We got a lot done today. Like, heaps of stuff done in just one day!!! We walked to what we thought was a mall today, and it turned out to be the best mall...EVER.
Imagine if our malls back home had a grocery store, bakery, liquor store, bank, post office, bus station and about 9 places to sit and have tea....that is the "mall" we went to today!!
We managed to get a cell phone...excuse me, "mobile" through a carrier called "Optus", and then also open our bank accounts with Westpac. Ate at the best food court of our lives (had everything from kabobs to salads and wraps to sushi and, of course, McDonalds). HOWEVER we realized that everything here costs both your arm and your leg. We found a "Target" (Success!!) but at this Target it was much smaller and a cute blouse in the Junior's section costs $30. (Yes, girls that is terrible for me) Shoe prices...don't even get me started. Looks like I'll need my bargain hunting skills pretty badly here.
But for your reading enjoyment, here are the top 10 most interesting things we found out today about Aussie:
1.Phone numbers are strange. The first two digits are either 04, or 07. (Mobile or landline). Then after that code is your 8 digit number.
2. DVDS cost bloody $40! Crikey!
3. Toilets here can be either half flushed "if you want to just have a wee" or fully flushed. There are two buttons on the handle for the option you want. (smart, yeah?)
4. Most of the media and news/gossip publications feature the latest stupid thing that Pres Bush or Paris Hilton did lately. There are heaps of Bush haters out here. I won't say anymore on that. They mostly just laugh at us Americans because they know everything about our country and we don't know JACK about the rest of the world. (Our new friends told us that)
5. A 16 oz bottle of Coca-Cola (made with cane sugar, not nasty high fructose corn syrup!) costs $3.00. One Vitamin Water costs $4.00. Looks like I'll have a tap water, thanks. B's Vitamin Water addiction is over as of today.
6. Brisbane is in a drought right now, so if you go over your water usage allotment, you get fined. This means 4 minute showers and handwashing dishes...quickly. (Tell THAT to loofah-exfoliating-shaving-and whistling in the hot shower-Kozan)
7.Cell phone plans are REALLY weird here. You don't buy minutes. You pay $30 for "$130 worth of minutes". Yeah, makes no sense at all. We must have asked about 4 different sales people to explain it. Oh, and apparently they are getting the iphone here next month...Brian happily found this out, so send food! We probably won't be able to afford to eat in July!
8. Little Aussie kids with Aussie accents are the cutest thing ever invented. Especially when they are riding on little wagon things with the "Wiggles" on them.
9. At Westpac Banks here, they show a training video to their employees called "banking of the future"- showing drive through banks in America! They were asking us all about it. We were cracking up.
10.It is WINTER time here. There are signs everywhere for stores like "winter fashions" and "fight off your winter colds with kleenex tissues". BIZARRE!!
(ok, ok had to add a #11). They have 4 channels on tv here. A majority of the shows are either British or American tv shows, or Rugby. They laugh when we talk about all the channels we have at home. (WE ARE SPOILED IN AMERICA!) The Aussies also talk about the "bloody giant refrigerators" we have in the States, too. The food here is in small, reasonable containers to fit their small, reasonably sized fridges. We realized in the grocery store that we are indeed gluttons.
That's all for today! We have almost gotten hit by cars trying to cross the road, we don't know what temperature it is, nor do we know how far anything is because of the driving on the opposite side of the road, celsius temps, and kilometers. (People look at you really oddly when you mention anything in miles, inches or degrees.)
Today was so fun because whenever we talked to people, they would smile a lot when we talked about home and thought it was cool that we were Americans. (Thank goodness for that. You're not so lucky in most of the world).
I suppose that Australia is a cleaner, warmer, less uptight, and more chilled out version of London. (Sara and Phillip, you can see guess what I mean) But man do they love their rugby and BEER!
That's all for now! We're going into the city tomorrow to try to find the US Embassy and check out some flats along the way. We logged into Skype momentarily to say a Happy Father's Day, so sorry if you saw us online and we couldn't chat. The wi-fi connection was a bad one, so it dropped in and out. We gave up and left. Next week should hopefully prove to be better. We miss everyone a lot, and have said many times throughout the day, "oh so and so would think that was cool," or " so and so would laugh at that one". We'll post pix when possible, but for now here's one of B eating his breakfast of toast with Vegemite. (top)
Imagine if our malls back home had a grocery store, bakery, liquor store, bank, post office, bus station and about 9 places to sit and have tea....that is the "mall" we went to today!!
We managed to get a cell phone...excuse me, "mobile" through a carrier called "Optus", and then also open our bank accounts with Westpac. Ate at the best food court of our lives (had everything from kabobs to salads and wraps to sushi and, of course, McDonalds). HOWEVER we realized that everything here costs both your arm and your leg. We found a "Target" (Success!!) but at this Target it was much smaller and a cute blouse in the Junior's section costs $30. (Yes, girls that is terrible for me) Shoe prices...don't even get me started. Looks like I'll need my bargain hunting skills pretty badly here.
But for your reading enjoyment, here are the top 10 most interesting things we found out today about Aussie:
1.Phone numbers are strange. The first two digits are either 04, or 07. (Mobile or landline). Then after that code is your 8 digit number.
2. DVDS cost bloody $40! Crikey!
3. Toilets here can be either half flushed "if you want to just have a wee" or fully flushed. There are two buttons on the handle for the option you want. (smart, yeah?)
4. Most of the media and news/gossip publications feature the latest stupid thing that Pres Bush or Paris Hilton did lately. There are heaps of Bush haters out here. I won't say anymore on that. They mostly just laugh at us Americans because they know everything about our country and we don't know JACK about the rest of the world. (Our new friends told us that)
5. A 16 oz bottle of Coca-Cola (made with cane sugar, not nasty high fructose corn syrup!) costs $3.00. One Vitamin Water costs $4.00. Looks like I'll have a tap water, thanks. B's Vitamin Water addiction is over as of today.
6. Brisbane is in a drought right now, so if you go over your water usage allotment, you get fined. This means 4 minute showers and handwashing dishes...quickly. (Tell THAT to loofah-exfoliating-shaving-and whistling in the hot shower-Kozan)
7.Cell phone plans are REALLY weird here. You don't buy minutes. You pay $30 for "$130 worth of minutes". Yeah, makes no sense at all. We must have asked about 4 different sales people to explain it. Oh, and apparently they are getting the iphone here next month...Brian happily found this out, so send food! We probably won't be able to afford to eat in July!
8. Little Aussie kids with Aussie accents are the cutest thing ever invented. Especially when they are riding on little wagon things with the "Wiggles" on them.
9. At Westpac Banks here, they show a training video to their employees called "banking of the future"- showing drive through banks in America! They were asking us all about it. We were cracking up.
10.It is WINTER time here. There are signs everywhere for stores like "winter fashions" and "fight off your winter colds with kleenex tissues". BIZARRE!!
(ok, ok had to add a #11). They have 4 channels on tv here. A majority of the shows are either British or American tv shows, or Rugby. They laugh when we talk about all the channels we have at home. (WE ARE SPOILED IN AMERICA!) The Aussies also talk about the "bloody giant refrigerators" we have in the States, too. The food here is in small, reasonable containers to fit their small, reasonably sized fridges. We realized in the grocery store that we are indeed gluttons.
That's all for today! We have almost gotten hit by cars trying to cross the road, we don't know what temperature it is, nor do we know how far anything is because of the driving on the opposite side of the road, celsius temps, and kilometers. (People look at you really oddly when you mention anything in miles, inches or degrees.)
Today was so fun because whenever we talked to people, they would smile a lot when we talked about home and thought it was cool that we were Americans. (Thank goodness for that. You're not so lucky in most of the world).
I suppose that Australia is a cleaner, warmer, less uptight, and more chilled out version of London. (Sara and Phillip, you can see guess what I mean) But man do they love their rugby and BEER!
That's all for now! We're going into the city tomorrow to try to find the US Embassy and check out some flats along the way. We logged into Skype momentarily to say a Happy Father's Day, so sorry if you saw us online and we couldn't chat. The wi-fi connection was a bad one, so it dropped in and out. We gave up and left. Next week should hopefully prove to be better. We miss everyone a lot, and have said many times throughout the day, "oh so and so would think that was cool," or " so and so would laugh at that one". We'll post pix when possible, but for now here's one of B eating his breakfast of toast with Vegemite. (top)
Sending you all our love from the other side of the planet and the other hemisphere, mates!
Sum & B
4 comments:
AH so cool!! I am cracking up over here in the states =p Keep it coming, you cute Americans with your cute accents!
While reading, Jan says aloud:
"40 bucks for a DVD!" ten seconds later "3 bucks!" haha I think he's going to send you DVDs and soda =p
That is so funny that our fridges are considered big! Usually because we can hardly fit all our stuff in there in the first place! Oh man, gluttonous Americans!!
And so the adventure begins. I hope you come back with accents!
Vegimite is basically the grossest stuff ever created. Please tell me you didn't enjoy it and were just trying it as part of the "experience". :P
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