The most "popular" difference is probably that you drive on the other side of the street. I must admit, driving a car has totally changed. I have to concentrate everytime I change the lane or turn left or right. I often hit my right hand against the door because I'm trying to find the gear stick. Or sometimes I spend minutes reaching for my seatbelt on my left side - but actually I am just grabbing air because my seatbelt is on the other side. But you get used to it after a while. I even caught myself thinking that the cars in a series that I watched drove on the wrong side, just because they drove on the right side.
I noticed the next difference right on my second evening in Australia: We were camping at Moreton Island and watched the sunset and when it got dark I looked at the night sky and saw that the moon was kind of overturned. I mean, of course it can't look as in Germany, because I look at the moon in another angle, but in that moment it was just really confusing seeing the moon that way.
Back to non-geographical differences: The australian door builders must did something wrong. I mean, it must be consequential, that you need to turn a key in the lock towards the door when you want to lock it and the opposite direction when you want to open it, right? But somehow, it is logical to Australians that you do the opposite. Maybe this has to do with the angle of the moon, but I do it everytime wrong when I try to lock a bathroom door or open the front door.
However, the next difference is the food. Of course we do have the same basic things like fruits and vegetables, meat and cheese, lollies and chocolate (YUMMY). But what about bread? You can't find the good old "Schwarzbrot" aka brown bread here!! They do have a really good sheabutter - but that's it. And isn't it weird that they don't eat "Brötchen" aka soft rolls for breakfast? They don't even sell them! I guess I have to make them once, so my australian family knows what they're missing! Here you also drink tap water instead of buying (sparkling) water. A lot of other Germans that I met agree that the tap water smells like a swimmingpool, but since my australian family is drinking it their whole life, I guess it's not toxic. ;) Sometimes I do feel like I am in Great Britain, at least when it comes to tea - they have tea (with milk!!!) for breakfast, they have a morning tea after breakfast, a tea for lunch, an afternoon tea and a cup of tea in the evening. It sounds crazy, I know!! But by now I turned into a tea drinker too. I found one of the best fruit teas at coles (a supermarket) and I love to drink (only one) cup of tea a day.
You may noticed that at "About me" I wrote, that I "hate vegetables". Well, my hostmum gave advised me to change that, because (believe it or not) I started to eat quite a lot vegetables here. Besides carrot, peas and potato I now eat pumpkin (because somehow they are more tasty than in Germany), zucchini, sugar peas, cauliflower, cucumber and sweet potato (you can be proud of me Abolita!!).
I am sure there are a lot more differences, e.g. the time as well as the sunrise and sunset, but that should be enough for the day, I have to prepare dinner now.
I have to add, that even though there are some differences to Germany, it's great here. I couldn't think of a place where the people are more open minded and relaxed, where the beach is that empty and the weather changes that incredible. Australia is truly one of the best countries I've been to, maybe the best and I like all the different things about it, all it's rough edges. :)
See you next time mates
xo -G
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