Hey Nonnie!

No worries 😉 Here’s some stuff!

On the whole, Australia is much less expensive to live in than either the US or UK, though I’m not sure of other places and how we compare. 

The most expensive cities to live in are Melbourne and Sydney. However, there are good things about both places.

We do have FANTASTIC universities! 

The cost of rent in both cities is pretty dire. Melbourne has a great Arts scene, and is the most LGBTQIA+ friendly city. Public transport is EXCELLENT: between trains, trams and buses, it is very easy to navigate. The weather… isn’t my cup of tea though or i’d be living there already frankly. I LOVE MELBOURNE.

I’ve lived in Sydney. It’s VERY expensive. Again, public transport is, on the whole, pretty top-notch (not on Melbourne’s level, though the trains are still very good!) Food is AMAZING. Arts scene? ALSO AMAZING. Darlinghurst/Paddington area and also Enmore/Newtown area = very LGBTQIA+ friendly … also increasingly expensive, sadly. 

Don’t Drive in Sydney. The traffic is atrocious… in particular, Parramatta Road, Military Road, and the Princes’ Highway. Just Say No. Take the train. 

I’ve lived in Newcastle, two hours north of Sydney. It’s a lovely old large town, one of the oldest in Australia, used to be all about coal, is reinventing itself at the moment and it’s very exciting to watch. Amazing harbour. Best skyline in Australia, right next door to the Hunter Valley Wineyards region. A great place to live.

Now I live in southern Queensland. MUCH less fast paced than either of the Big Two cities.

Much cheaper too! Less crowded – the transport isn’t as good, though there are efforts being made to fix that. Brisbane is a GREAT city! However: IT’S VERY HOT HERE. It’s coming into mid-Spring at the moment, and we’ve already had temperatures of over 33C (91F). Beaches so white they blind you slightly :)))

Foodwise, we actually compare reaaaaaally well. The produce tends to be good. The seafood here is DIVINE, and beef and lamb are plentiful and very very good. We have a LOT of different cultures and nationalities here. You can eat out very cheaply in the big cities, and you can buy most ingredients for any dish at either supermarkets, speciality groceries, and the like. 

We have a bit of a binge drinking youth culture, tbh. Nightlife is less exciting now that live music is harder to come by. Poker machines (’Pokies’) have sort of taken over the old Aussie pub. There are lock-out laws and things like this in Sydney, to stop the binge violence and the like. We’re all still undecided about how well that works.

Liquor is NOT sold in convenience stores: there are dedicated shops (’Bottle shops’ or ‘Bottle-o’s’) where you buy alcohol. 

WE. ARE. SO. SERIOUS. ABOUT. COFFEE. really. YOU HAVE NO IDEA. THE COFFEE MUST BE STUPENDOUS OR WE WILL BITCH FOR YEARS.

We are racists. Sadly. On about the same level as the US: not all are frothingly awful, young people and students are more likely to promote equality, etc… but as a nation we have anti-Muslim sentiments, anti-refugee sentiments, Pauline Hanson (The Aussie Sarah Palin, except 10x more awful) is gaining popularity again, the Cronulla Riots were a thing, we publish disgusting cartoons about Aboriginal people in National newspapers, and then listen as the cartoonist justifies it. We like to portray a larrikin image, laid-back and easy-going, but you’re going to find just as many pompous angry white people here as in the US and UK. It’s gross. The upcoming generations in school right now are the most nationally diverse in history, however, so I maintain my hope that this will change. 

You will be shocked at the cost of digital media. Netflix has half the choice that you have in the States, and a song on iTunes is TWICE as expensive here as it is in the US. This is because we are not as valued a market… and iTunes is gouging us 😦 As a result, copyright infringement and torrenting is incredibly commonplace. 

Visiting people keep on exclaiming about how tidy our suburbs are, and how everyone has a lawn. That’s more a large-town thing: in the big cities, the only folks who have a lawn are the rich. In towns and outer suburbs, the ‘weekend chorus’ is what we call the sound of hundreds of lawnmowers all starting up. 

We really do have barbecues an awful lot…

(THEY’RE CALLED PRAWNS HERE. NOT SHRIMP.)

People talk a lot about our deadly wildlife, but if you’re in a big city you’re not likely to see that much of it. You WILL see spiders in the cities, but just leave ‘em alone, they see themselves out 90% of the time. 

Freaky Swooping Magpies are a thing. The videos don’t lie. However, most folks will warn you if you’re going anywhere near the tree of a known aggressive maggie. They won’t swoop you if they’re used to you, either. My MIL has a magpie nesting in a tree in her backyard right now, and because it knows her and knows she’s not a threat, it leaves her alone. 

The most likely thing you will encounter on our beaches is not a stonefish or blue-ringed octopus at ALL – but the bluebottle (portugese man-o-war). They’re annoying, but not life-threatening. Don’t step on them! Even dead ones have live stingers (LITTLE BLUE ARSEHOLES). 

Where I am, we see a lot of kangaroos because the bush is right by us. They get hit by cars a lot (v sad.) We also get gigantic thousands-strong flocks of birds, like rainbow lorikeets, which are BLOODY NOISY.

An animal which has adapted beautifully to cities is the fruitbat. Newcastle, the city above? Has a millions-strong colony at Glenrock that come swooping in every dusk to eat the figs from the massive towering old figtrees in town. Here, in Queensland, they come to pick at the berries on the palms. 

CICADAS. 

Also, Mozzies. If you go inland any distance, you’ll discover why the cork hat was invented. Flies, FLIES EVERYWHERE. The Aussie Salute is the wave people do before their face, brushing away the flies. 

The roads and concrete can get so hot in summer that it will hurt your bare feet. This is why we wear thongs all the time – YES WE KNOW ABOUT THE UNDIES, they’re called flip-flops in the US, har har har. They’re thongs. 

We talk fast, but don’t open our mouths very much. As a result, we mumble. Ask us to talk more slowly. Added to this is our tendency to shorten EVERY WORD EVER. Service station = servo, U-turn = u-ey, morning break = smoko, etc. 

Our slang is short, brisk, and sort of obvious at times, impenetrable at others. For instance, we use ‘tizzed-up’ to mean ‘looks very nicely dressed’, and a lot of names have universally known National nicknames: Sharon = Shazza, Darren = Dazza, Kevin = Kevvo, Karen = Kazza, etc. Anyone with red hair can be expected to be called a Ranga or Bluey (orang-utan – yeah, not so nice sometimes – or for blue-veined pale skin). 

We have Tall Poppy Syndrome, every single one of us 😉

All in all, I think I live in an OK place. a few bits of it need some SERIOUS work socially, but as places go, it’s a beautiful one 🙂

@morvidra, @bubbysbub, @thudworm, @reytistic, do you wanna add anything? I’ve run out of thoughts for now!