Mind the Bloody Gap

This video takes us to Caversham wildlife park. A magical land where I got to chill with all sorts of crazy aussie animals. Kangaroos, Koalas, Tasmanian devils, Kookaburras, Echidnas (looks like a mixture of an anteater and a porcupine), Wombats (meet Big Bubs in the video), Wallabys (mini kangaroos), Quokkas (uber mini kangaroos) and many more. This was by far my favorite day of the trip!!!!! All I had wanted to do the entire time I was in Australia was just share some conversation with a local kangaroo and oh boy did we have some laughs....or they just laid there while I screamed with the excitement of a 13 year old girl when Hannah Montana walks by. Either way the day was amazing and I hope you enjoy some of the video.

So I’m going to have a couple different entries about Australia so I figured this first one would just be about some of the cultural differences I noticed.

One of the first things I noticed about Australia is it looks so much like home. The city of Perth reminded me of Milwaukee. Buildings were quite similar, and other than it being really hot, you could have mistaken the two cities. As for houses, one thing I found quite interesting is that every house in Perth has a fence around the yard. At first I thought it was quite impersonal and closed you off from your neighbors…but the weather is so beautiful all year round that people spend A TON of time outside. Makes sense that you would want some privacy so everyone’s not staring at everyone else. Second thing I noticed is the roofs. Everyone has either tile or metal roofs on their houses. Not a single shingle to be seen. And I was also surprised at how green everything was already in Australia. At the time we went out there spring was just beginning (the whole opposite seasons thing). Since in america stuff is just growing in at that point it looked like the height of summer there. Well since it gets so darn hot in the summer everything dies and gets brown, so their “green” season is the winter. Weird.

Now malls in Perth look pretty darn similar to malls anywhere but one thing I found quite interesting is that people pushed trollys (carts) around with them everywhere. Like grocery store style. They bring them into every store because there are grocery stores in malls. It is very strange walking in a clothing store and bumping into one. And another thing about malls. It’s clearly getting towards the holiday season so many malls are starting to put up their Christmas decorations. First of all its pretty weird to have Christmas in Australia because its about 100˚F and people go to the beach and have barbeques where they…PUT ANOTHER SHRIMP ON THE BARBIE! But the funny thing is they have all sorts of Christmas decorations with snow on them. I mean snowmen and fake snow to spray on windows. Most of these people have NEVER seen snow before. I think they’re just jealous of Wisconsin and its 6 ft of snow. Who wouldn’t be I ask you?!!?!?!

So interesting things about the way aussies speak. Since many of you are from Wisconsin, you are fully aware of the “up north” accent where people would say “yeah der hey”. Well many Australians end every single sentence by saying “eh” at the end of it. It’s the strangest thing. It’s like Americans adding “like” into every sentence. Second interesting thing is Australians say “reckon” all the freaking time. “Do you reckon we’ll ride the kangaroo to work today? I reckon we will.” Here is the weirdest one. I was having a conversation with Joel’s brother Josh and he was telling me how he had been out for tea 3 times that week. I thought to myself…ohhh. How civilized . It’s like England and they go out for tea all the time. Nope. In Australia. Tea = dinner. Wait….what? Yep. Tea is dinner. I asked around to many different aussies and not a single one could tell me why dinner is called tea. Just plain strange if you ask me. Now, just like the entire country of Spain has a lisp, Australia has this condition where every word must be shortened and an IE or IES is added onto the end. Sunglasses = sunnies. Mosquitoes = mossies. At one point I was shopping with Joel’s mom and she said “Let’s go look at Chrissie decs”. I stood there puzzled beyond belief until we walked by Christmas Decorations. Yep. Chrissie decs = Christmas decorations. Let me tell ya, It took me awhile to translate most things.

Now as for food. Food is pretty similar to America as far as I’m concerned. They do have great asian food though. Just kinda like we have great Mexican, they’re so close to asia they have awesome Chinese/Japanese/thai you name it. There are McDonalds, KFC, Hungry Jack (the Australian name for burger king since the name was already trademarked) and subway as far as the eye can see. I do have some new favorites though. Chicken Salt is my new best friend. Its salt put on chips(fries) that has chicken flavoring. Seriously AMAZING. Next thing. Tim Tams. SOOOOO delicious. They are these chocolate biscuits that are great if you did them in tea. Sooo yummy. Third. Curly Wurly’s. Little chocolate caramel candy bars. Divine. One thing that did disappoint me though is that aussies do not drink fosters. Apparently it’s a different recipe in Oz and its kinda like Schlitz or Milwaukees Beast for them. Still didn’t stop me from trying to make everyone say “Fosters. Australian for Beer” though.

So in this video I’m just showing you a bit about Perth, the beach, and Margaret River which is aussie wine country…a lot like napa valley. So I hope you enjoy!!! :)

Well hello there everyone. I'm so sorry its taken me awhile but I've been out in australia for a bit and have been settling back in the past couple of days. I've been trying to sort through all of the videos that I took in australia and it is taking me a freaking long time to get through all of them so I thought I would give you a video that I took before I left for Oz. It's a venting video about some annoyances here in London.







I'll explain all of the wonderful things about australia once I post the videos so right now I'll just share some stuff that has been going on here lately. This past week we've gone to our regular pub quiz on thursday nights. Its held at a pub called the Gypsy Moth in Greenwich. It has three rounds. One pictures, one music and one random. Pretty standard pub quiz and this week was fun because it was my friend Guy's birthday on friday so we had cake with sparklers on it.
Then friday night we headed out to a pub around picadilly circus called The Living Room. It was a wonderful night filled with jager bombs and and copious amounts of wine. I got to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in about a year which was wonderful! And at one point my friend Mark poured a dirty martini into his guiness and claimed that it was actually good, guzzling the whole thing down. The whole night ended with a nightbus home at 3.00am where I passed out on the ride home and hobbled to the door in bare feet because lets face it ladies....stilettos look great but only last so long.
night was halloween and we headed to our friends flat to carve some pumkins. We then went out to a pub to for some drinks. There were a few people who were out with costumes on but it was actually quite sad for me. Having been out in Madison for Halloween...nothing really can ever compare. Other than that I'm still on a job hunt and Joel and I are still searching for the perfect flat to move into. So hopefully both of those will fall into place nicely!
Until then I will work on cutting down the countless kangaroo videos for you. Til next time :)