I was shopping in my local Whole Foods (in Cherry Creek) yesterday and I noticed they had pavlova for sale. First time I have seen this delicious dessert at an American store. I haven’t bought one yet but I am excited to give it a try sometime soon.

Photo courtesy of VROG in Bristol

Kookaburra

Earlier this week my wife and I went to see David Sedaris. For the uninitiated he is an author and entertainer that writes hilarious autobiographical stories. I have read many of his books, heard him on NPR but until this week I had never seen him live.

He was superb. One story he told was about a recent visit to Australia. I won’t do it justice here, but he described in very amusing detail about a meal he had in a restaurant in a small Australian town north of Melbourne. During the meal a kookaburra came to rest on the patio railing outside his window and he was able to go outside and feed it.

Then he stopped in the middle of this story and recounted how he used to sing the song, “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree” when he was a kid. He would climb into his sister’s bed and they would sing the song for hours much to his father’s shagrin. He liked to sing it so much that he even risked a beating from his father and continued to sing.

The reason I am sharing this is that everyone assumes that because this is an Australian song that I should know it well. The funny thing is that while this song was written by an Australian it appears to have become more popular in this country. I never sang this song as a kid and neither did most of my Aussie friends, but it seems that most American kids know this song very well. Funny how nursery rhymes like this one can travel around the other side of the world and become even more popular than in their home country.

Photo courtesy of Lip Kee.

I arrived in this country thinking I had a very good understanding of Americans and American culture. After all, I grew up with the Brady Bunch, MASH, Happy Days and Cheers and almost every movie I saw as a teenager came from Hollywood. On the nightly news there were always stories about the US and I studied American history in high school.

But all this knowledge never prepared me for living in the US. While I could speak the language (for the most part), everything else was new. I remember going to the supermarket for the first time after moving here and taking an hour and a half because I didn’t recognize most of the brands. In many ways I had to start from scratch.

Now, after 18 years here, there are still many things I don’t fully appreciate about Americans. I have come to realize that the impact of growing up in Australia has made me fundamentally different from Americans, and that will probably never change. For example, I never fully understand American patriotism. Americans demonstrate their love for this country all the time and in very demonstrable ways. Most Australians I know also deeply love their country but prefer few outward demonstrations of this love. An American kid recites the Pledge of Allegiance every day, while growing up in Sydney we had no such ritual. These small things leave large imprints on our character.

One of the constant curiosities of my life is trying to understand the American psyche better. This is part of the reason for this blog. I want to explore the differences and similarities between our two countries. Most Australians and Americans claim that their respective countries are the greatest ones on Earth. Sometimes, I believe, this love of our own country prevents us from fully understanding and appreciating the other country. I know I was guilty of that for many years.

I don’t know if Aussies and Americans will ever fully understand each other, but I am certainly going to give it a try.

Every day I read the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) newspaper online. I am always interested in what is going on in Sydney and Australia but I am even more interested on their take on the news in this country. The SMH has excellent coverage of world news with a particular focus on US News. Every day there are several articles about something happening in this country.

Even though I have lived here in the US for 18 years, I still find myself feeling like a foreigner a lot of the time. Often with major political, cultural or business stories I enjoy reading the Australian take because it provides an outsiders perspective.

In this day and age you could live in the US and never really immerse yourself in the culture here. You could read the SMH, watch Australian TV, keep in contact with all your Aussie friends through IM, Facebook and email. But to not also immerse yourself in the US perspective I believe is a mistake. I made a conscious effort to learn about the US when I arrived here. I read TIME magazine, listened to National Public Radio, watched local TV news and read my local newspaper, the Denver Post. I still try and do some of these things every day.

I enjoy living in this country and want to be part of it. Key to doing that, I believe, is understanding what is going on. I have an added benefit because I don’t just get one perspective, I also see how outsiders view what is happening here.

October 15th is Blog Action Day where bloggers around the world take on one topic. This year the topic is climate change.

It is interesting to me that both Australia and the US have recently reversed positions on this issue which the change from a conservative government to a progressive one in both countries in the last 2 years. Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, made signing the Kyoto Protocol his first act of government just hours after being sworn in as Prime Minister in December 2007.

In this country, President Obama has come under criticism from many environmental groups for not doing the same thing as Prime Minister Rudd and signing the Kyoto Protocol. Recent talks in Bangkok actually criticized both the US and Australia for trying dissolve the Kyoto Protocol.

This may all be a mute point as there is a big UN climate change summit happening in Copenhagen in December. Australia, the US and most nations of the world will be there. It will be interesting to see if something productive comes out of these talks, and if Australia and the US can agree with Europe and the rest of the industrialized world on a course of action for climate change. Fingers crossed.

Denver skyline with Rocky Mountains

Last week marked the 18th anniversary of my move from Sydney to the US. The time really has flown. I still remember touching down at Denver airport on October 7, 1991 wondering what the heck I was doing. I was 25 years old, I had never lived outside of Sydney before and I had never started a business before. Now, here I was doing both things in a country I barely knew.

But I wasn’t coming to Denver completely blind. I had done a scouting trip three months before where I had visited a number of US cities with the intention of deciding which one would be the best fit for me and my new business. On this trip I visited Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon.

The natural place for many Australians to settle is California. It is the closest state to Australia, has many direct flights from both Los Angeles and San Francisco and has a huge population. It is also expensive. This was the reason I didn’t seriously consider moving to California. I had a very limited budget and I didn’t want to blow a good chunk of it on rent. I also didn’t want to live in a dump, which I would have had to do in California, I wanted a decent quality of life.

My scouting trip was in July, in the heat of the summer, so I ruled out Dallas because it was over 100 degrees the two days I was there. Chicago had the same problem as California, it was expensive. So that left Denver and Portland. Denver was the second last city on my US tour and I immediately felt at home there. I liked the pace of life, it wasn’t quite as fast-paced as most American cities, and its location as the base of the Rocky Mountains was a big plus for me. I loved to ski and go bush walking (or hiking as they say here) and the mountains provided ample opportunity for both.

Denver was inexpensive, housing and office rents were less than half the price of California. There was also an Australian-American Chamber of Commerce (now a social club) which introduced me to fellow Aussies who had done the same thing I was about to do. And I loved the fact that there were 300+ days of sunshine a year in Denver. Even though Portland was a good city, I had pretty much made up my mind Denver was where I wanted to be before I left for Portland.

Now, after 18 years here and having visited most major cities in this country I am very happy with my choice. Denver is a great place to live and work and I have never really considered moving anywhere else. So for any Aussie considering a move to the US, I would advise looking beyond California. There are so many great cities here, it can be hard to choose. Just pick a handful, go and visit them, and decide which one feels right for you.

Photo credit sonicsquirtgun

I am an Australian who has been living in the USA since 1991. You can read more about me here. This blog will record my observations on the many differences between the two great countries of Australia and America. I will be writing about business, politics, sport, education and many aspects of daily life.