Mcdonalds Holiday Lights At The Beach Ticket Order: Fill & Download for Free

Well, I’m speaking as a duo citizen who moved from Canada to reside in Australia, but the following tend to surprise my visitors:One that frequently comes to mind is how cold Australian homes can get. Canada may be colder on average, but Australian homes tend to be so poorly insulated that you’ll be less comfortable indoors in Australia during winter than you were in Canada. EDIT: To the reading challenged who’ve commented, that is not the equivalent of saying Australia is colder than Canada, and I’ll point out that the tropical regions of Australia do not have “winter” — the US also has tropical areas but it generally doesn’t need to be explained that a comment about winter in the US generally excludes Key West.The level of isolation. Canada’s population may be largely along its southern border. Similarly, Australians tend to stick to certain strips here and there, while the centre is dominated by vast deserts. However, Canada has the large populations of the US immediately to the south. In contrast, Australia is a very isolated island. Other than New Zealand and some island nations, Australia is largely tucked away on its own to the southeast of Asia. And Perth, on Australia’s west coast, is probably the world’s most isolated city. Travel to most western countries, and even many parts of Asia? Extremely long travel time, and expensive airfare. Still, cheaper to travel and stay in most South Pacific Islands, Indonesia, Bali, etc, than it is to travel within Australia.The level of concentration in a few cities. Canada is very urbanized. But Australia’s population is even more concentrated. In Canada (at least in Ontario), you get lots of small cities, big town, little towns, villages, etc, spread out all over the place among the farmland. In Australia, outside of the capitals of each state, there aren’t as many small cities or large towns. They do exist (particularly around areas of past major gold strikes), but seem to be far fewer and farther between.The rampant price-fixing. As part of its isolation, a lot of goods need to be shipped long distances to Australia. Despite this, it is often cheaper to buy goods online internationally, even from half-way around the world in the US and Canada, and get it shipped. Many retailers in Australia take advantage of their isolation to charge significantly higher mark-ups on prices than other countries in the world, and depend upon the locals failing to comparison shop (thankfully, Australian consumers are becoming wiser). Australian retailers have been caught entering into price-fixing agreements with, e.g., overseas clothing distributors — the distributors promise not to sell online in Australia, the Aussie retailers charge higher prices, the distributors get a bit of the cut.Videogame retailers have also admitted that the reason why they charge significantly more for videogames in Australia is not due to cost, but because Australians are willing to pay more. It probably helps that we are often prevented from buying electronic goods internationally. That’s why many Australians use postal forwarding boxes.Apple charges Australians more (exchange rates inclusive) to download content. Netflix provides significantly less content. The Australian government has actually advocated the use of VPNs for such reasons.Recently, when Amazon Australia started up, Amazon began to deny Australian consumers the ability to purchase anything directly from any of their other international stores. The Aussie site would process only selected purchases from their international warehouses, but we were largely restricted to their less well stocked Aussie warehouses. In addition to the lower selection, prices were significantly higher than orders from Amazon US, UK, Canada, etc, shipping included. Amazon’s excuse for this was the sales tax Australia requires them to collect, even from international purchases. But that was nonsense since Amazon has set up various sites to calculate tax and other charges for international purchases. And the tax does not account for the full difference in price. Amazon has relented somewhat, and we can purchase from their other sites again.Airlines charge Australians significantly more. If I bought a ticket for a plane flight from a Canadian ISP address, using my Canadian passport, I’d be charged significantly less than I would for the exact same flight purchased from an Australian ISP address, using my Australian passport. Same personnel on the plane, same fuel.Voting is mandatory You can be fined if you do not vote in an election. Even if you do not like any of the candidates, or get all your news from Kim Kardashian’s twitter account. If you want to protest without getting fined? Spoil your ballot. But you might want to vote to counter all those who vote on the basis of which politician has nicer eyes since they’re forced to vote.Preference voting You get to rank your votes by first pick, second pick, etc. Sound great? Not always. For the Senate, you tend to have several dozen candidates to choose from, so you may either rank them all (“who do I pick for fifth? This fringe right party, or this fat rich guy, or the Sex Party?”) or you can “vote above the line” by picking just the one party you support. Each party enters into agreements with others over who their preference votes will go to. Thus you get people elected into office, like one fellow from the Car Enthusiasts Party whose sum total of political knowledge was “Cars run on petrol”, despite having significantly fewer votes than many other candidates. Because political parties hedge their bets, leaving one set of voters unrepresented by anyone remotely competent is a worthwhile price for keeping your main opponent from getting elected.Musical Chairs Prime Ministers Well, the natives are also a bit embarrassed by how many PMs we’ve had over the past 10 years.The Conservative Party is called “the Liberal Party”, and the actual Liberal Party misspells its own name as “Labor”The two conservative parties (Liberals and Nationals) only ever manage to win elections by officially running as a Coalition (yes, capital C) and not putting candidates up against each other. And yet they suggest any coalition formed by other political parties are illegitimate. And the press never really questions this logic.Food becomes Australian if you add a fried egg to it An Aussie pizza is a pizza with fried egg on it. An Aussie burger is a burger with a fried egg on it. Yet if I joke that an Aussie hard-boiled egg is a hard-boiled egg with a fried egg on top, I get strange looks.The US has even stronger influence on Aussie politics than it does in Canada This ties in to Australia’s isolation, its economic dependence upon China, and its security dependence upon the US. Case in point: Australia rushing in to join the US in its invasion of Iraq. But at the same time they have to avoid pissing off China. Or Indonesia.The atrocious treatment of refugee claimants who don’t manage to come in by plane. Yes, the method of your conveyance determines whether or not you will be denied basic medical needs, be kept in detention for years in subhuman conditions, have your rape or assault properly investigated, be shipped to third countries that also are known for persecuting people of your background, if you are cut off from the press, your risk of dying in custody, etc, etc.You’ll never get used to how different holidays and other celebrations are here. In Melbourne, we have public holidays for a horse race and other select sporting events, even when a large percentage of the population couldn’t give a crap about the events (but still appreciate the day off). We do not have Thanksgiving. St Patrick’s Day get barely a peep. Hardly any lights or decorations up at Christmas (although stores put up their Christmas displays on 1 September). And very low numbers of people celebrating Halloween (the cries of “bug humbug! It’s popular in the US!!” being widespread). Plus Christmas in 40 degree heat, with outdoor BBQs? It never feels right. NEVER. And we have a big dry spell of public holidays from about mid June to late September - over a quarter of a year with no long weekend!Until recently, I’d also say the poor quality of service in stores and restaurants, but it has significantly improved over the past 10 years. Why? An increased willingness by Aussies to complain. Once upon a time if I received an entirely incorrect order from McDonalds, the attitudes of my fellow Aussies would be “Why complain? It’s McDonalds”. That attitude translated into poor service at higher levels of retail and restaurant service. Not any longer.EDIT: In response to some comments: I don’t consider all I state above to be negative (although some of it is), or worse than anywhere else. Consider this: How many governments (conservative ones, mind you) would recommend the public use VPNs to show up Netflix? And if it is a bit one-sided, it is because the topic is about what “surprises”. Great beaches, etc? That’s the sort of thing people expect.