Australian Goods?... Spring Break ... Daily Eavesdropping ... Cultural tidbits

hey! does anyone want anything from australia? boomerang? novelty t-shirt? plastic model of the opera house? if you want something particularly expensive, i can always purchase it on your behalf and you can pay me later. (i already have a request for a CDC (Cairns Dive Center, the people I'm diving the GBR (Great Barrier Reef) with) t-shirt and a VB (Victoria Bitter - big Australian beer) t-shirt. let the random requests flow)

Alright... so now that I mentioned it, my 'spring break' plans (they call it mid-semester break here): Fly to Cairns (3 hrs?), 1 night in a hostel, depart the next morning with CDC for a 3-day/2-night live-aboard dive trip on the reef. All accommodations and equipment and food etc included aboard the boat. (I'm doing the first half of my scuba certification (theory (I've got to get on it... gotta finish before Sat for the pool and haven't started) and pool learning) here in Sydney (Sydney Dive Academy, SSI), and doing the open-water dives to finish the certification on the dive trip.) After that, probably another night in a hostel in Cairns, then up the coast to the Daintree Rainforest... where we can explore the rainforest and the nearby beaches for a few nights... then back to Cairns for a possible white-water rafting trip before flying back! I'm travelling with an Australian girl (Mel - Melissa) whose family is from Sri Lanka who I might at a a friend's (Georgie's) 21st where I was taken by Emily from my Philosophy of Religion class.


As I was settling in before a Thurs 1-2pm lecture for Control Systems (in Webster Theatre B - they call lecture halls theatres), I noticed this sign on the wall:
"NOTICE: THIS THEATRE HAS FOLD DOWN SEATS, PLEASE CHECK THAT THE SEAT IS IN CORRECT POSITION BEFORE SITTING DOWN."

Overheard at the bus stop; conversation between three American girls:
American girl: "I always wanted to be a surgeon. And then I got to freshman year of college and was going out and partying and I decided that drinking and partying was more important than being a surgeon. That's what happened to my dream."
"I wanted to be an opera star."
"I wanted to be an astronaut."

Instead of "How're you doing?" -> "How're you going?" By bike. Unless it's raining, in which case by bus. (A joke... they expect a response like: "Good and you?")

Instead of "cotton candy" -> "fairy floss."

Instead of "sprite"/"7-up"/... -> "lemonade." They essentially don't have real lemonade here. If you ask for a lemonade in a restaurant or ever refer to lemonade, they think you're talking about Sprite (or an equivalent). I mean... I don't have a problem with referring to things by different names (okay... fairy floss??), but what about real lemonade?! They're totally missing out, and Sprite is a horrible substitution. Furthermore... "when life hands you lemons..." what do Australians do with them?

Alright, how about this one. In Australia, a lawyer that practices in court is called a barrister (okay, fine for now)... and when they're in court, they wear wigs! Full on white, curly, George Washington wigs. Always. And robes too, I think. But wigs! Really! Duude... I mean, having the queen on your money is one thing...

So I bought some bagels the other day (not nearly as easy as in the States... they're pretty expensive even bulk, and they don't have much of a selection, you can't get them very fresh, and they don't have delicious awesome bagel shops for the most part)... and the packaging said: "97% fat free." Now, I may be missing something... do we do that? I mean, I know our packaging says when a product that has a relatively significant fat/sugar/etc content it often might say "Low Fat" or "Less Fat" or even "50% less fat" or... but on bagels? They do it on all kinds of stuff. And I mean, it's true... for every 100 grams of those bagels (according to the nutrition facts), there are ~3 grams of fat. But was anyone really worried about that? Does it really help anyone? Next time I'm not going to buy bagels unless I find some that are at least 98% fat free. Or, I would, but if I hold myself to that standard, I won't be eating any more bagels, and they're quite convenient for lunches (they've been a part of every lunch I've taken to school so far, with flavored cream cheese, onions (sometimes) and red bell peppers (oh yeah... they call bell peppers "capsicums" here... scientific name I think) and an apple (but not in the bagel)).

And probably the last of this line of cultural/language differences for this post...
Tasty cheese is a kind of cheese here. As in, a legit type of cheese. Like you buy a pack of cheese and it could say... mozzarella, parmesan, brie, jack, or tasty. ?!


Okay... so clearly you should just pretend that I posted one of these little chunks once per day. ;)