At sea en route to Hamilton Island: Some additional thoughts about Brisbane, our port yesterday, and about Australia in general. My overwhelming impression is that it is a place an American with a modest amount of adaptability could happily call "home."
This isn't a new thought for me. I first had the thought in early 1986 on our first trip to the region.
The DrsC spent the academic year 1985-86 on Guam as visiting faculty at the U. of Guam. During the month-long Xmas holiday we spent 2 weeks each in New Zealand and Australia.
Our conclusion thirty years ago was that of the two EnZed was the more scenic but Oz was the place an American would experience the least culture shock. Not zero, certainly, but very little. That conclusion has been reinforced by subsequent visits.
Southern Oz feels like California, warm, relatively dry, and lots of eucalyptus trees. (CA's eucalyptus trees were imported from Oz.) Northern Oz more closely resembles Hawaii or Florida, wet and hot, complete with palm trees.
What things would an American 'transplant' need to adjust to? Sports here are unique to Oz but related to those of the UK. They don't share the world's passion for soccer, do like cricket and play a lot of rugby and rugby variants.
Oz politics are parliamentary so the true (as opposed to symbolic) leader of government is the majority leader. And like most of the former empire (except Canada), they drive on the left, where we drive on the right.
Maybe a bigger adjustment is that there are a number of poisonous things here, insects and snakes. The wildlife is decidedly odd - marsupials dominate - although most of those aren't dangerous.
If you grew up in Georgia you know about a "transported convict" heritage. Other Americans might find frequent references to Oz's past as a dumping ground for Britain's felonious classes a bit off-putting.
Oz embraces that criminal past. A fair number of its people resent the Brits, calling them "bloody Poms" and dissing Churchill for his key role in the Gallipoli debacle.
