G’day mate. No worries. Throw another shrimp on the barbie…
Can you guess where I come from? Now, first of all, we don’t say shrimp - we say prawn. Fosters beer is not the beer of choice in Australia; it was actually exported because we wouldn’t drink the stuff. Kangaroos are prolific, but generally not in the middle of a town or city. And we don’t all have a penchant for wrestling crocodiles.

But those things aside, having lived in Nashville for 10 months, the differences between the two cultures has been a lot more contrasting than one might think. One western country is the same as another right? Here a few things lost in trans-pacificism …

Coffee
I think I have spent the first 9 months sub consciously looking for a decent coffee. Now let me clarify, Coffee is a big social thing in Australia second only to going down the pub. A lot of evenings the choice was between the two, depending on how talkative we wanted to be and if there were decent bands playing at the Cambo (pronounced Came-bo - short for The Cambridge Hotel). But the differences don’t stop there.

When I say “let’s go out for coffee” I think of a rich espresso shot with a 1/3 of steamed milk and 1/3 of steamed milk froth at a street side cafe. No it doesn’t have caramel in it, or whipped cream on top and it’s not some black murky stuff that I put a half milk half cream mixture into. It’s a coffee. In the end I managed to score a small but free espresso machine and consoled myself by making my own meagre replicas.
When I was first here I asked for a cappuccino at a local Starbucks and was asked how many shots I wanted. I replied “one,” (because I’d already had a coffee earlier) to which the lady serving me replied, “No this is espresso.” Bewildered, I agreed and drank the very milky and tasteless drink. On another occasion a young hipster working at what I thought would be the best coffee house in the mall I was in asked me if I wanted my cappuccino wet or dry. Confused I asked what this meant. In the end I politely asked him to make it to a ratio of thirds. This time it was a little better. So after 9 months I ended up stopping by a coffee house that a friend recommended in the West end. Thank goodness - my coffee disillusionment was debunked and I sat down and had one of the best coffees in a long time.

Beer & Spirits
I love beer and wine and enjoy the odd spirit every now and then. Let me also say that beer plays a big part in the Australian culture -a fact which we most probably derive from our British, Irish and Scottish roots. The thing that astounded me on my first visit state side was the sheer cheapness of the amber ale. Where at a bottle-o (bottle shop) in North East Sydney, you’d pay $14 for a six of domestic beer over here I can pick me up 12 cans of Natty Ice … well you get the picture. I will just throw in that Toohey’s New (most popular NSW domestic beer) is a darn shade tastier than Natty Ice which I’ve been known to temper with a shot of cranberry juice concentrate -to make it a little more palatable.

Tipping
This is something that was completely foreign to me. Tipping is for days when you’re feeling happy and it is quite out of the ordinary in Aust. I’ve grown accustomed to it to a degree. One thing that I do still do shirk at is tipping bar staff. You’ve poured me a beer - good job - but I can’t justify giving you a dollar for the effort. I obviously need a little more persuasion.

Parking lots
Another strange custom (and I have been told that this is a southern thing) is etiquette in the parking lot. Back home if you walk in front of a car that’s maneuvering the car park you’ll either end up under the car, coping a “one-fingered-salute” and some verbal abuse or, if you run across someone whose overly polite, they’ll wave you through. I have stood in the parking lot looking a little lost as a hulking SUV’s driver waits for me to cross. I thought you bought an SUV for the express purpose of running people over.

Cars
On that note - the size of cars is quite a curious thing too. On my first visit it was one of the first things I noticed - that and the that LA’s air smells like gasoline. In Aust. your average larger car is the equivalent of a toyota camry over here. V8’s are a rarity in nowadays with the price of fuel which is the equivalent of $5.55 a gallon and if you see them they have been converted to run on LPG (liquid petroleum gas). We certainly don’t have anything the size of some of the pickups I’ve seen getting around Nashville. My wife and I have dubbed the dualies - “pickups with hips”. I’m sure their super macho drivers wouldn’t appreciate the feminine reference

Spelling
Lastly is good old rudimentary spelling. Colour is now color; labour is labor. It’s not mum anymore, it’s mom and so on and so forth. I had a moment last year where a piece of graphic design I’d done for a website was handed back to me with smirks and grins. When I asked what was wrong with it my colleague took great pleasure in telling me that the client wanted Labour spelt Labor for their Labor Day weekend promotion. “I just told him you were Australian.”

“Ahhh” said the client .