FF:WA Assistance anyone?

I'm looking to be moving to Australia in some years and I want to know what it's like. I live In America now, so I am unsure the difference between the two. Anyone help me out?

 

We drive on the left.... mostly


What kind of differences are you looking to find out?

 

This is where I could say that we ride kangaroos to work, but I won't

Laid-back, down-to-earth, friendly people.

I hope you like Vegemite!

Where about's are you thinking of living? Perth? Sydney? Melbourne? Adelaide? Brisbane?

 

Well, I am about to become a zoologist, majoring in big cats and marsupials. So, wherever I live, it will be close to a zoo. Probably not the Australia Zoo though, with Steve Irwin, I like smaller environments. Maybe even a wildlife rescue. If anything probably around Melbourne, or Brisbane. I'm just not sure what to do when I get there. Anything from buying groceries to buying a car will be new to me. I'm more than likely over exagerating. but to combat this I listen to Australian radio stations online. Could you imagine the comercials actually interest me? I must always remind myself the place described are not "just up the street at the corner light."

 

Oh yeah, what is Vegemite?

 

Perth has a great quality zoo with a decent variety of big cats, it is also one of the cheapest cities in australia to live in, plus it just rocks

By the way, vegemite is a spread we use here on our toast/sandwiches, I don't really know anything I can compare it to, its good stuff though. I hope you like Milo

 

To be honest I think you'll find lots of minor differences but few major ones. Like a lot of western cultures the US has influenced us a lot so you'll see a lot of the same tv shows, hear a lot of the same music etc.
Generally though I think Australians know a lot more about the US than the other way around. Not putting down the US or anything but I've found that people from the US often know very little about other countries. A very insular country in many ways.

 

Hardly any of us have guns.

Anyhoo. Australia has:
Good beer, nice women, sexy women, clean beaches, great pubs, bush land with lots of snakes (almost ran on over on the way home last night), kangaroo shooting, Steve Erwin, a shameless history, race riots, yobos, a crappy leader (well so does the US), best trained special forces in the world (the brits will argue this), aboriginals, police that don't bash you, a weak currency, more asians/wogs/middle-easters than white people (not that that's a bad thing at all), crappy films, even worse tv shows, bands that all sound the same, AFL (avoid at all costs), bbqs, good cars...and products made in Australia are not always of terrible production quality

I like smaller environments. Maybe even a wildlife rescue

Perth's the place to come to then.
My dad (and myself for some time) work for C.A.L.M. (conservation and land management).
Was good fun. Getting paid to go out 4WDing rescuring animals and arresting people who were trying to smuggle in snakes from over east. That's when I got bitten in the face
Anyhoo, for wildlife stuff come to Perth. Our zoo is the best and we got the greatest wild life locations

 

Oh this is great information, thank you all for being so kind! I've never heard of Perth before, I should check it out. And I deffinately agree that America is tuned out to the rest of the world. I know barely anything about other countries besides, "Oh , the US entered Negotiations into . . ." and such. And thus, I have this board up. I just don't want to experience culture shock, you know? The closest I came to Australia was the olympics and a show call OutBack Jack. Don't ask.

 

Ahahaha.
Nah Australia is a good place. We have a pretty lame culture (or lack of) but that's okay...we've been around almost the same time as America, so shouldn't be much different.
May I strongly suggest coming to Perth on holiday before moving

Oh and we're not all convicts like people think...unless you go to Melbourne (Victoria).

[image=http://www.dowlerapartments.com.au/images/pic_perth.jpg]

That photo was taken from King's Park. A huge forrest war memorial. That's the great thing about Perth. The city combines modern city buildings and junk with the bushland. You can drive 30 minutes out of the CBD and be at thick bush camping sites.
I mean...sweeeeeeeeeeeet!

 

hey hey,

hehe outback jack.. i actually watched that show...

if you remember the episode when they went to the city and the girls took jack out.. etc etc.. that was actually perth...

Perth does have a rather smallish but big for perth zoo so thats always nice..

 

Our zoo isn't small at all. Absolutely pisses over the Melbourne zoo...not only size of the enclosures, but also the quality, display and realism of the animals environments.
One thing no one ever gets to see is the animal hospital hidden away in the building. It looks small but when you go into it, man it's freaking massive.
We took a black cockatoo there once after someone shot it with a shotgun (only got hit by one pellet) and it was like a maze of surgery rooms

 

Poor Cockatoo! I know what it's like though with the vet building, at the zoo I'm with now, we don't have a large facility, but it's bigger then it looks from the outside. Admission is free, and it surprises a lot of people how many animals we actually have running on pure donations and county checks.

Yesterday was my birthday, so I finely got this huge world map I've been waiting for. I'm placing pins on all the countries/cities I want to visit. Perth will certainty be one of them now that I am aquianted with it.

Are you catching the olympics at all over there? This year has been horrid for America in watching them. Before they were on every hour on the hour, now there is absolutely nothing! I have finely caught a Slovakian hockey game I had been waiting for, and that has brought me great happiness! However, my favorite player was sidelined with a rotator cuff injury.

 

Well if you get cable TV (unlike America we have **** all free TV stations) you can watch pretty much any sporting event in the world
The commonwealth games (Australia national version of the olympics sorta) is coming up soon and we've got like 7 dedicated 24 hour channels to the games so we can watch any event we want. Brilliant
Oh and if NFL is your sport don't expect to see any of it over here, unless it's on ESPN. Everyone here hates NFL, but me. Our Aussie equal is AFL and it's the most meatheaded pathetic excuse for a sport since cricket.
Where abouts from the USofA are ye?

 

You like NFL and you think AFL is pathetic and meatheaded?

 

Yes.
At least with NFL there is a tactic and 'battle plan' involved...unlike AFL.
I played both for many years and NFL was always the more professional sport.
Don't judge NFL on what you see at the superbowl. There all a bunch of meatheads....but everyone I see playing AFL, either local clubs or on TV...ALL meatheads.
The NFL over here, the small clubs etc, is great.

 

That's precicely why I don't like it. The whole game's just a slow moving game between two coaches with a few brief moments of action now and then. Almost like watching live chess since the coaches play the game more than the players. And the players have a narrower skillset. One player know how to catch well. Another knows how to tackle well. Another knows how to throw well etc. In AFL every player has to be good at every skill and the game is much faster moving.
In any case, I think making a broad statement and saying AFL is a game for meatheads and NFL is not is kinda like saying one style of music sucks just because it's not your preferred style. I may not find NFL at all interesting to watch, but that doesn't mean I'll label all it's players or fans a certain way.

 

Question - what prompted you to post this in the WA forum if you'd never heard of Perth?

Sorry, couldn't resist. Looking forward to having you here!

 

Well i hold no preference AFL on NFL. Hockey is my thing. Rugby too, but you can't see those games over here. My friend set up the forem for me, so I have the slightest idea why it is in the Western Australian catagory and not just an Australia, or Queensland one. I will have to ask her. And as for where I currently reside . . .i shall keep that my sercet. but it is on the East coast. My home is not all that far from the Atlantic Ocean., which i must say I haven't gone to for years. This problem must be resolved, seeing as I want to learn to surf.

 

I used to play a lot of field hockey as a kid but I've never tried ice hockey since there's only 1 ice rink in the whole state that I know of. I think ice hockey generally gets a bit of a bad rap since all we ever see of it are the brawls. I'm sure not all players are happy gilmore's.
Anyway, other things about WA. I personally think we've got some of the best beaches. I've spent a lot of time over east and I personally didn't see much that impressed me as far as beaches go. The famous Sydney beaches like Bondi and Cronulla I found to be overcrowded and not particularly nice anyway. I think our beaches are a lot nicer and not as jam packed. The main beaches even have decent waves if surfing's your thing (not me) but down south is where the real waves are. I've been to Yallingup beach and Margaret river on days when the waves were big enough that I was far to chicken to even dip a toe in the water!
Night life can be good or bad depending on what you're in to. As a general rule I think Perth is lacking in terms of big events but has some of the country's best smaller/underground events. It's an awesome state to travel around. You want to see real outback, you can take a drive in one of several directions from Perth and get to some fantastic camping and holiday locations. I've travelled around our state a lot in my life and I know there's still a lot of good places I haven't seen yet. It's a huge state and some of it's pretty far away but even within a day's drive from Perth there's plenty of great spots.

 

Perth is to Sydney as L.A. is to N.Y., distance wise there's only about 100 miles in it. Mainland Australia is roughly the same size as Continental USA.
Western Australia of which Perth is the capital is about 1/3 the size of Australia. Imagine a line from the Gulf of Mexico running up the east side of Texas to the Canadian border, west across to the Pacific coast and south to the Mexican border then back around to where you started. That's us. I fly for 2 hours to get to work, and that's only about half way across the state!

 

Perth is to Sydney as L.A. is to N.Y., distance wise there's only about 100 miles in it.

Wait...are you saying it's only 100 miles from here to Sydney?
Or am I missunderstanding

 

Distance between Perth/Sydney is only about 100 miles different to LA/NY.

 

Oooooooooooh righto. Hah, I was going to say

 

I know people from Phoneix who have told me that the climate in Perth is almost exactly the same as what they're used to. Only difference being that we're coastal so we get a sea breeze etc. Not sure if you know phoenix well but that should help. I'll be in Phoenix myself in April.