Australia is one of those places that I’ve always wanted to travel to, but yet, was never at the top of my travel list. I think the reason is, I had it in my mind that Australia is probably quite similar to Canada and since there are so many places out there that are much more different, Australia always ended up lower on my list.
Nevertheless, I’ve often been curious about how different a westernized English speaking country be from Canada? Especially one that is a former British colony. It is easy to compare Canada with the US, and the differences are massive, but could a country half way across the world be more similar, because of our shared history?
I flew into the Gold Coast on a hot spring day. Although it was just October, the temperatures were around 30, and I could immediately feel the warmth as soon as I disembarked the aircraft. Upon arrival, I immediately saw an Optus phone booth, where I could purchase a SIM card for my stay. Ironically, the 2 gentlemen working the phone booth were both from Western Canada, and one was even from my hometown.
As I was in the Gold Coast, which is known as a bit of a tourist town, I expected that the days would start a bit later, but by 8am, the streets were filled with people. I wondered if it had to do with the heat, as the closer it got to noon, the less people there were around. Perhaps people started early and went back to rest during mid-day.
I had previously been told that in Australia, restaurants are a lot more self-service style, in that you often have to go and retrieve your own water, and you need to go up to the till to pay for your meal after you are finished. I actually really love this and wish it was like this in North America. At home, often when the wait staff are busy, you can be left sitting there to wait for water and your bill for a very long time, so the Australian method seems much more efficient. This does mean that in Australia, restaurants usually only have room temperature water, which took a little getting used to, but I didn’t mind too much.
I also loved how there is no tipping expected, because service staff are paid better wages than in North America. I did come across one scenario though where I had breakfast at a café on a Sunday and was told that there is a 10% surcharge on weekends. I’m not sure if this is common, but it didn’t make that much sense to me, since the restaurant wasn’t even full when I was there. I could understand if it was during peak hours and the place is full, but I guess I just have to look at it as a tip.
There were a few things that I noticed that I found a bit strange. Woolworths’ is a big grocery chain in Australia, and there are locations all over the place. Sometimes they will even have two as close as a 10 minute walk apart. When I was in Melbourne, I noticed that the prices in one of the Woolworths’ was a bit higher than another one 10 minutes away. Although it’s possible in Canada to have the prices be different at the same store, this is usually only the case if you cross a province. Within a province, it would be very strange to see a different price at the same store. However, two Woolworths within a 10 minute walk had different pricing.
On this trip to Australia, I travelled to 4 states, which meant I spent a bit of time on planes and buses. One of the strangest things I noticed is that they do not require you to present any sort of identification at the boarding gate. They make you hold onto your boarding pass and they do review the boarding pass when you step foot onto the plane, but not once, are you asked for any ID at all. Another thing about the airports that is different from Canada is that after you pass through security, there is always a person at the very end that will swipe your belongings with a piece of paper to do a quick drug test. And, there was also a time in which I had just landed into Hobart and had barely stepped foot into the airport, but dogs were already coming up and sniffing everyone. It was a bit of an eye-opener to me that they are so strict on drugs, but so relaxed with ID. But perhaps, when Australians travel to Canada, they must find the opposite to be true and wonder why our airports are so obsessed with checking ID instead of checking for drugs.
One of the biggest differences I noticed pertained to travel. I had some bad luck one day as I was trying to catch a flight from Melbourne to Sydney. Due to a bad highway accident, traffic was crawling and I ended up missing my flight. As I was on the bus to the airport, I googled the accident and found out that it took place shortly after 3am and I was on a bus that left at 1:40pm. What I didn’t understand was why an accident that happened almost 12 hours ago was still affecting traffic that heavily. In fact, I was sitting at the very front of the bus and didn’t see the remains of the accident at all during our commute, so I’m unsure of what caused the traffic jam. Later on, some of the locals told me that Australia is always like this. Any sort of accident can cause traffic jams for days. It is just difficult for me to imagine, as I don’t normally perceive Australia as being an inefficient country.
In the end, I think Australia is exactly as how I had imagined it would be. Of course there are some differences and surprises, but overall, it did feel quite similar to Canada.
One quick fun fact – Australians pronounce the word lieutenant the same way that Americans do. I was shocked to hear about this, as I would have assumed that they would use the British pronunciation as they are part of the commonwealth.
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