How do you deal with December being summer?

[LiberteToujours]

Questions from a Canadian who clicked the wrong link by accident. :P It's just so crazy. December MEANS winter to me, and July MEANS summer. I think I could move to Australia and live there my whole life and not be able to get past that. I mean, I realize you have grown up with it too so I'm just being facetious, but it's neat how that word association thing works. It would be like suddenly trying to make green mean red and red mean green.

[Sapphocrat]

1. As a Californian who has stayed a month at a time in Oz....

...both times in "our" autumn and "their" spring, I offer the observation that the completely-backwards weather is NOTHING compared to:

- Getting used to riding on the "wrong" side of the car, while driving down the "wrong" side of the street/highway (personal note: I considered it a HUGE accomplishment that I was able to back a right-hand-drive Toyota out of a tight parking space without plowing down anything behind me).

- Australian toilets. Did you ever see "Demolition Man," where 20th-century Sly Stallone can't make head nor tails of toilets of the future? Australian toilets are only slightly less mystifying to North Americans.

- Which way the water drains. Flush your toilet, or put the taps on full-force, and watch the way the water drains. It really IS the other way south of the equator!

- "Aluminium." It's not uh-LOO-min-UM -- it's AL-loo-MIN-yum. And it's spelled "aluminium," too.

- Eight-digit local phone numbers.

- Wandering out into the deepest backwoods ("bush," mate!), and not running into anything bigger than you that can kill you. Meaning: Yanks have bear, mountain cats, and the occasional pissed-off elk. Canucks have all of the above, plus big, scary moose. In Australia, the biggest thing they've got is kangaroo -- and the wildest ones hop away like mad at the first sight of humans. (On the other hand, Oz has more potentially-fatal SMALL things, and, all told, more things total that can kill you than any other continent on the planet. Mind you, a "small" huntsman spider has a legspan of at least 8cm.) Sole exceptions: 1) Extreme-north freshwater rivers, where saltwater crocodiles up to 15 feet long (or more) travel upriver to dine on nice, juicy, unsuspecting wilderness campers. You and I don't have crocs; all we have are wimpy, skinny little 'gators in Florida; 2) sharks galore, surrounding the entire island (which is why I think they still call it The Fatal Shore).

- Roadkill. Us: Deer, raccoon, possum, and the occasional cow. Them: 'Roo, wallaby, koala, and (mostly) wombat.

I could go on like this all night, but I'll stop. I am, thanks to a kind benefactor, going to experience Christmas in Australia for the first time this year... where a "traditional Aussie Christmas dinner" means grilling something on the barbie whilst stripped down to a tank top and shorts, due to the 30+- C. heat.

Remind me to give you a report. :)

[foreigncorrespondent]

2. Summer in December...

...is fantastic! Just imagine being ale to go to the beach during your Christmas break.

Most people get four weeks off from work during Christmas, and the kids have broken up from school, and wat better way to spend your Christmas time off than down o the beach with your friends.

Or being able to get out and ride that brand new bicycle Santa gave you for Christmas.

I remember one New Years eve a long time ago, a bunch of us got together, and went down to the beach. Unfortunately you aren't allowed to have fires on a lot of beaches in Victoria, but that didn't stop us, or the hundreds of others who had gone down to the beach to see the new year in.

Anyway, I remember the cops and firedepartment coming and busting everyone on that beach. There was hundreds of us scattering in all different directions, a few in the group I was in ran into the water. I tell ya, friend, that water was so warm. Imagine being able to jump into the water at 11pm and that water still being lovely and warm.

December means summer for us, and summer means good times! And as Sapph has already said, this year, I get to show her an Aussie Christmas, so this one is going to be the best Australian Christmas I have ever had, because I get to show her those good times. :)

[Djinn]

3. I'll second that

as a transplanted Scot I can say the only thing I've ever missed about Dec winters/Xmas is that they have proper Chrissie trees there, we tend to go for branches of crappy pine trees or give up and go plastic!

Nothing beats the holiday season feeling of leaving a bar/club whatever in the wee hours of the morning and it's STILL HOT!!!

As fc mentions above you get a big whack of holidays in Summer when it's actually useful (if you're a student otherwise you can take your hols whenever you've earned them)

Being able to actually go outside on Christmas day or even better New Years Eve without freezing

BTW Sapph and fc - great news to hear you're able to spend chrissie together, I hope the weather puts on a good one for you!

ON edit: FC you might wanna play Sapph the Scared Weird Little Guys song "you might accidently get killed" - in Australia we don't have too many big ferocious animals (unless you count Western Sydney Rugby players!) that'll kill you but we've plenty of the sneaky little fellas:

"Redback, Funnel-Web, Blue-ringed octopus
Taipan, Tigersnake and a Box jellyfish
Stonefish and the poison thing that lives in a shell
That spikes you when you pick it up

Come to Australia
You might accidentally get killed
Your blood is bound to be spilled
With fear your pants will be filled
Because you might accidentally get killed"

:evilgrin:

[foreigncorrespondent]

4. ROFLMAO!!!

I cracked up laughing the first time I heard that little diddy.

Yeah, it is great news that she is coming for Christmas, mate. This will be our first Christmas together in two years. And I am sure the weather will be good, but who cares if it isn't? ;)

[TheCentepedeShoes]

5. Meeting a VERY

conservative woman from Melbourne (I think) tomorrow (not business). Any pithy things I can bring up re Australian politics? All in good fun of course.:o

[Violet_Crumble]

8. Okay, so how did the meeting go?

If VERY conservative means she voted for Family First, I'd be running as fast as my little feet could carry me to get away from her...

Violet...

[toffee prophet]

6. fairly easily...

We grow up getting christmas cards with santa claus in the outback talking to locals with those hats with the corks hanging down from the brim, or pictures of santa at a campfire talking to a drover while drinking tea and eating damper or whatever...
so we grow up with this twisted ironic take on christmas somehow..
so instead of snow and christmas dinners its usually spirited christmas lunches outside with flies and mosquitos, afternoon naps, lots of alcohol, occasionally a thunderstorm in the evening...
the strange thing is we totally still subscribe to the snowy american christmas movies, and they play national lampoons christmas vacation out here a lot, and we seem to go for it. as well as all the night before christmas poetry and the christmas trees and so on...
we're sunburnt christmas refugees i guess.

[Violet_Crumble]

7. Hey, it snowed here in Canberra one Christmas day...

We're ever so special! ;)

I grew up with parents from the meat and three veg, *Must Have A Roast Lunch On Christmas Day Even If It's 40 Degrees* mindset. After taking a few years to realise that a 'traditional' English Christmas just makes the family miserable and everyone gets out of there as quick as possible, they've now gotten used to the idea that a bbq at one of my siblings place who has a pool is much more fun for everyone...

Violet...