Australia?: Know Before You Go!

By Martin Dean Tobin

If youve ever thought about travelling to Australia or moving there for any reason, look before you leap! Do your homework first! Too many people go to Oz misguidedfooled by popular misconceptions. Australia teaches very harsh lessons to people like that. And once youre there, it has ways of trapping you into its system, like a giant spiders web.

Australia is hyped-up and dumbed-down more than anywhere else. Hence this book aims to bust the myths and stereotypes for once and for all. It tells you what life down under is really like. This is for people who want to be better informed than average tourists or backpackers.

Australia is too easily promoted as a sunny paradise where apparently everyones better off than anywhere else, with no worries and a care-free outlook on life. This perception has always been misleading, and by now it is truly outdated. Nonetheless, it is perpetuated by common Aussie expressions like the lucky country, fair go, and shell be right, mate.

This book tells you the facts: Written by an author and poet who was born and bred in Oz, and whos had to battle there as hard as anyone.

Before you talk to travel-agents, learn from someone whos travelled!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503509177

Martin Dean Tobin

What are my credentials? In one word, experience. I am a detached observer who has learnt a great deal from lots of harsh firsthand experience over many years in many different countries. I’ve also had some of my poems published from time to time in anthologies, zines, and websites like cynicalbastards.co.uk. I come from that country where the states have really imaginative names like South Australia and Western Australia, where every suburb has a Crown Street, a Queen Street, and a Victoria Road. What will they think of next? Don’t ask who “they” are. Aussies are not really supposed to ask questions. We’re just supposed to consume and be swept along by trends. In Oz, the most common topics of conversation are usually sports, beer, the heat, and the cockroaches. It is a nation that deludes itself (and the rest of the world) with spurious catchphrases like “the lucky country,” “fair go,” etc. Try telling Aborigines that they’ve had a fair go in this country for the past two hundred years, and you’ll soon get a different point of view. In Australia, if you want to sell an idea or register a company name, it almost has to contain the words “Oz,” “Aussie,” “Southern Cross,” or “Down Under.” And to be recognized in any form of print media, it almost has to contain the word “icon” or “iconic.” Such buzzwords have become so standard that writers are hardly allowed to choose our own words anymore. And it’s all just empty hype about nothing in particular. It is a nation obsessed with itself and its own big ego and also sold on British and American hoo-ha. At least in my opinion, Oz has become a totally shallow, soulless dumbed-down, impersonal culture, if indeed it is worthy to be called a culture at all. Then there’s multiculturalism—a most convenient generic buzzword for the politicians to keep themselves covered with the front of political so-called correctness. In my opinion, “multicultural” is a misnomer. Yes, there are people in Australia from every other part of the world, and most of the time, they manage to tolerate each other; and so what? There is only one culture in Australia—which they all have to adapt to; that is the culture of dumbed-down consumerism and standardization gone mad. I am an Aussie battler of sorts, not the tough outback kind, but nonetheless, I have had to battle in Australia like very few people do. I was born and raised in Sydney, whether I liked it or not, and for the most part, I don’t. Nobody really belongs in Sydney anymore. It just attracts pretentious people from everywhere else, people with a gold-rush mentality who move there purely for economic reasons. It’s most famous buildings are a bridge and an opera house, even though most Sydneysiders know more about Oprah than opera. In many such ways, Oz is ironic more than iconic.

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Copyright © 2015 by Martin Dean Tobin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 08/24/2015

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

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Contents

Intro / Disclaimer

About the Author

Separating Fact from Fiction

Is Oz Really for You?

Should I Go To Australia?

A False Democracy

Weather

The Aussie Sun

Ways To Beat The Heat

Winter

Accommodation (more commonly called accom)

Boarding Houses

Hotels — See Pubs

Australiana / Souvenirs

Eating and Drinking

Beer

Wine And Cheese

Pubs

Social Life

Social Attitudes / Fitting In / Social Life

Real Australians?

Mateship

Romance

State By State

Esoteric Beliefs

Communictions And Language

Public Services

Transport

Libraries

Sports

Epilogue

INTRO / DISCLAIMER

As the author, I must admit that many of the observations herein are very much my own rather subjective, and at times rather cynical commentary, based largely on my own personal experience, much of which i’d rather forget. However, I believe that many of life’s most valuable lessons and insights are not always the most pleasant ones. So I still think they can be useful to anyone thinking of travelling to Oz, or moving there for any reason. And in any case, I hope they make interesting reading.

I have put the more serious points in bold print, and the less serious ones are not in bold.

As time goes on, some of the facts and details herein are bound to become out-of-date. Nonetheless, most of what I write will remain at least relatively true, probably as long as there is a big hot southern land called Australia.

LANGUAGE WARNING. When Aussies open their mouths wide enough to say something clearly, it’s usually an expletive or two. So, to make this book as true-to-life as possible, I have included occasional swear-words, Aussie slang and dry humour.

MY PERSPECTIVE. I’ve written this little bit to disarm those boring people who assert things like Everything depends on your perspective!, as if that’s some revolutionary new discovery, or some profound insight. Well my perspective is this: I was born in Sydney, whether I liked it or not – and basically, I don’t! And I’m writing this book largely to come to terms with Australia for once and for all, and to put it behind me to move somewhere else. If you want to know what a place is really like, instead of reading glossy brochures and talking to travel-agents, you can often learn much more from people who don’t like it, and finding out why! Yes, it’s a contrarian approach, and it works. So while I have tried to make this book somewhat humourous, it also tells you the hot, hard facts.

WHY THIS BOOK? To expose Australia for the popular lie that it really is – for once and for all! Many people travel to Australia