If I’m perfectly honest with myself, in the days leading up to this trip I was not excited. Instead I was filled with dread- fear of the unknown, missing my family, what might it be like in this strange place 9,000 miles from home, and how much I was going to miss my friends studying abroad in Europe where they will only be a short plane ride apart. I was also afraid of the rigorous class schedule, spiders, and most importantly, the potential culture shocks of being in a brand new country for the first time.
When I first got here, my worries were not assuaged. I was annoyed by the cramped living quarters where if I roll over I’ll land on Ariana and I was exhausted from my 30 hour travel day and annoyed by my greasy hair. Showering did not bring me relief. For the first several weeks, my hair would feel constantly sticky and slightly damp and I have noticed this about my hair whenever I go to a new place with different water; the same thing happened when I first got to Bucknell. But I think my hair has finally adjusted. Today after my shower, it feels truly clean for the first time since I’ve been here. With this relief I was able to realize how, like my hair, I have also adjusted to my new life. Today I am going to focus on a few major differences that I found extremely difficult at first that have now become second nature to me.
Everything on the left side
I obviously knew this before coming but they drive on the left here, likely resulting from Australia’s roots in British colonization (but the US was also colonized by Britain? Maybe it’s because the US became independent in 1776 and Australia didn’t until 1901). However, doing things on the left hand side does not stop with driving on roads. They also walk on sidewalks on the left. Or at least I think that’s the norm. I’ve run into people countless times even though I’m walking on the left so I’m not really sure. This is something that really makes the foreigner in me come to the forefront. I feel like an outsider when it seems like everyone around me knows where to walk and I’m bumping into people or getting in their way left and right. You are also meant to stand on escalators on the left side and leave the right side open for people in a hurry to walk up. And, the escalators going up are to the left and the ones going down on the right. I truly had to reprogram my body to not feel the natural inclination to walk on the right side as I have done all my life. It feels really wrong to walk on the left but it’s getting easier.
“She’ll be right”
The night before I left, my dad was having fun researching Aussie slang and one phrase he pointed out was “she’ll be right.” It means “it’ll be all right, don’t worry” (in so many words). I did not know how accurately this would represent Australians until I experienced it myself. During our second week of classes, we were severely impacted by the industrial action going on with the trains, which was essentially a union strike delaying and even cancelling train services for three days. We had no warning of this until one day, our train to class was delayed by almost 30 minutes (I was not used to this; I am a planner by nature and I always leave more than adequate time to arrive anywhere). I was panicking. I began drafting an email to our lecturer that we were going to be late but I ended up not sending it because Ariana pointed out that most of our classmates were on the same train and we would all be late together. I was practically running from Central Train Station to make it to class as on time as I could. But when we finally sat down and explained to our teacher what was going on, he seemed entirely unaware and unphased. He basically said, “Oh no worries, we can start late, we can start when everyone gets here, we have plenty of time.” I was completely struck by this. I know that in the US there would be some sort of punishment or reprimanding and we would have been told that it was on us to plan ahead for this sort of interruption. The Aussies surely are laid back!
Units and notation
One afternoon I went to the supermarket and was planning on getting myself ingredients to make a sandwich for dinner. It was going okay until I got to the deli to order my ham. To my shock, the prices were in vastly different units than I am accustomed to. The ham showed as $20/kg. Being put on the spot, I suddenly had no clue what a kilogram was. Since it was my turn to order and I was just standing there trying to process, I let the man behind me go ahead and explained that I was struggling with the conversion. He so kindly pulled up a conversion calculator on his phone and told me that I should tell them I wanted “250” (grams). I was so thankful to him in that moment but I couldn’t help but think why on earth are the prices in kilograms if you order by the gram.
Not as difficult of a difference to navigate but something else I have noticed is that when you are booking something such as a dinner reservation, times are in military time. It’s easy to do this conversion in your head but it is still an adjustment that I don’t encounter in the US.
Another change that I have actually had trouble with is the way the Aussies format their dates. Here, its DD/MM/YYYY rather than the US way of MM/DD/YYYY. It gets more confusing early in the month when I think 1/2/25 means January 2nd but it’s actually February 1st even though that makes no sense when January 2nd is before we even got here and could not possibly be the expiration date of the oat milk I just bought 3 days ago. I wonder how easily I’ll adjust back when I get back to the States!
Final thoughts
I’m thankful and proud of myself for how easily I’ve become accustomed to these new normals. I’m also thankful that I have yet to see a single spider (knock on wood).