If I had both the money and no crippling phobia of flying, I would love to travel to Australia. Every picture I’ve seen of the country, whether the west coast where Perth is or the east coast where Sydney is, has been utterly stunning. I’m insanely jealous of anyone who has had an opportunity to travel there. I have other, more humorous reasons for wanting to go aside from just looking at beautiful landscapes. One, I’d love to see snow on my birthday, as I was born in June, and with Australia being below the equator, the seasons are reversed compared to what they are here — their summer is our winter and vice versa. Two, I want to see if it’s true that toilets flush counterclockwise. That sounds like a pretty stupid reason to travel tens of thousands of miles I know, but I still think it would be fun as hell to see if it’s true or not. Three, I want to ask a real, bonafide Australian if they really say things like “put another shrimp on the barbie” or “g’day mate” or if that’s just something Americans/Europeans made up in a book or movie at some point and it just became accepted wisdom. Four, I’d like someone to explain what the hell “tie me kangaroo down, sport” actually means. Is it slang for sex or something? I hope not. I try to run a clean blog. 😉
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Designer Sophisticate 
I can answer a few, being a South African living in Australia! You would be disappointed to see snow in June, as there is not much snow that falls in Australia. Only if you go to a few remote ski resorts, in the cities no snow falls. Will confirm about the toilets flushing. haven’t noticed before! G’day mate is quite commonly used, also G’day as a greeting, though it’s not language I use at all. No idea what “tie me kangaroo down, sport” means, never heard it! As an aside, Aussies really like to shorten words a lot! By adding either an ‘o’ on the end, or ‘ie’, so document becomes doco, registration becomes rego, Christmas becomes Chrissie, barbeque becomes barbie, lipstick = lippie, you get the idea! I’m not making this up! 🙂
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Aww, I wanted to see some snow on my birthday. I knew it was probably a remote chance, given that Australia generally has a rather warm climate, but I’ll take wearing shorts and a t-shirt on Christmas instead.
Oh wait, we did that this past Christmas here in North Carolina. Seriously. It was 78° on Christmas Day. I walked the dog after lunch in a tank top and shorts. I’m from Chicago originally, and going outside on Christmas in a tank top and shorts would get you frostbite if you tried it. Also, thanks for letting me know about the toilets — I always half-wondered if it was an urban legend or if it actually happened that way.
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I just flushed my toilet a few times, but the water just seems to go down, neither clockwise nor counter clockwise. I will check at work tomorrow and report back!
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Heh. I appreciate your dedication to science!
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I never got to check today! Was having a hectic last day at work. It just never crossed my mind. 😊
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I hate to tell you this, but “tie me kangaroo down sport — and the song it came from — was written by a Canadian. 🙂
I think this line is just like the rest of the song, a fun thing, supposedly a dying Aussie’s last instructions to his mates. “Mind me platypus duck, Luck” etc., was all to work and Australian flavour into the thing.
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Well, damn. Here I thought it was some cool Aussie slang or something. Next you’ll tell me Australians don’t say “waltzing Matilda” either. 😉
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Hate to ruin your illusions, but we don’t put another shrimp on the barbie, either – we don’t call them shrimps. They’re prawns, to us, renamed for the American release of the movie (Crocodile Dundee?). And ‘Waltzing Matilda’ is a song, so we don’t actually say it much, just sing it. But come to Australia anyway. It is stunning, we’re a friendly lot, and I guarantee your language will never be the same again!
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Next thing you’ll tell me, you don’t actually walk upside down since Australia is situated toward the bottom of the planet. I feel shattered that I’ve been lied to all these years about your beautiful country. *cries*
Just kidding. I don’t mind being corrected about these things — I always enjoy learning new things. I can clear up any misconceptions you have about Americans, if you would like. We’re not all obese, we don’t all love guns, we’re not all like Donald Trump, and we’re not all a bunch of Bible-thumpers. My apologies if that’s how we appear, it doesn’t reflect the whole.
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Interesting read. I also like Vonita’s comment especially what she says about Aussies shortening words. I had a good laugh when Vonita promised to check the toilet at work and report back. Fun isn’t it? I hope others enjoy this post and the comments as much as I do.
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