When I first moved to Australia in 2005 and exchanged my U.S. dollars and euros for Australian dollars, the first thing I noticed was how beautiful they were. Australian paper money looks and feels different than American paper money for three main reasons: the denominations are different colors, they vary in size, and for approximately the last thirty years, all the notes have been polymer. The plasticization, clear windows, and other security features make these banknotes almost impossible to counterfeit or rip. Currently an Australian dollar is worth 78 U.S. cents. When deciding whether or not to make a purchase, I mentally do the currency conversion by slashing 25%. That helps me see if the item’s price is fair or “worth it” to me. Despite the sticker shock that Americans legitimately feel with the smaller dollars and generally higher prices here, the colorful money is delightful.
Month: December 2017
On the Road to Wellness
This past week, I took a big step on the road back to good health with a toe-straightening operation. Now that I’ve conquered the bone infection, it’s time to get my foot into a condition to resume wearing shoes without scraping and reinfecting my toe. In the ongoing saga of how-much-trouble-can-one-toe-cause, I am continuing along a trajectory toward wellness. And despite how un-Christmaslike southern hemisphere December weather feels to me, the season of gratitude is in full swing.
It’s Different Down Under, Part II
In a previous post from last month, I talked about how I first came to Australia in 2005 and figured out that there were some differences in U.S. vs. Australian English. I promised that the second edition in the series would be about food, so in this post I’ll talk a little about some of the differences between eating in the U.S. and Australia, and share some Aussie food-related vocabulary.
Collecting Postcards 