Oz Observations Part 2

1. At Subway, instead of asking what veggies you want on it, they ask "what salad would you like?" I responded, no salad for me, just the sub, which confused them.

2. Employees at shops ask you what debit account you want to use and push the button for you, then hand you the keypad.

3. Red peppers are simply called peppers.

4. Green peppers are called capsicum.

5. Some words in store titles are spelled like the Aussies pronounce them. For instance, Frank's Super IGA is spelled Frank's Supa IGA. Supa isn't a word Australia. Look it up.

6. Prices advertised include tax, and since there are no pennies, prices are rounded down on the first 2 cents (.01 and .02) and for 0.3 and 0.4 they're rounded up. Despite this, prices are still advertised at amounts not divisible by 5. So they're sneaky with a 3.68 price that rounds to 3.70 or are dumb with a 3.42 price that rounds down to 3.40. Usually it rounds up though.

7. Garbage is called rubbish and garbage cans and called bins. "Bin your rubbish" is a common phrase here.

8. Most cities and even small towns have a lot of roundabouts.

9. There are wild turkeys in every place we've been so far, usually kicking leaves around to make a nest, which makes an awful mess.

10. Lots of people (especially in beach towns) walk around with no shoes/sandals. And not just like between home and the beach, like shopping in the supermarket and in restaurants and such.

11. Most shops close at 5. Some late places are open until 8. The latest we've seen in a while was the Subway in Noosa that was open until 9:30.

12. Bathrooms/Restrooms/Washrooms are all referred to as toilets.

13. A tinny is a can of beer. An esky is a cooler.

14. License plates have no consistency. In Queensland, we've seen plates of different sizes (like Euro size and North American size) with different colours of text, and one even had a picture of a sunset printed behind the letters/numbers.

15. Mullets, curly mohawk mullets, rat tails and buzzed heads with a little patch of hair left in the back are all popular here for some reason. Like every single young guy has hair like this.

16. Scooters (like the Razor ones that were popular when I was in grade 5) are super popular with kids here, way more than skateboards for sure.