... thoughts after 8 months in Australia

The cat (as I call it, but not everyone thinks this resembles a cat) - by Yarra River in Melbourne

Hey all,

I thought that I would share some things after my now 8 month long stay in Aussie, mostly in Melbourne ...

- Aussie as a country is easy to live in, people are nice and especially
the ones in Melbourne are much nicer than the Sydney people :), the laid back style is something I like and getting used to now.

- Weather and the changing seasons is obvious, can't even compare to the cold and dark winters in Sweden to the winter down in Melbourne, with 10 degrees in July it's winter time here and people are putting on clothes as if it were -20, looks funny to me. The Melbourne weather can be summed-up by this quote by Kerry Greenwood - who´s an Australian author " ... if you don´t like it, just wait half an hour and it changes" :)

- Riding a bike (push bike) to work isn't so common here, my colleagues are still saying that I'm brave and such a good sport girl who takes the bike to work every day, even in rain! To me it's just normal, nothing out of the ordinary since I'm always on the bike home in Lund as well :).

- The working hours here in Australia are between 9 to 5 and not 8 to 5 as in Sweden, almost everybody finishes after 5pm and most of my managers are working from home in the evenings and weekends. Working part time is quite common as well, especially if you have a family since the child care in Australia is expensive and bad.

- Saying good bye to someone - "see you later" - I'm still getting comfortable with saying this, when I reply back "maybe I'll see you" I can get a strange look :), why can't people just say 'see you' or just 'good bye'?

- All the signs in traffic and in the streets or along a path are so ridiculously funny - for instance if there are 3 men working on a bridge repair the sign below them will say "Caution, Working men above" . I'm collecting funny signs from Australia since I came in February, have some good ones .. how about this one?



This a common sign along Great Ocean Road, there are many tourists driving here and accidents do happen.

- Bike trails are not so common, the one I use every day along the river Yarra is a good one since it's separated from the cars. The common sense in traffic when there is a bike among the cars is non-existent, the cars don't even bother to slow down and let you pass or if you're in the way trying to cross over, they just horn on you and scare the shit of you. I think I'm going to be an aggressive biker when I go back to Sweden after my Melbournian bike-experience. Oh, one more thing about bikes ... when you´re passing somebody on the bike track you´re supposed to say "passing" or "on your right". I´m still getting annoyed when somebody is passing me, I don´t like to be a slow bike rider and still don´t like the "passing" word. Will have to accept this I think!

- The Aussie slang isn't so difficult, I'm used to the most common words by now, "barbie, brekkie, fair dinkum, no worries, see you later, hey mate, see you in a soup, she'll be apples" and many more. I'm learning new words every day and I've put up a long list on my wall at home so I can practise them. My favourite word at work is 'due diligence' (meaning: investigation of business/person before signing a contract) - it's a such a beautiful word I think.

- The food shopping is something I really enjoy here, there is so much to choose from, too many options of food, so many brands and the quality differs from product to product. I think the food prices are quite high, well ... when I payed 5 dollars for a kilo of apples I thought that this would probably cost me 2 dollars in Sweden. It´s strange, I still think of the Swedish prices here, 5 AUD is nearly 35 SEK. The bananas are very expensive at the moment, 3 dollars, that´s just ridicolous ... but I still buy them because I love bananas!

Will come back with some more reflexions after my year in Australia when I´ve seen and experienced more!
Spring is here now, spring is from September to November ... a bit strange but very okey for me :)