Australia

Not the movie, the country, although I've been meaning to catch that. It looks like a good piece of historical fiction, and if there's one piece of education Americans don't receive it's anything that has to do with Australia. My wife and I went there in 2003, and I thought I would post a top ten list of things to do if you manage to get there.

1. Hug a wombat - We were staying near one of the premiere zoos in New South Wales, but we didn't go to Australia to see the lions. We found a petting zoo, complete with tiny train ride, and fed and encountered as many of the native creatures as we could. It included a wombat encounter and a young one was plopped into my wife's arms. It was just as cute as you think. I could make separate entries, but I'll include the other animals here as well: a) Pet a kangaroo - They are essentially the deer of Australia, but if you listen to the locals they are practically the rats (if you don't mention rabbits.) The small grey ones are really soft, but mind their front claws. b) Feed a possum - Not an American opossum, a possum. This we did in a friend's back yard. There are a lot of different varieties, and I think feeding them is probably discouraged but he handed us a banana and egged us on. I was amazed at how lemur-like they were, but the biggest difference was when one bit me. In America that would have freaked me out, but this critter was completely harmless; it was just checking to see if I was made of fruit, didn't even break the skin.

2. Order the sauce - When I order a steak, I will usually eschew any type of sauce so I can just enjoy the steaky goodness. I noticed that almost all meat orders in Australia come with a selection of sauces to go with the steak, and I refused them each time. Each time I was surprised how bland the steak was. Every place prepares things differently, but it's best just to choose a sauce that has been specifically designed to complement the dish, because it probably also complements the cooking style itself.

3. Check the coffee title - Every traveler to Australia has the coffee story : I ordered coffee, but they didn't bring me milk. Starbucks aside, they will probably ask if you want sugar. If you want milk, you need to order the "White" coffee. If you don't, order the "Black" coffee. That last might seem redundant, but it can still make for easy errors.

4. Don't eat before you fly - If you go to Australia, you're flying Qantas. It's about a fourteen hour flight from Los Angeles, and they want you quiet and sleeping as soon as possible, so the meals will probably happen as soon as they can after takeoff. The meals are huge and great; if airline food has a negative connotation it has never touched Qantas. I bring this up because my wife and I enjoyed a nice meal just before takeoff, figuring whatever they were going to serve would not be very good, and wound up stuffing ourselves to the gills in order to sample all the wonderful morsels on the tray. Go fat Americans!

5. Go in the water - Into the Great Barrier Reef off of Queensland if you can. It's surrounded by water, so you shouldn't have much problem tracking down some way to go out into it and discovering the different kinds of undersea life. We went on a whale watching boat in a bay out of NSW, and I still remember how the whales just seemed to slowly materialize from the depths under the boat as they swam up to check us out.

6. Learn to enjoy tea and coffee - Possibly a corollary for number three. Tea will be offered everywhere. In your hotel room there will probably be an electric jug, a very quick way to boil water without a stovetop. There will possibly be a french press for coffee as well (you put the grounds into the glass container and add the hot water, after four minutes you use the filter to push the grounds to the bottom and pour your coffee.) When we returned to America we ran out and purchased both devices, having fallen in love with their system.

7. Drive on the left - That one was kind of a reminder for myself. I didn't risk driving in Sydney, but Australia is a big place and while there are ways to do it, if you want to go anyplace you will probably eventually find yourself behind the wheel of a car. Whenever I made a right hand turn, I kept repeating - and I had my wife help me say it - "Get in the left lane, Get in the left lane,.." Whenever I made a left hand turn we said "Hug the curb, hug the curb,..." I only got into the right lane once on the first day out of habit, but the other driver was kind enough to honk his horn as I was barreling towards him. Oh, and fuel is sold by the pint there, so the gas stations are not as great a deal as they seem.

8. Visit the museums - Did you know Australian cities were shelled during World War II? That Sydney harbor was attacked by Japanese submarines during that conflict? Have you heard of Ned Kelly, the 19th century Australian outlaw that made Billy the Kid look like a Sunday school teacher? Australian history is not taught in America, and there is a lot of it that is absolutely fascinating considering we have heard almost none of it.

9. Don't tip - My wife whispered to me as we were leaving a cafe, "You forgot to leave a tip for the waiter." I replied, "I didn't forget, dear. This is a civilized country." Yep, I had done my research and no, they don't tip there. I mean, if you get outstanding service you can, but it's not expected. It would be great if America caught up to this concept (menu prices be damned), but alas.

10. Listen - We took a lot of pictures, but if we had the resources at the time we would have recorded the sound of the incredibly varied birdsong we were treated to at all the different places of our trip. The warbling, the choruses, the chirps, the whistles, they all inundated us wherever we went. We were especially charmed by the bell birds, so named because they don't chirp so much as "bong", sounding exactly like bells. They aren't found everywhere, but we're glad we followed that particular tourist sign to the grove where they lived. One day we were at a winery, and heard a kookaburra sound. My wife was especially amazed because like most everyone else in America she grew up listening to that sound in Tarzan movies, and so thought it was produced by an African monkey!

Australia in a nutshell? Not exactly, but those are ten good memories that I enjoyed.