Adventure Time with Chris and Amy!: January 2013

We've been in Australia for one week now, and we are still not done sorting out our registrations and finances. I thought banking hours were the most limited of hours... that is, until I went to the hospital employee health clinic. The nurse is there only Monday and Thursday 1-3pm - yes, a total of 4 hours per week. Most shops here close by 5pm. After that, it feels like a ghost-town. I will stop complaining about the business hours at home

View of the sunset over the Fremantle harbour, seen from our apartment balcony as I blog...

Anyhow, during our week of scavenger hunting, I've been trying to learn the local Australian lingo. It takes me a little while to understand what they are saying under those accents, but I think I'm starting to understand. In this blog, I will keep a rolling tally of Australian terms that differ from Canadian English. There are some of the usual British suspects, and some terms I only heard of since arriving in Australia. Australians also have this seemingly compulsive tendency to shorten words whenever they can.
I'll update this list periodically....

Australian term = Canadian term

General terms

Aussie = Australian. But people rarely ever say "Australian". (Then Canadians should be "Cannie's"?)
Bogan = Australian version of "redneck" or "hick"
booking = reservation
Brissie (pronounced "Brizzie") = Brisbane

central business district (CBD) = downtown
Footy = football, aka soccer
Freo = what the locals call the city of Fremantle
Freo doctor = the afternoon seabreeze in Fremantle, not literally a doctor in Fremantle. I still don't know why they call the wind a doctor. Do doctors break a lot of wind here?
hash = pound, ie #
hire = rent
How you goin' = A general greeting. Sounds like a lazy merger of "How are you doing?" and "How is it going?".
hoon = bad driver. There is an actual "anti-hoon legislation" .
lodge = to submit. Eg, to lodge an application
mobile = cell phone
mozzies = mosquitos
news agent = convenience store
nice = used as an adjective for the taste of food, in the same manner in which we use the word "good". I was asked by a cashier, "Is this bread nice?". It took me a few seconds of processing before I could answer her.
singlet = tank top
to ring = to call on the phone
thong = flip flops... One restaurant nearby has a dress code sign on the wall: "NO THONGS". Tee hee!
trading hours = business hours
uni = university
visa = sometimes this means passport, sometimes this means an additional travel permit.
100 points of ID = I still don't know what this means. It refers to some combination of identification documents. However, every institution seems to weigh identification documents differently. For my registration at the hospital, there was a complex rating on paper, but the administrative assistant said my passport would count for 100 points since I'm new to the country anyway.
....

Food

barbie = barbeque
capsicum = bell peppers
chips = French fries
flat white = a latte with a higher proportion of coffee to milk. I have yet to try one. Which reminds me, the cheapest coffee in Fremantle is about $3 AUD. It makes Starbucks seem like a steal - but I have yet to find a Starbucks in the area (shocking!).
Hungry Jack's = Burger King's official name in Australia
pasta sauce = tomato sauce for pasta.
macca's = McDonald's
tomato sauce = ketchup
....

Academic/medical

induction = orientation
operating theatre = operating room... just wait until I get there and turn it into a REAL theatre!
Anaesthetics = Anesthesia. As in "anaesthetic department" or "anaesthetic fellow" instead of "department of anesthesia" or "anesthesia fellow".
...

Keep checking for updates with new additions!

In the meantime, I'm still waiting for someone to identify this bird on my most-wanted list:

My "brain fever bird", aka "the notorious annoying black bird"

This is a close-up shot of the annoying bird that sounds like an aggressive drunk Australian baby whining. Refer to the video in my previous post "Fresh of the boat" to hear it. My friend Shef tells me there is a bird in India whose name translates literally into "brain fever bird" because it drives people mad. So until I complete my quest to identify this bird, I have nicknamed it "brain fever". I'll bring back a kangaroo for the lucky winner who can tell me what this bird is. I'll add a koala if you can tell me the hunting regulations for it too!

Upcoming posts: The Australian Bushwalk and First day of work.
Stay tuned!

Woke up this morning and realized...

IT'S AUSTRALIA DAY

Now I realize how weird Canada Day must sound to non Canadians. Australia Day sounds like a holiday made up as an excuse to wear short shorts and eat hot dogs. BUT AUSTRALIANS DON'T NEED AN EXCUSE TO WEAR SHORT SHORTS.

And I don't need an excuse to eat hot dogs.

Short

Shorts

Short shorts

Everybody wears short shorts here. I'm not sure if it's because it's cool to dress like it's 1980 or whether it's still actually 1980 down here. Even some of the boys wear 'em. I would have taken pictures but I already felt like enough of a creep taking pictures of the women. This shindig went down at Esplanade Park in Fremantle during Australia Day festivities.

Australian babysitting.

Not only do they cut their shorts in half, they do the same with their cars.

As everybody knows, Australia was founded when a bunch of pirates smuggled all the weird animals out of a zoo and built their own island. With that in mind, we thought the most appropriate place to celebrate the day would be at the

Those brave, brave Soylent Green children.

No pirates. So sad that so many have lost touch with their rich animal smuggling heritage.

The museum facing the E docks market.

Outside the museum by the harbor - not sure what that vessel carries. I'm guessing livestock by the covered structure.

This museum features an Oberon class submarine, the HMAS Ovens, which is open for tours given by a former crew member. Definitely the best part of the museum.

Oberons were powered by generators and batteries. This is a battery. There were around 400 of these on each submarine, each weighting a half ton I think. Not your average D cells.

TOPEDOES! ROPEDOES! PORTEDOS!

Big orange torpedo. If found...

it is of utmost importance you make sure you return it to *unintelligible*

The black tube is an acoustic mine. Contains an explosive charge that will be triggered by Nicki Minaj.

Torpedoes go orangey side out - each one costs $6 million so don't mess it up

Torpedo propellor cowling - when removed you can see the dual propellors which spin in opposite directions preventing unwanted torque

It's legal to go cowelless in Australia.

The back end of a pordedo

This Bilbo Baggins reject was the biggest knob. Showed up late. Smelled like booze. Waited till the tour guide turned his back and then grabbed the propellor cowling with both hands and tried to rip it off like he was going to take it home. I'm guessing that whatever misadventure caused his finger injuries it was probably his own fault.

Torpedo tube doors - open inwards

Torpedo tube door tracks.

If you whistled The Village People's "In The Navy" they would load you in the torpedo bay and this is the last thing you would see before you were fired.

Forward torpedo bays

The Ovens!

The large bulbous part on the top of the bow is the sonar

There actually was no poop on the deck. Not even bird poop. Australians call the tower in the middle the fin instead of the conn, as Americans do.

Going down was a pretty tight fit. We had to go through a torpedo loading bay because the real entrance on the conn was too narrow for Mr. Baggins.

Below deck, bow section

This is the environmental suit you'd wear if your ship was sinking. Unfortunately it took 10 minutes to put on and won't keep you alive at operating depths so... probably good for hiding your farts and not much else.

Torpedo tubes in situ

Through the hatch

Underwater! Also, smells like diesel.

Oval shaped hatch to make it easier to move stuff around but it's still a really tight fit.

These nozzles here carry supplemental oxygen. During times when the sub may get exploded/imploded, everyone carries masks with them that can hook up to these nozzles so they can breathe underwater. They're positioned so that you can disconnect and connect to the next one along the way you need to go.

Amy finding out you only "shower" once every 2 weeks in the sub. These bunks have seatbelts so you don't roll out during a swell.

That's John the tour guide. I think he was a petty officer. The panel to the right of his face is the personal space you share with another dude while in service. It's about the size of a small briefcase, so there's room for your whitey white sailor hat and not much else.

Going aft. The entire width of the boat is about what you'd expect form a cramped RV. I'm not claustrophobic but in the middle of the boat when it was getting hot I was ready to call it quits.

Hatch to the conn. Tiny.

Officer's quarters, complete with a state of the art VHS player.

Galley - food is supposed to good at sea, John says.

The garbage port. Or, GAHbage in Australian.

So many buttons... must... resist... pushing... (punching - Australian)

Red alert

Crappeur

Engine room

Amy comin' through

The rest of the museum was kind of blah after that. But there were a few highlights.

Short hand Morse Code used at the Australian Research Base in Antarctica. YIKHE is my favourite.

Megamouth shark - only 50 have ever been found. None have been known to eat humans... yet.

Sheep. They looked like a carny prize but nobody looked happy when I started shooting everything with a rifle.

Perth's shopping district

Then we ended off the night watching fireworks from our balcony. Interesting sidenote - someone timed a bomb at an ATM in East Perth to coincide with the fireworks, stealing a crap load of cash that night. These pictures are my alibi.