11 random observations about Australia

1. It is well known that traffic is left-hand sided in Australia. The biggest shock for those who are used to the right-hand side comes when you have to drive into a roundabout from the left side and first check if no cars are coming from the right. Moreover, when buildings have doors that are turning around, they turn clockwise which is quite uncommon at least in Lithuania. On escalators people stand on the left and others who are more anxious walk up or down on the right (though London also has left 'hand side traffic, their escalators' 'traditions' are different). And finally, even on the streets you can see patters of walking on the left.

1 Pic. On the road between Melbourne and Alexandra in Victoria (bush-fires passed through here in Feb 2009).

2. I was well educated at school to use 'Dear…' in written communication. However, only 1 from 10 or actually even 20 reply like that or approach me in such a manner. And I actually really like that, all social barriers are weakened and it is much easier to connect with others.

2 Pic. Representing AIESEC in AAGE conference for graduate coordinators.

3. Some groceries' shops have started using self serving tills just recently. For some Australians it is quite exciting. I like seeing that there are some areas where Lithuania is already more developed (one more area would be digital broadcasting). However, it seems that people get used to that faster and don't encounter big problems or discomfort (or I will be honest, I am not a shopping maniac, maybe there were some similar tills before, I just haven't paid attention… but just maybe).

4. Quite many business meetings happen not in the office of an organisation you are approaching, but in a cafe that they have in their building or which is nearby. And I love that! Just hope I won't become a coffee addict. For sure I know that Milda with her "kavyte" would be really excited here cause coffee usually is very good. BTW, if you have a chance try chai latte, it is an amazing drink that I adore!

5. Australians like having after work drinks and quite many go to local pubs or bars with colleagues or friends to catch up. However, after living in London, I can compare that Australians are more moderate. Though when it comes to Friday or Saturday night you see a different side of people.

6. I remember some classes about etiquette and differences between cultures. Living in a multicultural society allowed to prove such things: Asian people do take and give their business cards with two hands; Asian people are less direct and avoid saying 'no', Anglo-Saxon people are quite polite, sometimes too polite and don't say feedback to you straightly (until it is too late) (actually, this kind of judgment would require some deeper analysis of personalities, you know, there is no rule without exception). Myself being more open and direct, sometimes showing my excitement too much or saying things prior to thinking about them more in depth or putting into right words, put me in some awkward situations… Some of the things that I am confused are related with business wear: e.g. many women wear open shoes, shirts without sleeves, no tights. It is self-explanatory here - the climate is much warmer, many people don't even have warm coats, so pretend that scarf is enough on those few freezing days of -3 or so. Arminas book would be very handy now :)

3 Pic. On a road trip in NSW with GE interns from Malaysia, Ghana and Bulgaria.

7. Thanks god or whatever, most of the taps are already mixing cold and hot water. I couldn't get used to separated taps in London and I am proud that they don't exist in Lithuania! BTW, a minor insight: if Lithuanians can't imagine their life without "gyvatukas" in their bathrooms, I can say that actually life without them exists! :) It is too warm to have it. And as far as I have noticed, houses have their individual heating systems, not centralised so they don't need constant circulation to be kept.

4 Pic. One of the nice beaches in Sydney (good for 'snorkeling').

8. Commercials. When I arrived to Australia 6 months ago, I thought that TV is crap. However, I have found out that there are actually some creative commercials. Social ads against driving while being drunk, calling your mum, smoking are quite effective and emotional. Banks do invest a lot in new ads, however it is hard to say what exactly they try to align their brand with cause they try to cover many areas. I would recommend to have a look on Coopers bear ads: bear itself is nice and South Australia is proud of it. And this is very visible in their field or TV ads. E.g. imagine such a message 'my local bar doesn't have this beer. I am looking at selling my house', 'Under old management'. That's awesome!

9. You are required to wear a seat-belt even though you are sitting at the back of the car. Cars don't have to drive with lights on. Thankfully, Australia has almost the same metric system as Lithuania, so no need to measure distance by miles, weights by stones. Each state has different regulations related with vehicles (and with many other areas).

10. Though Brisbane is in the same "dienovidinis" as Sydney, they don't have light saving additional hour. So they and one more state (Western Australia) don't turn their clocks. BTW, it sometimes cheaper and I think faster to fly to New Zealand than to Perth, which is in West part of Australia.

5 Pic. WALTCON Conference team in Perth.

11. Voting is enforced in Australia. If you don’t, you are fined. And actually there are more than 30 countries in the world having this kind of system. People do seem to be more aware about politics and politicians.
6 Pic. Leaders of AIESEC Australia for 2010.

1st quarter in Sydney: daily life plus intro to Australian creatures

When you have to post about your experience and life in a blog, which you update once per month, it is very hard to pick up key events and try to show the big picture. It is especially difficult when you are in the 4^th year in AIESEC, have taken a leadership opportunity in a different country and your daily life is rarely monotonic. Here is a brief overview of my work + leisure time and what I have been able to learn. P.S. Those who know me are aware that I like bullets :)

Pic 1.: Together with Peter and Julian (presidents of AIESEC local chapters in Queensland) in Gold Coast. Though it was still 'winter' soon after making this pic we went swimming. Waves were much bigger than in Smiltyne. And water is much more salty than in Baltic sea.

MORE OR LESS A REGULAR DAY:

- All the team lives in a nice apartment (a well maintained 3 bedroom (+ a lounge room, 2 balconies (view to a park), 2 bathrooms, a nice kitchen (with a dishwasher :)) apartment a bit overcrowded with our belongings (some stuff is carried on from our predecessors since hm…2004) which is 20-25 min. on foot away from where we work.

Pic 2.: most of us still affected by the flue, but managed to have a moving-in dinner together. Most of the dishes were still in the old house. Thanks to Jen's mum for pizzas :)

- St. Leonards (where the office is) and Waverton + Crows Nest + Wollstonecraft (where the McHouse2.0 is) areas are full of small shops, cozy cafes, some parks and accesses to public transport. It is just 10-15 min. by train to get to the City (the centre of Sydney).

- I remember myself being just on time or 5 minutes late to lectures I used to have in my university. And I expected that it will be very similar right here. However, I found a new habit: coming to the office 20-30 min. earlier, making some green tea, checking personal emails, facebook, catching up with some Lithuanians that are still not sleeping. We don’t have internet at home, and I am sooo happy about that. This ensures that you are relaxing at home!

- A regular working day starts at 9 am in our cozy office and ends at 5pm, 6pm or later… J It’s up to you!

- I ‘go to Spain’ every working day at 1 o’clock (well, sometimes earlier)… If you ever hear us saying this, it means we are having our lunch break and pleeeease, don’t call to the office at that time, we are gone (if not physically, than mentally for sure) :) Thanks!

- I personally focus a lot on market researches, approaching new accounts and delivering currents at my work. Besides that, my functional role also includes brand, website management, product development, etc. However, at least half of the time I spend working with development of our organisation (educating and coaching local committees, contributing to creation of organizational sustainability strategies, communicating with other members though out the country) and taking other team responsibilities (contributing to making decisions in numerous meetings or online, following them up afterwards, e.g. agenda and facilitation in national conferences).

- Going to networking events or business meetings is what happens at least couple of times per week too. I love this part mainly because of 3 reasons: an opportunity to sell, an opportunity to get to know much more about the sector or other topics you might raise with a person whom you meet and an opportunity to get to the City, cross the Harbour Bridge, enjoy a mix of skyscrapers, old buildings, some parks and of course the harbour itself.

- Evenings are for doing whatever you like. Cooking new dishes or even creating some, watching movies (not TV programs, they are awful, well OK, I should be culturally sensitive: they just don’t match my taste and in general I am not a fan of TV), reading a book, chilling with your friends, etc.

- When it comes to weekends, the first expectation that pops to my mind is exploring something new. Harbour bridge area including a Luna Park, Opera House and Opera Bar (this was the first place we went during the first night out and we keep coming back from time to time), The Rocks (have tried some bars and enjoyed a sunny day in a coffee festival), Darling harbour with some more nice scenery (Sydney is like a huge harbour and to my mind this is the main factor that makes this city really attractive), the City (enjoying diverse architecture, parks, pubs and clubs), China town (nice dumplings and a market with nice and cheap vegetables are there), Paddington with its nice boutiques and cafes (visited during a fashion festival), etc. If you want to get out of the noisy centre, you should definitely consider Bondi or Manly beaches (OMG, water is light blue, waves are quite high, surfing and surfers look awesome, rocks on the side are available to climb and enjoy the view from a higher position), Wildlife Park to meet local animals, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to spend an amazing afternoon in the park full of interesting plants, hills, some animals and of course the view to the sea, ocean and cute islands further. Sydney aquarium is really good and worth visiting to chill out among sharks. The list of where I have been to is still kind of small, but I am keen on continuing exploring new places… ‘We live in Sydney’ – this is what my colleague and friend Georgia and me keep repeating and reminding ourselves that we can’t afford ourselves seeing nothing while we are here.

Pic 3.: Bondi beach in late July afternoon.

Pic 4.: one of the beaches in the National Park

Pic 5.: Robbie and Brianna in Sydney aquarium. Bri, thanks for inviting us :)

- Jogging is what I have started doing more regularly on weekends too. When the motivation is boosted not only of a wish to feel healthy, but also of an opportunity of sightseeing, I just can’t miss this. Within 5 minutes of running you can actually reach a harbour (imagine a sunny winter’s day of +25, a rippling water, beautiful small and big yachts, city and parks in the horizon – I love this), you can keep on going to various parks and reserves, there are nice cosy buildings around - after seeing this you start loving the place more and more.

- Chilling with friends and colleagues :) pubs, clubs, house, dorm parties :) I love that! Though still much to try, I feel that I am quite on track on meeting people out of working hours. Australians love drinking, predrinking and postdrinking :) Thanks to them for inviting me to new pubs/clubs, it is never boring there. This is what I need to keep the balance.

Pic 6.: team chilling out in the city before Blanca had to leave back to her country.

Myth time.

In my last post I was trying to answer a question about parrots: are parrots as common as regular pigeons? Definitely not, BUT honestly I got confused when I was on a business trip in Canberra…

I saw beautiful, colourful birds every day. And then I started noticing them even in Sydney. Locals were laughing from me when I was calling them parrots. That was the time when they explained me that these birds are called Rosellas and they are quite usual in Australia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosella). Check some pictures to compare: Rosella, one of various birds in Wildlife Park in Sydney. Gosh, I have just googled more and it seems that it is also very similar to Lorikeets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lories_and_lorikeets). I am confused! You can see a variety of birds and other creatures is amazing in Australia.

In addition to the topic about birds, I just have to mention one more regular species. If you hate pigeons, I am sure these ones won’t be adored either. If you are somewhere outside enjoying your lunch and you see them around, your meal might become their target. It doesn’t mean anything for them to jump on your table, grab your $5 sushi, fly away and leave you shocked. Be aware of Ibises (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibis).

It seems that the list of interesting and unusual animals for Lithuania is endless and I could continue talking about them non-stop. So this time I will introduce you Skippies or kangaroos a bit.

Did you know that Australia is the only country that has animals (a kangaroo and an emu) on its coat of arms? Well this is what I heard, a good research should proof or disproof this myth :)

It is easy to delude yourself by thinking that all furry animals that has a lap, a long tail, likes jumping and is shaped like a pear is a kangaroo. NOP, that’s not right. You can more often meet a wallaby, which is a sort of a kangaroo, but much smaller. By more often I mean that through out 3 months I have been in Australia, most of the time spending in a city (Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane), I saw wallabies more than kangaroos (1:0). It happened in a national park in the north of Sydney.

Pic 7.: touching wallabies.

Pic 8.: kangaroo love :) and one of them had a baby in its thing :)

If you ever visit Sydney, I would recommend going to a Featherdale Wildlife park, which is in a far west of the city. I was happy like a child when I could touch wallabies, feed kangaroos and enjoy many other creatures of Australia.

Pic 9.: lovely lazy koala.

First week in Sydney

1 pic. First glance to Australia

Am I alive after 32 hours flight (Vilnius-Oslo-London(and then flying above Lithuania land again)-Hong Kong-Sydney? Do I manage to survive in this island/continent down-under? Are you interested in what is so much different here in Australia than in Lithuania or Europe, at which situations I want to say: c’mon, that’s nonsense? Do you have any myths about Aussie that I would be able to check? If yes, keep on reading, commenting and asking, these are the topics I want to share the most.

Here I am in Sydney, St. Leonards, sitting in our apartment called McHouse. It is ruled by United Nations consisting of new comers (representatives of Brazil, Colombia, Lithuania) and regular habitants trying to represent Russia, Japan, Malaysia, Croatia, UAE, India… Australians do like internationalism and the ones I know do have empathy in other countries.

Just people working in customs do not have loads of this feature. Declaring that you have a sausage means leaving it for them in the airport. And don’t try to exceed any of declared limited products, you will have to pay for all of them. Anyway, when you are here for the first week, you just start motivating that it is OK to have some extra expenditures… It is OK to find a nice WBS shop and have some wine. It is OK for internationals to enjoy going to the harbor although bars around there are expensive and travelling in Sydney is relatively expensive.

2 pic. Internationals going out: wine and harbour

So how do we match our needs and habits spending almost 24/7 together? Well I am extremely glad that while living with all of those different people you can taste and start cooking various different dishes, like risotto. Just there is one exception: look at the myth parts of this blog… Although now there are 9 of us living and even working together, no fights are happening so far. What we all really appreciate are constantly appearing jokes about everything…

3 pic. My team enjoying cooking and eating together

Australian English version and some particular words are cool, but the expressions that we create by ourselves (no matter if there was a purpose or it just happened) are unforgettable. Eg. In trains you should hear “Doors are closing”, but if you are a Brazilian and still in the jet lag, you might here “Dude, its closing”. Dude, when are we stopping using dude? Ok Ok, this is very “Australianish”, but I am pretty sure that no one says “yabayaba” instead of “year by year”. Well here no one does as well, but some tend to mishear J

My friend Lithuanian intern in Pakistan called Andrius offered me to start counting how many times I will be using “that is stupid”, “how can you do it like that” and so on. That’s how a topic of differences emerged in this blog.

The first thing that really hurt me, a girl from Klaipeda, in love with Svyturys Extra, was a price of beer. You can buy a pack of 6 cans from up to 24 Aus$, which equals around 48 LTL (multiply from 2). That does hurt my feelings. However, when you see a bottle of wine costing 8-10 Aus$, you just calm down and change your habits. Wine is good here, a lot of it is Australian.

Feel free to ask me whatever you want me to check. The more myths I am checking, the more interesting and memorable my experience here will be.

The thing I have checked on the first night of being in Sydney, even though I really didn’t want to know, was… Do people eat kangaroos here? They are so cute in pictures. Even a cartoon with a kangaroo Skippy was created. Damn it, they do eat Skippies and it is a cheap meat… Anyway, I have decided not to eat before seeing a live version of it.

Some friends told me that although it is winter, you will still feel warm, you will see parrots flying around, will go swimming and drink cocktails under high palms in the beach. Well, this needs to be clarified a bit. The temperature varies between 10-15 ºC in June, it is windy and sometimes rainy. I prefer wearing a coat, but if the sun is shining then I take it off, but others keep dressed up warm. We do have palms everywhere. We do have more interesting birds than pigeons, but I haven’t noticed any parrots so far. I guess people are not swimming in the sea, but I am going to check it properly next week.

I am planning to update this blog at least once per month. Next weeks are going to be extremely interesting: functional transition at work, sales trips to Canberra, networking events and business meetings in Sydney, planning and goals setting, preparing for a huge national conference in Melbourne. All of this will be combined with sightseeing and meetings friends that are outside of the working area :) Dude, that’s awesome.

Cheers and hugs,

L.