I understood at the second that i walked out from the airport, Australia wasn’t like any other country i’ve been before. From it’s language, to its strange birds that i could only see in zoos in my country, everything you can imagine was different. I tried to make a list of them, here we go:
It’s normal to see Ibis everywhere, sometimes even on your table eating your pizza
1) Weird animals: In Turkey we have pigeons lovely innocent birds, in Australia instead there are birds called “ibis” which attack to your food. I saw with my eyes how aggresive they can be whenyou don’t share your food with them. They look like they are teleported from stone age: a really long beak, wings that are not strong enough to carry the fat body… But ibis of course wasn’t the only weird animal, do i need to mention about the big spiders or iguanas? My campus was the home for iguanas. If you were lying on the grass it was highly possible to see an iguana passing just next to you. Of course for us it was a reason to take a photo but whenever Ozzies see us trying to take a photo of them i could always tell the ” Ohhh, these Europeans! ” impression on their face.
2)Ocean & Sharks: I had never seen an ocean in my life, until i went to Gold Coast. I still remember my shockwhen i first see those huge waves. Appearently they were just baby waves for Ozzies i understood when i see them smiling after my reaction. Then as you expect i asked about the sharks: ” Is it dangerous here if i go swimming? Have u heard any shark attacks recently?” When they replied me as “No, you don’t need to worry about that” i was reliefed for a second until i hear: ” It didn’t happen since last month “. They must be kidding me, shouldn’t i worry about that?! After exactly 1 month from that conversation i was used to the Australian way of life:i swam in this water , i surfed, i had believed its safe if there is no shark attack in the last few months. I was sure the helicopters shuttling above the ocean could see the sharks and save me if there is any problem. It was the rule of Australia; try to pretend like everything is normal, if you are afraid you cannot survive there.
3) Language: I remember the first time that Australian accent hit me on the face when a guy talked to me at the airport: ” Hey mate, how ‘r’ ya going?” I must admit until i got used to it, i could only understand a few words, i was always saying yes or nodding my head but still it didn’t change my thoughts about their accent is one of the cutest in the world. First of all you have to learn a few critical words: When they say ” Let’s go to macca mate!” you shouldn’t throw at them ” what the f*ck is macca” look. ( Macca= McDonalds). The same is valid for Hungry Jack’s which is the Australian version of Burger King. You should erase the word “girl” from your vocabulary and use “chick” instead or should say ” Holy dooley!” which means “My Goodness!”. I know it sounds weird but when you live there, without intention you start to use those words. At the end of our exchange we were all calling each other “mate”.
Talking about the different words with no doubt the number one is : GOON. You may ask what is a goon? It’s the cheapest wine that all poor internationals drink.(I doubt it was wine, i heard it contains fish oil but i preferred better not to check the ingredients). You drink it from the pack usually so you never understand how much you drank, in the morning a huge hangover welcomes you. Everytime i drank goon i told myself “it’s going to be the last time” but i knew from the beginning this is never gonna happen…
This is how you drink goon
4) Suburb names: Another thing that was really weird to me was the name of the suburbs like : Indooroopilly or woolloongabba. At first i was thinking how i’m gonna memorize all of these weird names but i didn’t need to because Australians always find a practical way: they just call Gabba, so easy!
Surely this list can be continued for sooo long, actually it may never end because Australia is a unique country which has its own rules that you can never encounter anywhere else in the world. Maybe that’s the reason why i LOVE Australia that much!!
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