- You can’t buy alcohol from the supermarket
Back home, you can do your weekly food shop, and chuck in a few beers/bottles of wine with it, then go home. Not in Australia. You have to go to a specific bottle shop to purchase your alcohol. Luckily there’s usually one nearby to every supermarket, so you usually don’t have to walk far. I found this super weird when I first arrived, but 3 months in, I’ve started to get used to it. - Aussies don’t drink as much as us British
There’s always the rumour back home in the UK that the Aussies love a drink. More so than us British. They do, but nowhere near as much as us British. They have so many rules out here, like no shots after 12, no doubles etc, that Aussies never seem to be as drunk as us British. They’re quite sophisticated compared to us lot. The whole thing that the Aussies can outdrink us British lot is false. - But the rumour about the Aussies loving a BBQ is true
I’ve lost count how many BBQ’s I’ve had in my 3 months in Australia. You only have to walk down to the local park, and there’s open gas BBQ’s for everyone to use for free. - Everyone gets ID’d
Doesn’t matter if you’re grey, old and in your 70’s. You still have to be ID’d. And you have to go through the scan system, where you have to have your face scanned every time, just to make sure you are who your ID says you are. So no borrowing your friends ID, if you’ve lost yours. Plus if you get chucked out of any club/bar, it goes on the system, and you can be banned in every bar/club in the rest of the state. I found Queensland in particular is a lot more strict than New South Wales for enforcing this. - Fosters isn’t a thing
In the UK, everyone thinks Fosters is the home lager of Australia. False. XXXX Gold is probably the biggest lager. And I’ve not seen Fosters anywhere. Not even in the bottle shops. So if you’re coming to Australia just for a Fosters, you’re going to be disappointed. - It’s illegal to cross the road when the red man is on
Apparently, according to many people over here, you have to wait for the green man in Australia. Otherwise you can get a huge fine if a policeman catches you crossing the road while the red man is showing. I found this was enforced a lot more in New South Wales, especially in Sydney, rather than the rest of Australia. If you crossed the road while the red man was on in Sydney, you got some very dodgy looks from the locals. And they knew you were British straight away. In Queensland, there’s a few more rebels, and the locals will cross with you, as long as there’s not a policeman nearby. - Football isn’t football
When it was the State of Origin, all the Aussies were telling me it’s this huge football game between Queensland and New South Wales. In the first 5 seconds of the game, I realised it wasn’t a football game. It was a rugby game. Soccer is football, and football is rugby. Confusing and weird I know. But the Aussie culture is made up of a mix of British and American. - Woolworths isn’t woolies from back home
When I heard Australia have Woolworths, I thought great, pick ‘n’ mix time. Nope, unfortunately not. Woolworths is the equivalent to the UK’s Tesco. It’s a huge supermarket chain across Australia, and has no link to the Woolworths from back home. - Aussies are so chilled it’s annoying
Everyone knows Australia is a chilled out country, and that Aussies are fairly chilled people. Back home, people think this a good thing. That’s until you get here, and you want things doing. It can take weeks to do a simple task, or to get them to reply to an email or text. You have to chase them up constantly about things. Which is how they know we’re British, because we probably annoy them to for being on their backs all the time. A simple job that should take half hour, takes the Aussies 2 hours to complete. - Winter is cold, it’s not our summer
People always say the Aussie winter is our British summer. False. If you head South, to Sydney or Melbourne, it’s freezing. It’s like the UK in Feb/March/October time. Whoever tells you this, clearly has never been to Australia. Queensland is a little warmer during the day, but still, in the evening it gets really cold. And you need to wrap up. Scarves & woolly hats is common. Even on the British.
The Little Mermeg 