culture shock?

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After my first glances into things here in Australia I can ask the question: What is actually different from the way things are done at home? Well, as you can imagine, there's less difference to expect than when you travel to an arabic country. Yet, it's the minor differences that are striking. It's usual here to buy milk that carrys the label 'no fat'!?, and for breakfast some people eat a substance they call vegiemite, which smells and tastes like dried beer :-r. Apropos beer, beerbottles have a lid you have to skrew to open and you can reclose it, if you like. Imagine me trying to open the first beer I had :-/ One of the first things I noticed were all the signs that tell you about things forbidden to do and everywhere you can read 'fines apply'. You see this sentence so ridiculously often that it's lost its effect completely. The only problem is: the fines that apply are as ridiculously high (as rumour has it: up to a thousand dollars for smoking on a train platform or four hundred for having your feet on the seats of a train). Where the most difference comes from is the proximity to Asia. There are several things that keep telling that there's more than one major community here. You can find heaps of offers for accomodation and other stuff on the noticebords on campus that you can't read, as they're written in Chinese signs. Same with the dialogues yo can hear on the streets. Asia also extremely influenced the Australian eating habits. There's lots of Korean, Chinese or Japanese dishes and of course restaurants. One thing I must still try to get used to is the way sentences are in.tonated and that actually nobody is interested how you feel in the first place, when they ask you 'How're you?'; Although it is not completely useless, as you learn at least a little about the mood of somebody when you ask the question. Of course there're no heatings in the houses here, although sometimes they'd be really useful: "Much of the Illawarra coast has just experienced its coldest day in years. Wollongong reached just 9 degrees max - this makes it the coldest day since 1963." (weatherzone.com.au, mon 28/7). This is not exactly what I came here for; even less, as at home it's far above 30°C at the moment. While I'm writing this there's a storm going on outside, causing power cuts once in a while. You can be sure, that you can never be sure about the weather here. You can have all seasons on one day, and bright sunshine and a clear sky don't mean to tell you not to bring you raincoat. What is different of course is the landscape, being directly at the coast and next to hills behind which you find nothing but plain land for thousands of kilometers. My trip to Lisbon prepared me a little for the way this city is build on the slopes of the local hills. As far as I can tell, I didn't get the impression that the Aussies are more laid back than we are. But maybe I don't see any prove of this stereotype only because my circle of friends at home is quite a chill out gang. There's another thing we have in common: none of us likes America's foreign policy. And unfortunately one more: kapitalism rules everyday live (at least here in the cities at the shore) and you're charged for everything, and how! But nonetheless I feel very comfortable here and like to stay here, as eventually it'll become summer!

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Photos

Australia and Europe
are not too different, but not quite similar either