49 Very Australian Things These People Encountered While Visiting The Country

"I used to think the best days of my life might involve marriage, children, maybe career success.
 
Then visiting my brother in Perth I saw a pelican do a massive fly-by s**t on a toddler's head. Game over."

"As an Australian, I am really surprised no one has mentioned THE STARS in the night sky.
 
You can't see the stars like in Australia, like anywhere else in the world. The stars in the night sky in Australia are like BOOM BI**H!! YOU ARE TINY, LOOK AT HOW TINY AND INSIGNIFICANT YOU ARE, AND LOOK AT HOW BEAUTIFUL WE ALL ARE UP HERE. Twinkle, f'in Twinkle."

"That the Australians went to war with emus in the 30s and they lost."

HoundOfTheBasketball said:
"Everybody I met was happy. Coming from Glasgow, Scotland, this was a massive culture shock."

gtatlien replied:
"American here. I met a Scottish guy at a bar in Melbourne and asked what he was doing so far from home. In a very thick accent, he says "You ever been to Scotland? It fu**ing sucks"."

"How ridiculously loud the birdsong is in the morning. (Cockatoos and magpies, your angry squawking eventually grew on me.) Also, the fearlessness of all the parrots. The vivid colors and apparent lack of a fight-or-flight instinct made me think: these parrots must have no predators. Rosellas (in Canberra) and rainbow lorikeets (in Sydney) just plopping down beside me and eating out of my hand. It was magical."

MorbidlyMacabre said:
"I'm a big-city California girl currently visiting a small country town in rural Queensland. The biggest shock to me so far (haven't ventured much outside of airports and the town) is the camel I saw on a farm. CAMELS. The only time I saw a camel was at a carnival when I was a kid."

Apellosine replied:
"Would you be surprised to learn that Australia has the largest population of wild camels and that we export camels to Saudi Arabia?"

"I'm gonna have to check in with the most unexpected thing I didn't see. I'm arachnophobic, I visited Australia for 2 weeks and didn't see a single spider. The coolest thing I think though was how well British and Australian attitudes mesh. It's like we were designed to make fun of each other."

"The colorful flocks of birds. I fell off my bike the first time a flock of Rosellas flew past me."

amireallyreal said: "Beetroot on burgers. Why?"
 
User No 2 said: "I'm pretty sure it's actually in our Constitution. Besides, it's the only way any of us would ever eat the stuff."

Jpnoth4 said:
"As an exchange student from Hong Kong, the first cultural shock I experienced was how y’all don’t really wear shoes, I never expect to see so many toes on the streets lmao."

shadow125 replied:
"Give us a break - it is still only 10 toes per person…"

Reddit user said:
"THE COFFEE SHOPS. Boy was I pleasantly surprised. Lived in Sydney for a semester and wow do your coffee shops kick a**. Everyone had great drinks and amazing food. What yall had on every block, Im lucky to find in a small city."
 
Aardvark_Man replied:
"Our coffee game is top shelf, and it feeds back into itself. The better the majority is, the better the rest needs to be to compete."

devland said:
"Penguins. Who knew there were little Aussie penguins running around? I was stunned."

Siberian_Poland replied:
"Yep, on some islands we have penguins for some reason."

timm1blr replied:
"Also in Melbourne on some of the beaches. Winter here is fantastic if you know where to look."

ALazy_Cat said:
"How there's actually snow there."

figglegorn replied:
"This fact blew my mind but The Australian Alps get more snow than the entirety of Switzerland."

JimmySilverman replied:
"We’re actually called New Zealand not just ‘the Australian alps’ - thanks."

i__love__myself said:
"Not anymore but when I found out that the Tasmanian devil is a real thing and Tasmania is a real place."

Stardust-Fury replied:
"As a Tasmanian, I would like to say you are welcome to come and have a look at our small, usually forgotten, slice of paradise."

"I remember getting off the plane and just noticing that the colors were all different. Felt like the sun was brighter and the sky bluer. (might have been because we left Germany in winter and arrived in summer) but also, the silvery green of the Eucalyptus trees is a color we don't get here.

Also: Free BBQ stations everywhere. That was cool!"

llennacs said:
"Ice Cream called Golden Gay Time.
Me being 13, had to send pictures of them to all my friends."

howmanychickens replied:
"Silly name. Best icecream. It comes in a tub now!"

Spectronautic1 said:
"The fact that almost the entire population lives near the coast. The center is enormous and deadly. Idk why but it blows my mind seeing those pics of signs saying stuff along the lines of next gas station is far af if you’re not prepared you’re gonna die."

elegant_pun replied:
"Gotta live near the edge, there's no water anywhere else. No rain, no nothing."

"Pies. Everywhere. This isn't a complaint."

emunny_99 said:
"Something is wrong with the way you market Tim Tams. Arnotts should be bigger than Amazon."

Ari2079 said:
"It got bought out by Americans."

Depression_God said:
"The banter. Aussies are surprisingly quick and have a great sense of humor. Also, they tend to have a darker, irreverent taste in jokes. Makes for good entertainment."

TheEarlySeller replied:
"A lot of the best British comics (Gervais, Carr) just use the same humor as Australians but make it more polite and accessible somehow.

Ironically Australian comedians are substantially less funny than people you’d meet on the street."