Culture Shock!
And to think I was an English major....
It's not Rice Krispies, it's Rice Bubbles...it's not Cocoa Krispies, it's Cocoa Pops...it's not a spatula, it's an egg turner...it's not a shopping cart it's a shopping trolley...it's not a popsicle, it's an ice cream (even if there's no actual ice cream in it)...it's not a flashlight, it's a torch...it's not a windshield, it's a windscreen...it's not sunscreen or suntan lotion, it's sun cream...you don't get a paycheck, you get a pay packet...they're not Tater Tots, they're Potato Gems...it's not rush hour, it's peak hour...you don't get take out at McDonalds, you get take away....it's not the boogeyman, it's the Bunyip...you don't buy a case of Cokes, you buy a slab...you don't tell someone to wait a sec, you say a tick (although never, apparently, a tock), and certainly nobody minces around with vague terms like the "restroom" or the "bathroom" -- they just simply call it "the toilet" and get over it <g> And if you were here and expressed any kind of amusement at using such a direct term, they'd simply shrug it off -- "but that's what it it is, mate." Indeed :)
Check out the money above...it's plastic, with see-through holographic images in the left bottom corners. Impossible to counterfeit (not that I tried or anything....) Also, very handy that all the bills go up in size slightly, so the $5, $10, $20, $50 etc. can be easily retrieved. The $20 is "the orange," the $10 is "the blueberry," and the $5 didn't have a special name, but since it was purple, it could be "the grape." Can't remember what the $50 was...must not have seen enough of them, for very long anyway <g>
Hamburgers (which taste different) with all available additions are sold not with "the works" or "with everything" but with "the lot" which usually includes lettuce, pickles, onions, beets (they call it beetroot), a fried egg and cheese. It's not American cheese, of course :)
The light switches flick DOWN to turn on, and UP to turn off. When you pick up a telephone, it is already making a trilling sound, which is simply the dial tone. Once you make a call and it's ringing, the ring sounds like a double-trill.
That water-going-the-other-way thing: If you fill up a sink and then let the water out you can watch it swirl down the drain in the opposite direction. Toilets flush with a big waterfall swoosh of water and no swirl :( probably to keep Yanks from spending all day in the bathroom (sorry, the toilets) where they'd just stand and flush the water, fascinated, for hours. Much more water-conscious here; most toilets have a big-flush/little-flush option. As I've just described, neither one swirls :( so you have to go somewhere else to get your thrills, or fill up the sink <smirk>.
Candy bars don't always have what you expect in the wrappers: Mars=Milky Way, Milky Way=Three Muskateers, Snickers is thankfully, still Snickers.
Not to mention CHICKEN flavored potato chips (or crisps, if you want to get technical). Unreal.
At the movies, which you see at the cinema, not at the theater, you get ice cream instead of popcorn, in particular a chocolate-dipped vanilla cone called a ChocTop. If you want to watch videos instead, you hire them, not rent them. You also hire cars instead of renting them.
Busy traffic is chockers (for choc-a-block). Your turn signal is called your indicator.
Stuff that's existed since the beginning of time (or since "1909" as we'd say here) has been around since "the year dot."
McDonalds, which is everywhere, is called Macca's instead of MickeyD's.
There's a fabulous biscuit (a cookie to us Yanks) called a Tim Tam, which is two rectangular wafer crackers filled with chocolate cream and then covered in chocolate. I was introduced to a Tim Tam Slam (ancient Aussie ritual) -- where you bite off the ends at a diagonal and then suck your coffee through the cookie. Yummy :) And then you eat the mostly-melted cookie. But no graham crackers anywhere to be found. None. Can't believe we're going Outback and having campfires and no way to make s'mores.
No graham crackers???
On the other hand, some things are predictable. In every hotel, for example, the Gideon's Bible people are still doing their thang.
