Mitchell World Tour: Spoken like a true Aussie

“Right, now grab your jandles, your chilly bin and cheers to the road, mate!” That is how our Australian GPS announced our arrival in Sydney… seriously! As we unloaded the car we all had a chuckle at the Australian accent and tried to make sense of what the “bloke” had actually said. Living down under has required that we develop a whole new vocabulary, and one we are enjoying learning.

It's all about life on the beaches here! This is Manly Beach, one of our faves.

Sydney night life.

Time for another photo shoot!

I “reckon” we have learned more than 50 new words during our stay here. Our friends gave us an official Australian lesson this afternoon. This is what I learned! Togs are swimsuits, jandals (Japanese sandals) are flip flops, ice blocks are Popsicles, chilly bins are coolers, lollies are candies, jacks are crackers, avos are avocados, mossies are mosquitoes, rubbish is the garbage, sunnies are sunglasses, and jelly is frozen jello on a stick. Considering that my teachers were under the age of 10, that was about as deep as we got, but we had covered everything we needed to know about OZ and the outdoors!

We were a little distracted from our lessons with the beautiful view from our friend's home!

Our lessons continued with adults adding a few more words; tea is referred to as supper or dinner, uni is university, bottle shop is the liquor store, cab sav is wine and if you have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock, it means you are not so bright. Although everyone spoke English in OZ (really Aus), learning the Aussie slang was almost like learning a new language, but much more fun!

While on the plane to Sydney a little guy sitting a couple of rows ahead of us said “Holy Dooley Mom, look at the size of that plane!” A few moments later as we were taxing down the run way he said “Holy Moley Dad, look at that bus”. This was his first plane ride and he was amazed and excited at all the sights. Everything was new and he just had to express himself. Mom and Dad could be heard for the first half hour of the flight reminding him to keep his voice down! We thought it was priceless and loved his energy.

Everyone in Australia is so friendly and I love that Mark has become a ‘mate’ overnight. That is just what men call one another here, regardless if you are perfect strangers or not. It makes you feel like part of the big Australian family. We’ve heard “G’day mate” regularly, and lots of “How ya going?” I suppose it translates into our ‘How are you doing?” or “How’s it going?” At first it sounded quite funny, but we are getting used to it now. The best thing is that the people are actually waiting for your answer when they ask this. “Alright, thanks mate.” is an acceptable response but it never sounds quite right without the accent.

Men are referred to as Blokes and the woman as Sheila’s. Although we haven’t quite added these words to our vocabularies, “No worries” and “It’s all good”, seem to have easily become part of our everyday language. I suppose that is to be expected considering everything is ‘all good’ when you’re travelling around the world with ‘no worries’!

Cool art exhibit…these are full sized surfboards.

This is Bondi Beach, there is a whole television series devoted to Bondi and the rescues
that take place here, plus a whole lot of other shenanigans.

It is amazing how quickly you can pick up the vocabulary and even the accents in a new place. I wonder if we will sound different when we return home. We certainly sound different here. While in New Zealand, we learned that the Kiwi’s often ask people from North America if they are Canadian as opposed to American. Supposedly the American’s take it as a compliment when asked if they are Canadian, and it is much easier than apologizing to a Canadian for thinking they were American! The love hate between Canada and the USA is quite similar to that between New Zealand and Australia.

Although we don’t speak French fluently, which is quite shocking for the rest of the world considering we are Canadian, after spending a couple of months in Australia and New Zealand, we can confidently say we are bilingual! Now, if only we could get the accent down pat, we’d be all set. Cheers mates, surf’s up!

Special thanks to our friends Denise, Paul and the girls for a wonderful time in Sydney, and of course for all the language lessons! xo