What's your vision of Australia

[Funky Dude]

Hi everyone. Seeing Masdefi is asking what our vision of Italy is I thought I might ask you's what's your vision of Australia and us Aussies?

[nrgbeat]

I don't really know too much about Australia except what I see on t.v. I know they have kangaroos and koala bears, the Outback and hot weather.

The Aussies seem like friendly people.

[Masdefi]

Hi Funky,
I have never been in Australia, but I have my idea of it.
Wonderful beaches, nice weather, incredible nature, flowers and animals, clean sea water, diving is a dream there!
And a fantastic lifestyle, not so care about apperance but only comfortness for a better life.
I have a friend of mine that spent the honeymoon in Australia, he's willing to come back.
Maybe one day I'll get the plane and make a visit..... would be GREAT!!!! But how's the food?!?!

[HustleBaby]

Hi Funky Dude :)

Nrgbeat took the words out of my mouth as far as the input on Australia. I too think of kangaroos, koala bears and a warm climate. I've heard that there are some nice beaches out there yet Australia has a serious problem with sharks :o ?(enlighten me). The only three cities that I can name on the top of my head are Sydney, Melbourne and Adderlay. Isn't Australia run by the British government as well as New Zealand? One of the most intersting things that I've found out about your country was the Aborigine people which we spoke about last year. Crocodile Dundee also come to mind when I think of Australia. :) Isn't Mel Gibson an Aussie????

*DISCO DELIGHT*

[nrgbeat]

Mel Gibson is an American. He lives in Australia.

[Funky Dude]

Hi Hustlebaby, yeah Australia is quite a warm country (depending where you are) and is usually scorching in Summertime when it's bluesky days. But we get our wet days and cold days too during winter, but Summer virtually starts in the middle of spring in Australia as it gets blistering hot. Believe it or not we also get snow but that's further south of NSW near mount Kosciusco (Australia's highest mountain) and Tasmania also gets snow too. We are pretty much runned by a British governer general or should I say Queen Elizabeth which is why we have a Prime Minister not a President. Our Prime Minister is Johnny Howard the bloke who's obsessed with GST, imagine Johnny being President hehehe :lol: .

Anyhow believe it or not I've only seen Crocodile Dundee in bits as I'm not much of a movie person but I do know Paul Hogan starred in it. Paul Hogan is the one that promoted ockerism in the 70's and that movie from what I heard gave the world a yobbo image of Australia i.e. blokes wearing shearer's singlets, stubby shorts and feet thongs drinking beer and eating meat pies. It's true that a lot of Aussie blokes wear singlets, shorts and thongs but mainly during summer as it's ideal wear for summer, even I wear that sort of gear during summer except for stubby footy shorts as they are too skimpy, I mean if I'm going to wear footy shorts I may as well wear hot pants :lol: :lol: :lol: .

Anyhow Mel Gibson isn't born in Australia, he was born in New York and moved to Australia at the age of 12 and done a number of films over here before going back to USA. I kind of wonder if he developed an Aussie bloke accent while he was over here hehehe :lol: . Anyhow here's a link to a bit of info on him http://people.deas.harvard.edu/users...t/MGibBio.html .

As for shark attacks, I've heard of a few here and there but shark attacks are very rare world-wide.

Masdefi, you're certainly right about the beaches, we have some fantastic beaches in Australia and one really great beach I know of is "7 Mile Beach" which is south of Gerringong and it's one LONG beach I assume stretches for 7 miles.

The food in Australia, well it depends which restraunt you go to as we have a lot of the restraunts that other countries have and of course we have Mac Donalds which we refer as "Maccas" and Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken which we call "KFC". Our hamburger has a unique feature and that is it has beetroot in it with the tomatos, lettuce, cheese and burger paddies sandwiched in a sesame seed bun. Now I've heard that America doesn't put beetroot in their burgers, is this true? Anyhow also an Aussie food is the good old meat pie with tomato sauce, meat pies usually come as plain steak, steak and kidney, steak and onion, steak and potato and there are other combinations like vegetarian, steak and peas, chicken, cheese and bacon etc..... Well for dinner each night is different in our family, my mother may cook meat/potato/pees, another night she may cook pasta/spaghetti, another night she may cook tacos, another night she may make up a salads, another night we may just buy meat pies or fish'n'chips, it's a variation in our family. Oh yeah we also invented Vegemite (known in Britain as 'Marmite') which we have on toast or crumpets.

Anyhow Masdefi, nice to know your mate enjoyed his honeymoon in the land down under.

Anyhow Australia has been a multi-cultural country since 1972 which people from many countries tour Australia or become residents here and we've adopted a number of cultures from around the world. We've certainly adopted a lot of the American culture with music, movies, TV shows, the majority of TV shows on the television networks are American shows from Oprah to Dawson's Creek. Also a lot of us teens have adopted a lot of the American slang, I myself often use American slang words too. Often I use American slang words like "goddam", "son of a bitch" etc... and I sometimes pronounce "arse" as "ass". Hmm, I wonder if any Aussie slang words have caught on in America?

Hey, I'm sure you's would of heard of Steve Irwin known as "The Crocodile Hunter", he has a show on every Saturdays which he goes around wrestling crocs picking up venomous animals especially snakes and a few other things. And his famous phrase is "Crikey!". I swear he's such a risk taker but he certainly knows what he's doing.

Lastly with our film industry, I was watching a 1968 episode of "Four Corners" on a tape a mate sent to me and it showed that the Australian film industry was pretty much dead back then but in the last 20 years we've had some very successful films and soon there's going to be another Mad Max movie, so you movie lovers out there stay tuned for it as it will soon be hitting the silver screens in a theatre near you.

[SandraDee]

Australians were once described as 'the English working classes in paradise'. This is how I see it. I wonder why most interesting Aussies seem to move to other countries to live when Australia is supposed to be such a fantastic place?

[disco1999]

What to say, as a canadian, well, as a kid, I used to travel around the globe watching a few TV shows, Hawaii 50 for Hawaii, Flipper for Florida's everglades, and obviously "Skippy the kangooroo" for Australia, it was my 1st contact with this continent in Queensland, looking at koalas, aboriginals chewing worms from a tree, playing their weird tube instrument and hunting with an huge boomerang, and was impressed watching people driving on the left side of the road.
Being host of the 1976 summer games here, I've had my attention towards the memorable 2000 games and was impressed by organization, the shows with Kylie Minogue, etc. During the games' broadcasts, we've learned more about the country, the good and the bad publicity about surfers being attacked by sharks, dangerous animals and some of the most poisonous insects on the globe. I didn't know about the history of australia, correct me if I am wrong, since this is my perception, that the UK sent prisonners over there and that's how the white population grew along the aborinals being the 1st nation.
I never went to Australia, I came close to go to Darwin 2 yrs ago, but I expect to fly to Melbourne for the F1 racing in feb-march 2004.
Another thing we get to see in australia that we don't see anywhere else, trucks pulling multiple trailers in the outback.
Here, the closest thing to australian food is the Outback restaurant, there are many opened in the US and we are getting a few restaurants too over here. Love the food, great ambiance, but it's a little expensive.
Last perception, I never thought disco would have made it up there. Great country, I dream of crossing the outback on a 4x4.

[Pirrie]

Hats with corks
Throwing shrimps on "barbies"
Rubbish Soaps
G'Day Sport.
Male's called "Bruce", and Females "Sheila"
And not forgetting Paul Hogan. (Legend)

It's also full of snakes,