Robyn BoxWe really are all Australian
February 4th 2008 04:17
There seems to be a tradition in Australia that the majority of people either
A) Take time off after high school and head overseas,
B)Take time off during university and head overses
C)Take time off after their university degree and head overseas.
OR
D)Do all three of the above.
Now it appears that I'm one of the C type of people; as soon as my university time was up I packed my bags and jumped onto a plane to backpack around Western Europe with one of my best mates for three and a half months.
Everyone waxes lyrical about how amazing these adventures are, and I'm not going to contradict them- they really are incredible!- but one of the most important things I learnt is that the majority of people you meet, no matter where you, go are in fact Australian!
Landing in London after a hideous 24 hour flight it was disconcerting to find that nearly everyone I asked directions from were Australian- where were all those sassy Londoners I'd heard so much about? Every pub I walked into had an Aussie behind the bar, and every hostel was similarly full.
Across France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Croatia (where i stood in the main street of Dubrovnik and marvelled at how many different conversations I could hear that were being conducted with Australian accents.)
The most disturbing part of this entire trip occurred when my frind Nadja and I checked into a hostel In Interlaken, Switzerland. For those of you who have never heard of Interlaken, it is a small picturesque town that is based entirely around extreme sports. So much so that it claims to be the second biggest hub of extreme sports after New Zealand. Sky-diving, canyoning, white water rafting, para sailing, whatever kind of adrenalin rush/insanity takes your fancy can be found there.
Despite being situated in the german part of Switzerland, the entire town speaks english- possibly the only place we ever travelled where attempts to speak in the native language were quickly re-buffed. The reason for this being that the entire town is over run with Australians. Without any slight exaggeration, the entire bar at our hostel was filled with Australians every night swapping stories about their latest escapade, or stories from home. Even more bizarrely, there were many who, in between sky dives, had lost track of how long they had been in Interlaken.
The only other time we experienced something of this magnitude was on a tour of the Greek islands- it turns out that as well as jumping out of planes and throwing ourselves down canyons we also like to travel en masse.
What exactly is it about our culture that makes us all want to leave our own country only to congregate all together somewhere thousands of kilometres away? To throw ourselves out of planes? Is it because we are all adventurous and are constantly seeking somehting with that ittle bit extra to give us a bigger rush? Or is it because it only dawns on us after we have travelled across oceans and entire countries that we realise that maybe our big brown land isn't quite so bad after all...
A) Take time off after high school and head overseas,
B)Take time off during university and head overses
C)Take time off after their university degree and head overseas.
OR
D)Do all three of the above.
Now it appears that I'm one of the C type of people; as soon as my university time was up I packed my bags and jumped onto a plane to backpack around Western Europe with one of my best mates for three and a half months.
Everyone waxes lyrical about how amazing these adventures are, and I'm not going to contradict them- they really are incredible!- but one of the most important things I learnt is that the majority of people you meet, no matter where you, go are in fact Australian!
Landing in London after a hideous 24 hour flight it was disconcerting to find that nearly everyone I asked directions from were Australian- where were all those sassy Londoners I'd heard so much about? Every pub I walked into had an Aussie behind the bar, and every hostel was similarly full.
Across France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Croatia (where i stood in the main street of Dubrovnik and marvelled at how many different conversations I could hear that were being conducted with Australian accents.)
The most disturbing part of this entire trip occurred when my frind Nadja and I checked into a hostel In Interlaken, Switzerland. For those of you who have never heard of Interlaken, it is a small picturesque town that is based entirely around extreme sports. So much so that it claims to be the second biggest hub of extreme sports after New Zealand. Sky-diving, canyoning, white water rafting, para sailing, whatever kind of adrenalin rush/insanity takes your fancy can be found there.
Despite being situated in the german part of Switzerland, the entire town speaks english- possibly the only place we ever travelled where attempts to speak in the native language were quickly re-buffed. The reason for this being that the entire town is over run with Australians. Without any slight exaggeration, the entire bar at our hostel was filled with Australians every night swapping stories about their latest escapade, or stories from home. Even more bizarrely, there were many who, in between sky dives, had lost track of how long they had been in Interlaken.
The only other time we experienced something of this magnitude was on a tour of the Greek islands- it turns out that as well as jumping out of planes and throwing ourselves down canyons we also like to travel en masse.
What exactly is it about our culture that makes us all want to leave our own country only to congregate all together somewhere thousands of kilometres away? To throw ourselves out of planes? Is it because we are all adventurous and are constantly seeking somehting with that ittle bit extra to give us a bigger rush? Or is it because it only dawns on us after we have travelled across oceans and entire countries that we realise that maybe our big brown land isn't quite so bad after all...
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