A few cultural observations...

• If you have ever played SIMS, it is amazing how similiar life here is to that. The bane of my life is the toilets that keep getting blocked
• Icy poles are called popsicles
• Nappies are called 'diapers', or "poopie diaper" as one mum said today
• They don't use the word "fortnight", or say "double" anything eg. in Harrower you can't say "double r", same with numbers.
• Play dates (when you have a friend over to play), lunch dates, any dates are short. If you are invited for dinner it is all over after two hours
• They do live life on the outside. They are generally friendly, confident, cheerful and articulate. They play out the front of the house, rather than in the backyard.
• When they eat out they generally expect to have enough left over to take home in a doggy bag. They are totally shocked when I say we don't have doggy bags anymore in Australia.
• They don't use curtains very much in their houses, and don't have many fences around their yards.
• They use coupons cut out of the paper to gets discounts all the time.

That's all I can think of for now. It is interesting noting the differences, and thinking about how culture comes about and is perpetuated. Why is Australia so different to America when we both originated from England? How do people bring up their children here differently to how Aussie's do? Very interesting (for me anyway).