Aussie Auddities

Kinda a slow week this week, it's been orientation for the freshman so not a whole lot to do but sit around and enjoy the "fine" weather. One of my favorites is watching the weather because the don't give detailed descriptions, they give the temperature and then it's either rainy or fine, it makes me happy to watch. Television shows are about the same here, literally. Most of their shows are from America, Grey's Anatomy, Ghost Whisperer, etc. Although there is a law that 51% of the shows have to be from Australian so they do the news, documentaries and then make their own version of American reality shows (including Biggest Loser, and a really cheesy version of Deal or No Deal that is one of my favorites because it's so low budget compared to the US)

Other oddities I've discovered:
-Shops only stay open till 5:30pm and closed on Sundays to give small shop owners a chance, and so they don't have to work 7 days a week.

-"Bottle-O" is Australian for liquor store, might be bringing this one back to the US because it's kinda fun to say.

-Foster's is not Australian for beer, in fact it's hard to find because they think it's horrible beer and few shops even sell it.

-If you're going to campus and tell someone you're going to school they look at you like you're an idiot, because "school" means grade school, "college" is grades 11&12, and "University" (uni for short) is college/ university.

-In the city there's times at traffic lights when they stop all directions of traffic so you can cross diagonally! I've only done it twice with a tour, not brave enough to try it on my own yet, it just doesn't seem right!

-Some how I haven't been hit by a car yet, still not used to which way to look for cars, so I look both ways about 10 times before actually crossing. I think I'll be confussed again when I get home and have to get used to people on the "right" side of the road again.

Hope you are all doing well back in the goos old USA, I miss you all and love getting updates from home!