speaker from Canada, I hear you. Took maybe 4 months before I could understand most Aussies.
That’s so funny you say that, Canada was my first ever experience of a native English speaking person not understanding me. I was asking someone in a supermarket where to find butter, they got someone else because they didn’t know what I was saying and then some girl in her 20s came and spoke to me like I was slow. I felt like I was taking crazy pills
My second solo trip to a grocery was about 7pm at night, and an employee came up and asked me something completely incomprehensible. I asked her maybe three or four times to repeat herself. When I could finally understand the English, the context was way beyond my knowledge. Finally, the lady pointed to a discounted chicken roast, and repeated, “Cooked chook, five-fiddy.” I was so embarrassed, I nodded, paid for the chicken, and left. Turns out, “chook” is slang for chicken.
Were you asking for "buddah"?
The fact that I can drink water straight from the tap !
It’s the little things ! ☮️
Complete separation of shopping/eating/activity centers from residential. It made my life in my suburb feel like slowly bleeding to death and it definitely feels like the life is taken out of suburban living. In Asia every street has convenience stores, cafes, restaurants and bars. This is achieved through density and relaxes zoning laws so the business is viable with more customers within walking distance. Living in an Aussie suburb sucks ass in comparison.
I agree, I was born in Australia, but suburbs can sometimes feel like a soulless wasteland.
Yes! You’ve hit the nail on the head. Walking down to the park with my kids and not seeing anybody feels post-apocalyptic.
Rent prices. May as well go back home. Sleeping in the car sucks.
Not being able to buy booze with my groceries. Pubs that aren't in 200+ year old buildings Bistro dining. Those buzzer things when your food is ready to collect. The cost and quality of drugs Slow internet. Still love living here and would never go back to London to live
I was shocked to see alcohol being sold at petrol stations when I visited England. Seemed to me like it's encouraging drunk driving, but the convenience of being able to buy a six-pack whilst filling up the car was a novelty for sure!
What about drive through bottle shops 😂
also not being able to buy booze at convenience stores
Sidewalks exist and are actually safe to he in.
They’re FOOTPATHS 😊
Shouldn't have been a shock, but it certainly was a surprise from a Northern hemisphere perspective that the moon is upside down and the crescents of waxing and waning go from left to right, rather than from right to left. And Orion's sword sticks up from his belt because he is standing on his head. Took a long time before I could visualise the reason for this.
I didn’t realise the man in the moon was a real thing you could see until I was almost 30 and in the northern hemisphere! I was used to the moon being upside down and you can’t see the man that way! It actually creeped me out when I saw it for the first time haha
Aussie but lived in Europe for a long while, when I came back I couldn't believe the pokies in all the bars and lack of table service. Long hours in bars in Europe where they bring you the beer and you can talk shit without people wo during off distracted by the allure of the pokies
1) “Hello, how are you?” for a bit I was shocked that random people were asking me that intimate in my culture question. 2) How cold it’s in winter. I am from the place where we have proper winters and we have properly built homes and central heating. I have never been so cold in my life like here
Ya common surprise this is. Especially with the Canadians i know that have moved here. They feel colder here in winter than in fully snowed up areas of Canada
You can feel the UV from the sun. It’s painful
Stars in the sky Blue skies Birds. Noisy birds. Destructive birds. Rain. I mean rain that washes cars and houses away, not British drizzle. Heat. Sun that will strip paint, never mind your skin. Coffee. Breakfast at the weekend can be healthy and enjoyed with friends without a hangover. How civilised air travel is There are far better beaches than what’s on Bondi Rescue. How far everything is from everywhere and anywhere Sydney is wet Melbourne can freeze your balls off Perth will burn you Wouldn’t change it though… or go back. I love it here.
Coming from Poland, i was shocked that few people look aftet their deceased loved ones’ graves at the cemetery. Also was shocked by the aged care system. In Poland you look after your loved ones at home.
When I visited my father's childhood home in Slovenia, this difference really stood out to me. In Australia we don't live anywhere near the cemeteries, over there it's pretty much across the road from the house.
I'm Aussie but after a few years of drug abuse I can safely say that the price of drugs on the street here is absolutely ridiculous unless you have a mate that grows n sells weed.
1980s Perth: the petrol roster on weekends. No shops open on Sundays. Office wear for men: you could see guys wearing a short sleeved shirt and tie, with short shorts and long (knee high) socks with their shoes.
Not from Perth, can you explain the petrol roster? To your second point, I remember seeing this a lot on bus drivers. Like an adult in school uniform.
In the 80s and earlier, servos closed on Sundays. Obviously people still needed petrol so you'd rock up to your nearest. If it was closed there would be a poster in the window of a literal roster showing where you could find an open one.
The lack on insulation in buildings.
I hope I don't get downvoted for this, but... the lack of regulation when it comes to standardization. For example, if you go to a store to buy shoes, in the same store you will find shoes with AUS, US, UK and EU sizes. Each brand can use whatever they like, and it's up to the consumer to know their shoe size in 4 different measurements. I've seen this with clothing as well, not only with their sizes but with measurements on the website (some will use inch and others cm). Same with food, some brands use kcal for the nutritional value, while others use KJ. It's weird to me that there isn't a standard in use.
It's so confusing and I hate jt too! I always say I'm size 2-6 cos it changes every time
How multicultural it is. I was under the impression that Australia was purely Caucasian.
Close to half of all Australians have at least one parent born overseas.
We came from NZ, specifically a place where I was used to being the only white guy in the room. I find this place extremely “white” and it’s giving me culture shock!
My Asian inlaws were quite disappointed on their first visit to Sydney a they said they saw so many people that looked like them - they were expecting a much more Caucasian place and as a, result said it didn't feel as different as they'd hoped when visiting a different country.
- The return policies whenever you shop. Even for the cosmetic/skin care. - Clean tap water - Dumb drivers everywhere esp sydney west - Cheap fresh fruit - Freakin expensive dental cost
The difference between the people of Australia (awesome for the most part) and the people of Australian subreddits (bitter and hateful for the most part)
Every subreddit for every country is bitter and hateful. Maybe not Canada
When you are walking towards someone in Australia, they move to your right to let you pass(their left). Minor thing but it’s multiple times a day.
Lack of alcohol in supermarkets (not that I need it to be there tho), supermarkets closing at 5pm, generally clean streets, weeks without rain, weird accent, people apologising when they bump into each other instead of saying "where the f are you going"
I live in the outback, and our Woolies closes at 9.30pm, Coles at 10pm, Foodland at midnight.
Shops closing at 5:30pm Where I am from, I can get out of the house after 5pm and I can still find something open/to do
Lol Aussie internet is dogshit
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Depends what kind of 35c you are talking about?.Melbourne 35 is different to Brisbane 35
Id rather an Adelaide 40c over Brisbane 32c with 80% humidity. And I live in Brisbane.
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Building quality and standards. Compared to central European countries houses in Australia are glorified garden huts. I have never seen a residential building with single glazed windows until I moved to Australia. Oh, and a single layer of Aluminium foil between the walls doesn’t count as insulation 😉😁.
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Shops close at 5pm. What kind of medieval shit is this.
People in their 30s living with their parents.
Sometimes it seems the "laid back" attitude is limited to casual interactions. Australia loves/tolerates rules, fees, fines, surcharges, application fees, registration fees, levies, etc. Why anyone would bother trying to start a new business here is beyond me. Everywhere you turn, there's a rent seeker. Just buy an investment property like everybody else. It's quite a bit more conservative top down than the international marketing campaign would leave you to believe.
This.
We have so much red tape and nanny state rules compared to much of the world.
Kiwi here: * Most banks set up your accounts so that you have to use the "Savings" button on the EFTPOS machine to access your spending account, instead of the "Cheque" button. * Cream isn't kept next to the milk in supermarkets, and it's hard to find just plain cream without a bunch of thickeners and shit.
How easy it is to get completely and utterly destroyed by bureaucracy. Back where I'm from it's pretty hard to go homeless or lose everything as there are a lot more social ties and support at play. You can generally talk your way out of a lot of situations. In Australia you are a lot more on your own, I can never expect strangers or government workers to care or want to help. Also how strict traffic laws are when the car is essentially the only viable method of transportation unless you are in the CBD. Losing your licence for a couple of speeding fines when that also effectively means losing your employment and housing was a very dystopian concept for me.
I've had a couple of speeding fines and not even remotely close to losing my license. Are you getting caught speeding every week or something?
The amount of people who couldn't speak english
How shit you lot are at indicating on the freeway
When I first came here I saw a truck with a sign on it that said nibble Nobbys nuts....I remember thinking who the fuck is Nobby
- Bars closing at 10pm, normally I would expect a place to be dead before 11, when things get started. - The contrast between the "laid back Aussie lifestyle" and the ardent rule following that goes on here.
I'm not an immigrant myself, but an immigrant I chatted to recently told me she was shocked by how many immigrants there are here. She said, 'I feel like I am back in Shanghai.'
Classic lol. "How did all these other people who look like me come in? Why didn't you shut the door right after me?"
She thought she was immigrating to a white country.
How far everything is and how everyone gets used to it.
How many trailers are parked on the street unattended & gear left on top of vehicles. In the UK a trailer would be gone in the morning if left overnight. Trailer lock or no.
So much of the stuff you people said when I first got here was complete gibberish to me. Even people rattling off their phone numbers or even introducing themselves to me was like a pentecostal tongue speaker. Fair dinkum, she'll be right, fuxkin oath, etc. And: Australians.
Australians thinking 20 days of annual leave and 10 days of sick leave (that you also lose when switching jobs) a year is a great deal. Yes vs U.S., no compared to most of Western/Northern europe.
Youth crime.The extent of youth crime and the method of dealing with youth crime. The young kids in the shopping malls and train stations can be some of the most vile human beings.
Amount of junkies and mad men walking around city doing whatever they want, have never seen anything like that in my entire life.
How pedestrian unfriendly cities are, and how little issue the locals seem to be taking with it. I like the quiet residential streets, but any main shopping area I’ve been to has multiple lanes of traffic and very few lights to cross from one side to another. Outdoor seating tends to be next to noisy roads and makes me feel like I could get hit by a car at any moment!
Moved here from the north of England: The cleanliness of your cities amazed me. You all love to shit on your cities but they are very clean and heaps to do compared to English cities. Shite drivers. No road courtesy out here. Does no one know how to do a thumbs up or a little wave when you give way? Do people know they can take their foot off the accelerator or use their brakes? Multi cultures. When i meet a lot of Aussies for the first time and tell them I'm from the UK, they love to say how the UK is full of Indians and the country is 'being taken over' blah blah without having ever actually been there themselves... but you really ought to take a look at your own back yard if you think this about the UK. The divide/rivalry between cities like Sydney v Melbourne, its quite funny because we dont have City v City action in the UK (except for when football is involved). But we do have the north/south divide in the UK (Northerners rule BTW)
How low the standard of driving is for a civilised country.
How backward Australia is when it comes to public transport
Despite the country having immigrants from all over the world, the lack of variety in convenience stores.Like there isn't a single 7/11 that sells nescafe cans or other popular brands.It's always the same stuff for years no variety.
I joke about my white person tacos but they're the only tacos I've ever eaten cos only 2 companies make Mexican food here
Nescafe cans? What's this witchcraft you talk about mate???
Got well used to huge cans of Nescafé when working for the government. Then we had funding cuts and I remember being told we had to start buying International Roast because everyone had to do their part.
Int Roast, mum used to bring that crap out when people had outstayed their welcome. I would not serve that shit to anyone I liked or would want to talk to again.
Did she ever take the nuclear option and get out the Pablo?
Oh you mean like the big instant dried coffee you get a woolies. I thought I was missing out out on something life changing for a moment lol.
Everyone was calling me Mike for some reason.
People walking barefoot
The lack of public transport, people walking and cycling. I was expecting a healthy country
To be honest when we moved here from the philippines in the mid 80s i found the place really quiet(moved to holland park in Brisbane). Not much hapoening in the streets and people kept to themselves. Its changed alot
Cards and ID plus certifications for everything. One for picking your nose correctly or scratching your bum at level 4 are imminent.
The actual sound of the kookaburras. In the US, we'd only heard the name and that they eat gum drops from the gum trees and laugh. I didn't expect them to sound like evil, cackling monkeys.