THOUGHTS AND IMPRESSIONS

RIDING IN A CAR

I have to say that it is mind boggling riding in a car on what is our driver's side of the car and watching cars go by on the right-hand side of the street while we are driving on the left hand side of the street. It is really frightening when making a right hand turn - For a brief moment, I panic, thinking we are on the wrong side of the street. The round-abouts are everywhere and the person on the right has the right-of-way; however, we are going clockwise rather than counter clockwise like we would in the States. Juliet's car is a stick rather than a manual so between the lane differences and the stick, I doubt that I will try driving. What do you think, Karin? Should I try it? My daughter Karin has a stick shift and when I drive it she gets whiplash and laughs when I stall out (which I do quite often).

PUBLIC MAIL BOX


I had to take a picture of the public mail box. Juliet's mum asked me why I was doing that and I told her because it is so different from ours. I think she wondered about my sanity at that point. But then again, those of you who know me, know I lost my sanity along time ago! And I get such a kick out of the "postie" (mailman) riding along on a motorbike to deliver the mail.

PUBLIC SCHOOL

I went with Betty to pick her grandchildren up from the public school. They do not have junior high schools here, just primary schools and high school. All the children at public school wear school uniforms - different colored uniforms that represent each school. The schools have the following policy for the children : "no hat, no play." Because so many schools have been broken into and vandalized, they now are all surrounded by fences.

SHOPPING

Yesterday Juliet and I went to the Westfield mall. It was quite similar to our malls. The mall is designed in a circular pattern with off shoots like ours (think the Mills Mall). However they have non-carpeted areas and carpeted areas. The carpeted areas have the designer label stores where the non-carpeted areas have the cheaper type of stores. Name brand stores that they had at the mall were K-Mart, Gloria Jean Coffee (yeah!), Target (they carry mostly clothing), Toys R Us, Woolworths, and to my delight and astonishment, a Borders Bookstore. I don't have to tell you which store we went to first, right? I ended up buying 3 mystery books. Barry Maitland is one of the authors I really like to read and some of his books are not published in the States so I bought 2 of his books. And then the real treat - the third book of the trilogy by Stef Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - which has not yet been published in the States. That was an "OMG!" moment when I found it.

Books are very expensive here in Australia. I paid the same price for a paperback book as I would for a hard cover book in the States. So books here are definitely luxury items here.

The lower level of the mall contains practical type stores such as banks, supermarkets, bakeries, butchers, hair salons, etc.

TELEVISION

Scott & Juliet watch mostly American TV shows although they are usually the previous season to what we are watching in the States. One exception is American Idol. We watched that last night and I have to say the boys on the current season so far are pretty bad!

WORDS - SOMETIMES I NEED A TRANSLATOR

I thought it might be fun to start a list of words that are different here than in the States. I will try to add words to my blog postings as I go along. I hope you enjoy them and thank you all for reading my blog and giving me such nice feedback. My son said people are going to ask me what I did in Australia and I will have to reply "Most of the time I was on the computer working on my blog."

chips = french fries (they eat chips with almost every lunch and dinner meal)

car park = parking lot

veranda = porch

cutlery = silverware

nappies = diapers

footpaths = sidewalks

lollies = candies (any type of candy - hard or soft and thank goodness they do have M&Ms)

ABORIGINE WORDS THAT I HAVE LEARNED

We sailed by the following suburbs on the Lake Macquarie cruise that we did yesterday. The aborigine language does not have plurals, so when there is more than one, they say the word twice.

Wangi Wangi - means "place of many owls"

Eleebana - means "quiet, peaceful place"