The Australian Chronicles

By Mary Ann Kerzel

Impressions

In many ways Australians are quite British, proper polite friendly people who are proud of their jobs and take pride in their country. They are really big sports fans and especially proud of their Aussie Rules Football, which is a mix of football, soccer and basketball and a lot rougher than American football.

Australians are pretty laid back people. They really mean, “No worries, mate”. I don’t think they worry about anything. They just take things in their stride.

I think that the Australians have a heavier accent than the English. They tend to slur their words like; “G’Day” for good day, “Melbin” for Melbourne, “Strine” for Australian, “Jilon” for Geelong. Aussies refer to themselves as “Ozzies” and to Australia as Oz. Well, I saw, heard and tasted many strange things in Oz the same as Dorothy and Toto. I also learned “there ‘s no place like home” as they did. No yellow brick road but there was that big yellow thing! And I would have to say that Sydney was like the Emerald City.

Australia has the dollar monetary system. All the currency has Queen Elizabeth II on one side or the other. Their coins come in 5, 10, 20 and 50 cent pieces which are silver in color also one and two dollar coins that are gold in color. The coins have native animals on them and are bigger, heavier and prettier than US coins. Of course David’s favorite coin was the 20-cent piece with a platypus on one side. My favorite coins were New Zealand coins, the 5-cent piece with a frill necked lizard and the one-dollar coin with a kiwi. You can tell how old the coins are by how old Queen Elizabeth looks.

The paper money is really plastic coated. They are smaller than ours and come in pretty pastel colors with people pictured on them and a little clear window somewhere on the bill. Each denomination is a different color and has a different shaped clear window. THEY HAVE NO PENNIES. Their dollar is worth about 65 cents US. Australia is very expensive. It has one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Melbourne is an old city with wonderful architecture from the 1800’s to the present day. Types of architecture I’ve never seen before. There were homes with red terra cotta barrel tile roofs like in Miami and red brick boxy houses with round corners instead of square corners. There were blocks of two story town house type buildings that resembled the old Mississippi river boats with the iron railings and fretwork on the decks. All the fretwork and railings were used as ballast in the big ships on the voyage from England.

I really had a feeling of being safe walking alone on the streets of Melbourne and in the parks. There doesn’t appear to be as much crime as there is in the states. Melbourne is a really big city, bigger than I’ve ever been in, population of over 3 million. No one bothered me and I looked like a tourist. With my backpack camera bag on my back, a fanny pack around my waist and my camera around my neck what else could I possibly be!

The question I was asked most was, how did I like Australia and had I been to the ______ yet. They were very eager to direct me to points of pride and interest in their city. Several people even wished me a happy holiday (vacation).

Two things I noticed about the people I saw in Australia, no one seemed to be unhappy or grouchy like in south Florida. People seemed to be considerate of others more than here. The only nasty people I ran into were a family of three French tourists!

The cities in Australia are clean and the highways nearly litter free. I was amazed at people actually waiting till they got to a trash receptacle to get rid of their trash.

Australia was originally a penal colony until they struck gold. Once gold was found in large deposits Australia became a place worth colonizing. Melbourne grew incredibly fast. The city fathers had a great plan. They built the city on a grid. This makes for easy navigation, right!

The grid plan works great except for a few glitches. Following the grid downtown was really pretty easy until the entire grid took a forty-five degree bend! Our hotel was about 6 blocks after the sudden change in the grid. No wonder we couldn’t find it. This sudden change occurs near the bend in the Yarra River that flows through Melbourne.

We took a boat cruise on the Yarra River one afternoon. It was quite interesting. One of the interesting facts they told us was that the founding fathers had straightened the Yarra River. Was that before or after the grid plan?

Another confusing thing about the grid was “Little streets”! When someone told you to go to Bourke Street and turn left, they forgot to tell you about Little Bourke Street, which on the grid isn’t necessarily the street before or the street after plain old Bourke Street.

All the streets have names no numbers and they run in any direction. No Avenues. They have mostly streets, a few ways and parades, with a road thrown in once in awhile. There is nothing to help you out like streets running east to west and avenues running north to south.

Even with the few glitches in the grid I didn’t get lost, confused a few times but nothing to panic about. I always got to where I wanted to go and back to the hotel.