Sunday, November 9, 2008

Things about Australia...

Vegemite.
Okay, I just don't get this one. The only way I can describe it is "rancid." At first glance, it appears to be a cross between carmel and chocolate fudge and then I smelled it. That's when I realized that nothing about it could possibly taste at all as good as it looks. I spread a very thin bit on some toast... and no sooner had I put it in my mouth than I had spit it out. I like food, but I couldn't even fathom swallowing it. Never again. But, I did try it.

Drive in liquor stores.
This one blows me away. No way you could ever get away with this in the US. The one we went to was an open faced store, kind of like a gas station set up. There are two lanes: one for browsing only, where you actually get out of your car to look around, and the other where you just drive up and tell them what you want. The only minor flaw to the system is that the register is not easily accessible, so you have to get out of the car to swipe a credit card. What a shame! :) But, aside from that, my jaw was on the floor the entire time we were there. I mean I've heard of drive in restaurants and drive thru fast food, but never drive thru liquor stores.

Ants.
There are more ants here than I have ever seen in my life. Fortunately, they don't bite, but they are everywhere. You can tell when it is going to rain because suddenly there are more of them, many of which end up dying in piles on the floor. I guess, at least they do me the courtesy of dying together so I can clean them up more easily. Yuck.

Pie stores.
There are pie stores everywhere. I've never seen that many stores dedicated to selling pies in my life. They have pie stores the way we have coffee shops and donut shops. Speaking of which, apparently Krispie Kreme came over here and there are constant lines to buy donuts there, still. Good work America, way to infiltrate another country with another one of our bad habits! Maybe if we keep bringing our unhealthy foods over here then Australia can take over as the fatest nation.

Hungry Jacks.
Hungry Jacks is Burger King. They have McDonald's here, and a lot of them, but apparently Burger King only exists in some cities where Hungry Jacks is the more common name for the chain. I wonder why the name change over here?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

there are tons of drive through liquor stores in PA. The Brew Thru's are all over North Carolina.

Anonymous said...

Australia is already the second most obese country in the world.
http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/s203808.htm

Anonymous said...

Sorry but I disagree about the donut shop. . . people have free choice to eat what they want. If they don't buy the donuts the store will soon leave. And let free enerprise reign. How are companies suppose to succeed if they can't expand. Certainly other countries import unhealthy ideas, foods, etc into the U.S.

Anonymous said...

But there are many more things Aussies have got right: friendliness in all circumstances, generosity of spirit, universal love of the outdoors, no pennies, no litter and no trashcans in the parks (did you notice that at Noosa?) because everyone is responsible for their own trash, yogurt smoothie shops everywhere, highway traffic that moves smoothly at the designated speed, the beauty of the Southern Cross, and, most importantly, "no worries."

Anonymous said...

and what's wrong with Vegemite? Granted, it's not quite as fabulous as Promite, but pretty close;-)

Veit