Las Vegas

 

Yosemite National Park

 

Yosemite National Park

 

Lake Tahoe

 

Golden Gate Bridge

 

San Francisco

 

San Francisco

 

Monterey Bay

 

California Beaches

You know those smells? Those powerful and magical smells from a distant memory that lash your nostrils, fill you with nostalgia and slap you back through time to the moment when you first smelt them?

A personal example for me would be the textas we used in primary school, especially the brown ones smelt like a cross between chocolate and strawberries. It was the most prized possession in the classroom just in front of a good feed on clag glue. Even now when I get a whiff of that exotic goodness I’m right back at Blakebrook Primary School.

Back to the present day, I was at Huntington Beach in California when I walked past a couple of older blokes waxing up their surf boards. As soon as that delightful coconut wax scent wafted over and hit my nose I was immediately transported back in my mind to summers surfing in Australia and away from these red eyed, dollar grabbing, hyperactive Americans.

Summer in Australia is ice cream melting down your hand, coconut sun lotion scented burgers, salty chips and sandy feet. Squadrons of sunburnt groms on skateboards getting in the way and surfing with bluebottles in small whitewater takeoffs on nor’east swells. Summer is when ice cold beer tastes impossibly good on sunburnt lips and the lazy sun sets so late it feels like the day was a week long.

I miss summertime.

Hollywood

Grand Canyon

Hoover Dam

Colorado

‘Throw another Shrimp on the Barbie Mate’ - Australian English for Canadians

Australian English is a thing of beauty, much like the impressive snow capped peaks in Canada. We have a name for our typical Australian language and it is “Strine” (just say ‘Australian’ really fast). A person who fluently speaks ‘Strine’ is an ‘Ocker’. An Ocker is any Australian who speaks and acts in an uncultured manner, using a broad Australian accent. The typical ocker is "usually found in a blue singlet and rubber thongs (foot wear) with a tinnie in his hand propping up a bar."

Australians may well be the laziest nation in the world when it comes to speaking. Any words containing more than three syllables are chopped in half and an ‘O’ is added on the end. For example ‘afternoon’ becomes arvo, ‘ambulance’ becomes ambo and ‘Bottle Shop’ becomes the Bottlo. Other common examples are; rego, Robbo, yobbo, servo, garbo, refo, rego, relos,
This ability to abbreviate absolutely any word is a gift all Australian children are born with. Other examples are arvo (afternoon), brekky (breakfast) and barbie (barbecue).

G’day is universally accepted as the traditional Aussie greeting. ‘G’day is synonymous with "good day" in other varieties of English, but is never used as an expression for "farewell", as "good day" is in other countries. It is simply used as a greeting.

Another common Aussie greeting is "owyergoinmateorright?" Interpreted for everyone else this means "How are you going, mate? All right?" However when I say this the seemingly simple inquiry is literally interpreted by Canadians as; ‘by what method of transport are you traveling?’ and produces a very confused look on every Canadians face.

Many other everyday Australian terms and words will produce politely confused looks on Canadians faces.’ The phrase ‘fair dinkum’ is often interpreted as ‘fat income’. "Fair dinkum" actually means "true", "is that true?" or "this is the truth!” among other things, depending on context and inflection.
Whenever I use an incomplete comparisons like ‘sweet as’ I get a lot of very strange looks. Canadians think I am being rude and saying ‘sweet arse’

Australians seem to be very reluctant with their information. Being in Canada has made me realize that we answer many questions prefaced with the word ‘not’.
Examples of this phenomenon are;
‘How are you’? “Not bad”
‘Where you been’? “Not far”
‘What you doing’? “Not much”

Aaaahh....the refinements of the Australian dialet or "Strine" as it is known. Terms like, strewth, you beauty, bonzer, drongo, hard yakka, cooee and crikey are unique and part of a very sophisticated and language great heritage.



If you are not an Australian and you understood any of this then ‘onya mate’! If not then, don’t feel like a ‘dingbat’ just ‘avago ya mug’!