Stuff I love about Australia

Many times, I’ve worried that I’m truly a miserable bastard. I really grew to dislike living in Prague when everybody kept telling me how great it must be. I truly struggled to find things about it that I liked. I grew to worry that I was a misanthrope and possibly even a nationalist.

This is given the lie by my views of Australia. I love this place, I really do. I actually struggle to find things about Australia that I don’t like. It’s basically some of the foreign tourists who bother me and that’s about it.

In no particular order, here are some things that I love about Australia:

• Virgin Blue airlines (I’ll do a whole separate blog on them)
• The Australian irreverent and ironic sense of humour, which is pervasive in just about all conversations.
• The huge number of 50 metre pools that are spotlessly clean and cheap.
• Customer service generally (eg the cheapish hotel I’m staying in provides free bikes for guests to use, enabling me to explore Sydney in a whole new way).
• The natural stuff: climate, landscape, vastness, the clarity of the night sky, the Great Barrier Reef.
• The fact that even the queens are nice to other queens. Trust me, when gay men are nice to other gay men instead of sniping and superior that’s friendliness.
• The kindness of strangers. In previous trips when I didn’t know my way around Sydney, I took to reading my map in doorways as I wanted to get my own bearings and locals kept offering help.
• The humorous slang, eg swimming trunks become “budgie smugglers”, the vast Bondi Junction shopping centre is universally nicknamed “The Death Star”.
• The food, which is cheap, often Asian influenced and healthier than in the UK.
• The quality of newspapers. The Sydney Morning Herald and “The Age” in Melbourne are the best all-round newspapers I’ve ever read.
• The phrases “No worries”, “no drama”, “She’ll be right” and the whole popular culture that goes behind them.
• The public spiritedness, exemplified in the surf rescue people. Those guys are utter wonders and I’d let myself down with any (or preferably all) of them.

So in summary, I like this place immensely, which means I can't be 100% a miserable bastard. Please don’t tell too many people though, as I don’t want any more “whining poms” here.