Matt Down Under

…and not in Germany for example.

1. You can wear sunglasses (‘sunnies’) every day, all the time, even if the sun is not shining. In Germany people would think you’re retarded, but in Australia it’s so common that no one cares. Everyone does it. It simply looks damn good :)
2. In Germany there seems to be a secret law against dressing sexy and showing décolleté. In Australia it’s the other way round, and I think it’s great.
3. When you rent a flat in Germany, usually you pay the monthly rent itself, plus electricity, plus heating (oil/gas), plus cold water, plus warm water, plus waste water, plus waste disposal, plus building maintenance, plus plus plus… All these additional costs are a major pain, they constantly increase and there’s lots of dispute about it, since it often happens that you get wrong calculations from the apartment owners and you’re charged too much. So you always need to check and recalculate everything which absolutely sucks. For my apartment in Hobart, I only pay the rent and electricity. Period. I was told that water is free in Tasmania - which is actually an interesting idea, there should be a human right for water - and since my apartment is heated by an electric panel heater and the water is heated with electricity as well, I only pay for electricity. We do have a cleaning service for the house here, but maybe that’s included in the rent, I don’t know. I don’t even want to know, simplicity is great. And in Australia, a lot of things are less complicated than in Germany, that’s one of the main reasons why Australia is so popular among Germans.
4. Clothing is much cheaper here. You pay AUD 20 for what would cost EUR 20 in Germany. I’m not sure about the reasons, most manufacturers claim high transport costs since many goods come from Asia. And GST (goods and services tax or value added tax) is quite high in Germany too.
5. They have kangaroos here. And koalas. And wombats. And parrots. And sharks. And whales…and…and… And I don’t mean zoo. They all live in your garden (ok ehm,… some of them at least).
6. Apparently (hopefully I’m not wrong here) in Australia you don’t need to register at the town when you change your apartment or your place of residence. You can just move wherever you like. In Germany you always need to be registered at the town you’re living in. If you change your location and don’t change your registration in time, they even charge you fees. This might happen to me now since I didn’t care to sign off when I left…
7. You can watch South Park, Californication and all your other favourite stuff on TV in its original language. NO German dubbing - I’m so sick of how they ruin all TV series from US/UK only because some people in Germany don’t understand English. Learn it dammit! A few days ago I watched the German trailer of Tarantino’s new movie. The German dubbing of Brad Pitt is so cheap, the voice is not even synchronous to the movement of his lips. Horrible. There should be a law against dubbing movies.
8. Well, it is quite warm here. And not only in summer. Far away from the minus 30 degrees in Germany a few weeks ago.
9. Sure, the global recession doesn’t spare Australia, however at least they don’t have a chancellor like the one in Germany who, apparently, hasn’t learnt anything from her past and tries to bring back socialism.
10. Tasmania.