Archive for April 26th, 2008
An other-side-of-the-world perspective
April 26, 2008
Moving to Australia gave us a new perspective on our home country, the United States. Now Kristi and I are traveling for a bit in the Netherlands and Belgium following a work conference she had in Amsterdam and we’re getting a new perspective on Australia.
* Most noticeable of all is the fact that Australia is, relatively speaking, less pricey than we thought. We asked our friend from Amsterdam if anything is cheaper there than in Australia, where she now lives, and here answer was unequivocal: no.
Our experience verifies that with one exception: beer, very good beer of many varieties, costs less than a euro per bottle in stores and you surely can’t beat that in Brisbane.
* One cannot live on beer alone. But you can come pretty close if you add in cheese. The Netherlands has incredible cheeses.
* The Internet speeds I experience with my ADSL connection at home are put to shame by all the connections speeds we’ve experienced here. Gmail comes up fast! I watched a brief movie sent to me via email and there were no interruptions for more downloading. None. Amazing.
* Really old things in Australia tend to be trees, like Read the rest of this entry »