What's a 'Water Bubbler?'

I have been in Brisbane for about a month and I have noticed many differences and similarities between Australia and the United States.

Besides the fact that they have australian accents and they drive on the other side of the road, there are some differences that really surprised me, from the food, to the stores to the slang. (Keep in mind that I'm mainly comparing the cultural norms primarily between Chicago/suburbs and Brisbane/suburbs, since these are the cities that I am most familiar with in each country.)

Food

Maybe I wasn't in the loop for this one, but I learned that bell peppers are also called capsicums. I had a little bit of trouble at the self checkout register in the grocery store.

I cannot find drinkable yogurt or yogurt that is packaged in its own individual cup. On that note not many food items are in their own individual packaging.

Muesli is granola/parfait. There was a cafe at Mt. Coot-Tha and I ordered a parfait as a small snack. The waiter looked at me puzzled and asked if I wanted the Muesli, as to which I was confused and saw the tag had the word "Muesli." I asked my friend Maddie if she knew what a parfait was and she didn't know, she only knew the word Muesli. Also in stores, it's not called granola bars, its muesli bars. Maybe I wasn't in the loop for this word either. Nonetheless the Muesli I ordered was delicious!

Sausage sizzles - I mentioned this before, but Australians don't have hotdogs. And from growing up in the Chicagoland area, I'm all about that Vienna Beef, poppy seed bun, with all of the onion, mustard and relish you can imagine. But here, its just a small sausage (like a breakfast sausage) on a piece of white bread with caramelized onions. If 10 year old Sarah saw that monstrosity of a meal, she would not eat that (especially since it was on white bread - EW). But 21 year old Sarah ate it out of pure hunger, and gave it a rating of 5 out of 10 stars.

Kebabs are very popular, and the chicken wings are just ok (not up to my Chicago Standards). Also there are sushi restaurants and bubble tea places everywhere I go- I'm literally in heaven!

Stores, Malls, Transportation

The Mall is called the Shops, and they have their grocery stores in the malls. The grocery store does not have its own separate building. Also, the shopping carts are called trolleys.

Self checkout is very popular. Grocery stores have rows upon rows of self checkout stations and only a few cashiers will wait on people. If you're waiting for the next checkout station to be available, you stand in the queue (its not called a line here).

Where are the coffee makers? Sydney tried to find a cheap coffee maker at every store but no one sells them. Like how do they make their morning coffee? She finally found a coffee press, but we eventually learned that its called a "plunger."

The exit signs don’t say exit on them. I was very confused when I stepped of the plane (I was tired and just went through the long line in customs too) and I thought the green signs meant “Go this way.” But nope, its the exit sign.

Like where are you running to, lil green man?


They don't have a Walgreens or a CVS, but there are pharmacies and chemists (yes, the store is literally called a chemist) where you can buy your medicine.

Australia is a very trusting country. For example, going through the TSA to board my Sydney flight, I was never asked to show my ID. Also the public bikes have helmets that you can use (like I just assumed that the helmets would all be stolen, but nope, the helmets are always sitting in the bike baskets). 

I bought a book of stamps, they were the 'lick' kind and it took me a good 10 seconds before I realized I have to lick the stamps and its not a sticker.

Somethings that are similar: Australia has Aldi, Target, McDonalds (also known as Maccas), KFC, Dominos, and Starbucks. They have a place called Hungry Jacks, which originally was suppose to be a Burger King, but BK did not allow the use of their name in AUS, so they came up with Hungry Jacks instead.

School

Classes are different here, for example they have lecture and tutorial (where its more interactive with the students, kinda like calculus recitation, but for the subject you're studying). The grading scale is a scale from 1 to 7 with 4 being average/passing and a 7 is outstanding achievement, instead of A, B,C D scale. Hopefully I'll get 7's in my classes!

Also college students do not have to take general education classes like in the US. In Australia, students dive into their subject of study while some colleges in the United States require classes that are not related to your major. People thought it was odd that I was taking a photography class while I'm studying Engineering. And, you can only take 48 credits per semester (which is four classes) at maximum, unlike the US where there are students taking 6 or 7 classes a semester.

The elevators are so strange, the one in my university has an elevator where you select the floor when you're outside of the elevator.

The wonderful, amazing power of Wifi is scarce! There is an internet quota at my university, so if I use all of my allotted data, I can't access the wifi on campus anymore. I was so confused that there isn't unlimited wifi. 

Very random, but they use different paper sizes. In the US we use the regular letter paper (8.5x11) but here they use A4, which is slightly longer in length and slightly shorter in width. I know this is a small, yet weird difference, but I noticed that something was off with the paper size when I printed a sheet of paper from the library. Something that small of a difference literally caught me off guard.

Slang 

There wasn't too much slang that I noticed (I did some research of slang before I came into the country), so I wasn't surprised with the slang, besides a few words.

"There are heaps of avocados at the market!" "Thanks heaps for your help!" heaps = a lot
Aussies use 'heaps' in normal conversation, which is kind of funny to me.

Arvo is afternoon, avo is avocado, they call shrimp 'prawns', the shopping cart is the trolley, problems are dramas, uni is university, and they call the restrooms the toilet (literally, there are signs that say toilet instead of restroom).

Many Australians that I talk to think I'm from Canada because of my accent. That's a first!

In writing, they use an s instead of a z. For example: Organization --> Organisation.
Realize --> Realise. Reading these words made me cringe at first, now I'm used to it.

So there you have it- I might write another one of these if I notice more differences! Adjusting to a new culture is always difficult in the beginning, but then you get used to it after a while. Maybe I'll pick up on the slang and use it back in the states!

Also water bubbler = water fountain!