Friday, November 17, 2017

My time in Australia - one year later - episode 2

Hey all! 

I'm so glad that you guys seemed to like my last Australia post! It got a lot more reads than my other posts, you guys are the best! 

So since I have an hour to spare (finally), I figured I'll do an episode 2! 

This one will be more of a series, or list, of 10 things I found to be typical Aussie (or at least Perth-based!) 

1. Timtams
Cookies from heaven. I swear. If any of you live in Australia and can send me a box of Timtams I will be the happiest person alive! 

(Imagine them as rectangular Oreos, with chocolate cookies, chocolate cream in the middle, and chocolate covering the whole thing. Heaven in a cookie, I tell you!) 

They're everywhere and have so many different versions! They're given as prizes and as intro gifts and yes Timtams forever. 

2. Potatoes 
I'm not sure if this is actually an Aussie thing or if it's just because we lived on campus and they were cheap to make, but we had potatoes in some way, shape or form for every meal, including breakfast. Kind of magical, I must say! 

3. Red Frogs
So I think the Red Frogs is a charity in the Perth area. I didn't know much about them but this group of people was the best. They brought random candy for us, made us pancakes every other week (Thank you!), organized quiz nights and had charity runs. 

4. Asians
One thing I was not expecting when going to Perth was there being so many people from Asia, notably from Singapore! (In a good way though they were all so nice!) There's a whole language called Singlish (Singaporean English) and I must admit, I picked up on some of their dialects while I was there. 

Perks though: Asian food for days, for cheap, at a good quality! 

5. The lack of heaters
Ok so everyone imagines Australia as warm and sunny. It is, and it isn't. In the winter it still gets way cold. Basically cold enough to need a big jacket and snuggle by the heater. Except that there are no heaters - only a little metal bars that heat up close to the ceiling. If you go in the winter, bring a sweater! That's all I can say! 
6. Australian English 
Yes there's the Aussie dialect. Sometimes it's confusing (especially on the radio). But most people I met there speak what almost sounds like Brittish English. It's really not all that bad! :D 
7. Surfing and Oceans
I miss the ocean and I miss surfing! My goodness, I understand why surfing is so huge: it makes you feel like you're flying on water. And the Indian ocean is so gorgeous! Bring me back, please! 
8. Clearest. Skies. Ever. 
WA is one of the best places for astronomy. There's only one big city and as soon as you go far away enough the sky is bright enough to have a beautiful view of the Milky Way. I loved going out with my class at night to talk about aboriginal myths about stars and constellations. They have such an interesting mythology and language, it was fascinating to learn about! 
9. 2000s Music? Yes please! 
Every party, event, tv station, you name it, was all about 2000s music. A rare modern song would be played from time to time but otherwise everything was from the 2000s/early 2010s. It was amazing, and a lot of fun! 
10. Midnight is not just for Cinderella
Everything in Australia (including nightclubs) close at midnight. Student nights were at Midnight, which meant that Thursday morning, if you needed to get up early, it wasn't much of a problem. That I found to be interesting and quite useful!! 

I hope you enjoyed this little blogpost! 

Stay bookish, 


No comments:

Post a Comment

Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed this post!
Any and all comments make me smile, and I will reply to all of them!
I can reply in English, French, and sometimes in Dutch and German.
Have an absolutely fabulous day!