My wife and I have been having lots of fun this week, making our first visit to Australia for a short vacation. We’ve been quite impressed with the country so far, doing various tourist-ey things while I try to sample every brand of beer in the country. (I don’t think I’m going to get to them all.) Of course coming to a new country always means discovering various oddities, like the sound cross-walks, make to tell you it’s okay to cross, browsing for interesting local snacks (Tim Tam chocolate biscuits!!), and puzzling over colorful local words like brekkie, sunnies and uni for breakfast, sunglasses and university. I often write about the kokumin-sei or “national character” of different countries, and I’ve done my best to make observations here, people-watching in pubs over a few pints. As far as I can tell, the spirit of Australia can be summed up by the words “no worries,” which are pretty good words to live by.
I’m having fun down in Australia right now.
