Day Eight and the natives are getting friendly

Well when I say friendly I actually mean chatty, which is ok as talking to people is why I am here.

With 15/16 appointments done yesterday and several other off the cuff encounters and the same again today when I get on my flight to Sydney tomorrow I think I shall be jacking into my iPod and closing my eyes.

So as most people I know in life are settling down for the evening I am sat on a pavement cafe in Melbourne and it's already tomorrow....very weird.

From the wrong end of a cricket pitch or rugby ground Aussies have always been the no 1 rival. If the world always delights at beating Britain in general and England in particular at anything from football to dwarf throwing we (the English) always want to beat Australia over virtually anyone - apart from Germany at football. So from a distance the Aussie nation has always been 'the enemy'. Reality is of course different and I am enjoying my time meeting and talking to people here. As Bill Bryson says in his book on the country Aussies are naturally engaging, friendly and fun to be with.

There is one aspect of their collective personality which is interesting is the reference to scale (biggest in city...state...country). The interesting bit is what comes after country; what appears to be the case is that uniformly people refer to 'the southern hemisphere'. Now I am not really sure what they really mean by this as I see very little evidence of people knowing what is going on in South America so I suspect in this context 'southern hemisphere' actually refers to Australia, New Zealand. South Africa and at a push SE Asia. I have not come across any referencing on a global scale - probably why is that it sounds a lot better to be 1st or 2nd largest in the southern hemisphere rather that 83rd in the world. Then again that maybe just my old world perspective.

Nice breakfast at a riverside cafe, day eight and 16 appoints awaits!

P
Peter Jackson
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