10 things we noticed about Australia having been in Canada for 2 years

Hey there!

So we've been back a week and already we've bought a car, bought Sim cards for our old mobiles, caught up with our respective families, gone shopping for new work clothes (B), got haircuts, visited financial planners (F), driven to Sydney to visit 7 possible rental properties, and completed full applications for 5 of them. I also snuck in a day at the Magic Sneak Peek Morningtide tournament on Sunday (no I didn't do particularly well but it was fun).

2 years is a long time to be away from your home country as it turns out. We had some fairly strong impressions about things when we got here, including a few things we had forgotten...

1. It's really really bright here! The summer sun in Aus is really strong (and it's easy to get sunburnt). I didn't seriously need my sunglasses in Canada - and the locals probably thought I was some sort of pratt for wearing them. Canada (and more to the point, UK) really has dim winters because the sun just never gets that high in the sky.

2. The internet is really slow! Don't know yet if it's just the various internet plans that our folks are using, but it does seem just that the technology isn't up to muster compared to the cable link up we had in Canada. Part of the problem of course is that Canberra never really got their broadband cable rollout sorted. We'll find out soon whether or not Sydney is any better.

3. Cars adhere to the speed limit. It was really noticeable driving up to Sydney that all the cars were doing pretty much right on the 110km/h limit, as though they'd get booked for doing mroe than about 5km/h over. Of course, that was the Australia Day long weekend with double demerit points if you got caught, so everyone was being extra careful. On the way home from Syd, we saw at least 3 speed traps, including a purple-hot-rod-unmarked-cop-car that shot past us on the way to an arrest.

4. The air is clean! Even with a really bad head cold, I could still smell the eucalypt around the Macquarie University area. I really don't miss the smog in Hamilton and Toronto - sorry guys, there's no polite way to put this - your province stinks!

5. Tap water is soft and tastes pretty much like rainwater. This makes tea that is way better and doesn't have the weird scum that floats on top. (I actually thought the scum was something about the tea bags in Canada, but I'm told that it's the hard water there and I believe it!)

6. Local news, instead of being obsessed with violent crime (Hamilton Spectator I'm looking at you) is obsessed with violent car accidents (eg Ten News on the TV). Blowed if I know why - I don't think our road toll is any greater than Canada, nor is our violent crime rate any lower. And I don't know anyone in either country who enjoys hearing about people dying violently. Go figure.

7. Temperature inside houses is much more uneven. It might cool off in the evening and, instead of turning up the central heating as we would in Canada, you just go and put a jumper on. Of course, this is just a product of the generally more temperate climate in Canberra - and the lack of pressure for houses to have good insulation. In Canada, it is way too cold to even consider not heating your house in winter. Given this, I'm mystified at reported figures showing that Australians use more energy per capita than Canadians - where do we make up the shortfall?

8. Our newly acquired car is a 1995 Mazda 121. A 12-year-old car in Canada would have had it's bottom fall out due to rust from the salt on the roads. In Australia, cars survive to a much older age. My first car, a 1977 Datsun 180B, was older than I am!

9. Fresh food!!! Mangos taste awesome! Also, KFC Zinger burgers are actually spicy!

10. Do we really sound like that? 2 years is apparently long enough to forget what your average Australian accent sounds like. We really are a bunch of twangy yokels! How can anyone take us seriously? I mean that in an endearing way of course - they're our yokels!

Bonus point: At the Canberra Games Convention last weekend (CANCON), I saw a biker-Dad with his four boys who had matching mullets (known in Canada as "hockey hair" according to Wikipedia). I felt patriotic.

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This "10 things" post is dedicated to the memory of Heath Ledger