Well, I'm back, and I have to say,
Australia shits all over England.
No offence, England. But you should learn from your far superior colony. Ok so I'm slightly patriotic and therefore biased. But don't worry, it's not just an "it's the vibe" thing. I have bullet points! Take it away, small dots on my screen!
- Ridiculously expensive dudes! In a small english town, things are only slightly more expensive than here, which is acceptable, because their average income is more than ours, which compensates. But when you go to London, or anywhere near London, BAM, got money? Noone there does. How can I tell, because they're all reaching for your wallets like Mongols! Ok so they killed, raped, and maimed people more than reached for their wallets. But by Gods, it was very very expensive. Some examples are, movie tickets: £11 - That's close to $30 with our exchange rate as it is. Big mac meal: £7 - No I'm not kidding, that's over $15 for it, but I'll save the fast food bashing for it's own dot point next up. Train tickets: Actually I'll save this one for it's own as well. Everything in general: Divide Australian price by 2.5, then add 2 pounds. We actually started calling their currency 'pwneds' because of how much everything hurt to buy.
- Fast food places are a no go zone in England, each one is almost the same price, but in pounds. So instead of a $5 meal, you have a £5 meal. Seriously, and they still get almost the same amount of business! I couldn't believe it, maybe the food was better, I certainly wasn't going to pay to find out. I can McDonalds it up just fine over here thanks.
- Trains, in general, are awful. The trains themselves are mostly in a state of disrepair and are still steam driven. They run every 2 odd hours most of the time. And The service is much worse than over here, mainly due to the fact that it's actual people serving you, wheras we get a ticket from the machine before we get on, over ther you just get on and a guy comes around and prints out your ticket and takes your money. Boy does he take your money. For a normal 80c train ride, he takes £3.50 from you. And for a trip from Hathersage to London off peak in which would cost about 7.20 (all day ticket), or about £2.50. He charges you the small fee of £47. That's over $100, almost $120 in fact. FOR A TRAIN RIDE!? Holy god DAMN. I won't go on, it just pisses me off so much. Needless to say we took the bus, which was a mere £18. Which was the cheapest option there was.
- You know how when you go into a deli, or a supermarket in Australia, and you see shelf upon shelf, row upon row of flavoured milks? Chocolate, mocha, strawberry, spearmint, banana, iced coffee, vanilla, honeycomb and more! All the flavours of the rainbow!? Well you get none of that in England. We scoured the land and found three options for flavoured milks. One was Nesquick, which we get anyway, and you have to do yourself. Another was called 'Yazoo' Which was so god-awful that we couldn't finish. And another was a supermarket brand (Marks and Spencers) Which, while good, and remeniscent of a supashake, only came in 1 Litre bottles and was rather expensive. But we walked around drinking them anyway. Gooood times. But other than that, for a country with more cows than us, and who has fresh milk delivered right to the door with cream and all! You really do suck with the flavoured milk. Maybe that's it though. Everyone gets such nice milk at home, why go to a deli to get chocolate stuff? Because I want it that's why.
- The weather there is so Dreary and dull. And the whole english atmosphere is as well. I found it very hard to motivate myself to actually go out and do things. The sun is just weak, the clouds are grey all the time, and the air is damp. And it was Summer! Which looks almost exactly like our winter. No kidding, English summer = Australian winter.
- It was at this point that Simon decided to leave this blog as a draft and do other things like say, sleep. But No no, Simon's body clock would have none of that, I mean, psh, who needs sleep!? Certainly not Simon! That's who cakes is! Wait what? Do you know what I've been talking to today? Everything guys, everything, I talked to the shower for a full 10 minutes before I realised I was talking to a shower, and promptly shifted my attention to the sink. In any case, now is tomorrow, and then was yesterday. And I have not slept since one stopped and the other began. I had a nice little ramble to Rebecca, who no doubt thought me insane and likened me to a cheap perfume commercial. Looks good but just not quite there. Not cutting the mustard I think she said, yeah, because then I went on at her about vegemite. Ooooh, totally beats marmite. Anyway she'll be sure to pass that onto Jane and my reputation will be forever ruined! But I won't go into it! Oh shit and did I say? I'm pretty sure I didn't. I got like, 3 calls today from work asking me to work and not to work and all that, so long shift-changing story short I'm working the late night shopping shift tonight, which finishes at 9:30. I had actually desired to be in bed by 5. There was a hope, but it was not to be. Ooh and then working tomorrow as well! And the school holidays will be upon us. Which means busier times ahead! Egad. And I only just noticed my structured bullet points, and how this is completely out of context with the others. Well lets just tie it all into jetlag and blame that on England too. You hear that England? You are the only country to give other nationalities jetlag. Ever. Convicts rule!
I'll leave that as the bad things for now. And do another post later of the good things. So it will be fresher in your minds. And you won't think me to biased, even though I am.
My coffee-type glands are not yet full and need refueling. This could take at least 2 cups. And not of tea, god no not of tea. You English have that stuff delivered by the truckload.
I AM NOT JOKING. All the stereotypes are TRUE!
