July 27: Teacher Becomes Student
Having decided to circumnavigate Australia this summer, I anticipated that since I already knew the language there would not be any communication barriers. After arriving on this breathtaking continent, I discovered that there was still a lot for me to learn.
Shortly after leaving Melbourne on Adventure Baby, I called ahead to find out about the availability of fuel on one of the more remote stretches of my trip. When I asked the clerk at a roadhouse to confirm that gas was obtainable at her location, she said it was not. However, a waiter overheard me and suggested I call back and ask if they had “petrol.” Sure enough, they did.
I’ve learned several other better ways to communicate this summer including asking for the “rubbish bin” instead of the garbage. I haven’t quite worked up to calling the people I interact with “mate,” but am hoping to get there soon.
There are also a variety of mechanical idiosyncrasies that I was not familiar with. Can you spot them by looking at the pictures on this post?
The day after arriving in Australia I thought that perhaps something was wrong with my iPhone charger as it was plugged into a socket, but my battery percentage was not improving. A kindly waitress showed me how to flip the switch on the outlet to turn it “on.” You can see an example of this kind of switch next to the picture of the heating unit that I have posted here.
In both the Victoria and Queensland Territories I have encountered doorknobs installed higher than my shoulder height. When I arrived at one of my first hotels, I wasn’t sure how to enter my room until I looked up almost to my eye level. Just a few nights ago I almost couldn’t get into the bathroom in the middle of the night, forgetting in my drowsy state that I needed to reach up almost to my head to twist the knob.
For several weeks I wondered why it was that so many of the trucks in Australia have a long black cylindrical column rising off their right sides. Was it a loud horn to scare off wildlife crossing the road? Turns out (not kidding here) it is a snorkel for the truck! When a local told me this I thought he was joking. But he explained that when the roads get flooded the device allows the engine to breathe air instead of water when submerged.
Even before arriving here, I knew that I needed to drive on the left side of the road. However, I didn’t realize that I also needed to walk on the left side of the sidewalk. My first week in Australia, while strolling on the walkway from Bondi Beach I wondered why so many people were running into me. I finally figured out that I was walking on the wrong (right) side of the path and that I was the one running into them.
If you look closely at the picture of the beach walkway here, you can see pedestrians coming up the incline by walking on their left. Another who has just gotten to the bottom of the ramp is exiting also on the left.
In the spirit of “the teacher becoming the student,” I thought I would share this post with you tonight as tomorrow morning I leave for three days at sea to participate in a course designed to help me obtain my scuba diving PADI certification. I will not have access to WIFI on board and will be focusing on learning to dive. I will look forward to posting after I return.
