Ya Ta! (I did it!)

The day I left, I had a great reminder of American culture – a Southern breakfast. My grandmother got up early (she always does) and stopped in at the store for some fresh salt pork. She made salt pork, biscuits (which we had with butter and honey), and grits with red eye gravy. Then, just before the first leg of my trip (Nashville to Los Angeles), we had fried chicken, potato salad, green beans, and fresh fruit, with sun tea to wash it all down.



In Los Angeles, I transferred over to the Intenational terminal, where I had dinner from a Mexican restaurant. I figured Mexican wouldn’t be as common in Australia, so I rounded out my last “American” meals with some tacos. The eating areas were pretty full, so I shared a table with a girl from the UK, who was passing through on a trip from the UK to New York for a week, Los Angeles for a couple days, Fiji for a week or so, New Zealand for a month, and Australia for six months. She knows how to travel! It was great to swap stories, and I might get some benefit from her New Zealand experiences later on when I try to go there.



The flight from LA to Melbourne was pretty much a straight shot. And once we arrived, it wasn’t too long before I made my way through immigration, picked up my bags, got them sniffed out by a security beagle, took my things to customs, declared my Fig Newtons, and found my driver.

They know how to treat people here. EY had arranged for a driver to pick me up (not a taxicab, mind you). I happened to ride with the owner of the business, who drove me in a BMW down to the CBD (central business district; equivalent to “downtown” for most Americans). Before dropping me off, he gave me some advice on sports teams, things to do, and took a detour around the CBD to show me some of the sites.

Upon dropping me off, I met up with a couple from France, guys from New York and Seattle, and my roommate from Boston (not all at the same time). My roommate took me on a tour of a few areas, went for pancakes with ice cream on top, and showed me to the Queen Victoria Market, which will likely be a blog of its own sometime. Later that evening, we went down to the waterfront, which I can see from my apartment, checked out the area, and met up with a couple other Bostonian transplants. I was pretty tired when we got back (I almost fell asleep standing up), so I turned in about 10 pm and slept like a baby until about 6:30 am Sunday morning (about 3:30 pm Saturday, Central time, I think).

Biggest take-aways so far:

1. Everything is more expensive here!
The purchasing power of the dollar itself is so much less. I’m not sure if it’s taxes or transport, or some combination, that causes the disparity, but it’s hard to convert Australian to US, then figure out why things still cost so much more! You may say that it’s because I’m used to Tulsa, but even the Bostonians and New Yorker agreed. And that’s saying something.

2. Even speaking the same language, there are still some interesting differences.
Australian English is a lot more laid back. It’s not an Exit (okay, sometimes it is), it’s the “Way Out.” The back of a bottle of oil didn’t say it was still usable, it’s “fine for use.” Just talking with people, of varying ages, the way they use the language just seems more casual. Little things like that will make this more interesting.