Roaming Towards Myself

It’s been a fair number of years since I’ve had the pleasure of visiting London, so I was very much looking forward to heading back to the British Isles.

Being Australian, I really thought I’d feel right at home here in London, but it feels completely different to Australia.

I’m not talking about the big things like Westminster Abbey or Harrods. It’s the little things, the many everyday mundane things, that set England and Australia apart.

I thought I was being quite reasonable in assuming that English muffins, in England, would be, well, better. Alas, the English don’t pamper their citizens. It’s left to the masses to cut their own muffins. In Australia, our muffins are cut already. Or maybe a more troubling thought is that the manufacturer thinks the land down under isn’t capable of slicing their own muffins.

Ordering coffee is always fun in England. Apparently, England hasn’t discovered the joy of milking almonds. This is pretty inconvenient for me considering I drink almond milk. I haven’t found it available at any café yet, so I began ordering skim cappuccinos instead of the elusive almond milk.

However, the coffee saga continued. In Australia, it’s pretty common to ask a barista to make a skim milk cappuccino. In London, every time I’ve asked for one, the barista has looked at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. Well, I guess for them Australian as a language is. Unless you ask for semi-skimmed milk you will not get past a blank stare from the barista.

England absolutely has the edge over Australia with chocolate. Be it Costco or a corner store, chocolate is absolutely delicious and towers above Australian Cadbury chocolate. It’s a definite must try.

A strange observation is the difference in street signs. Driving through London, you are constantly, frantically looking for the street sign coming up before you let down Google Maps, who has been faithfully directing you. The street signs in England seem to be geared towards hobbits, whilst the street signs in Australia are more geared towards Bigfoot.

Something that appears to be very different is WHS standards. The other day I was walking along a ridge that looks over fields at Old Sarum Castle ruins. One slip and you fall into a castle moat that lost its water years ago. No fence. Nothing. A form of population control?

In Australia, you would have a safety harness on, a fence would be blocking any possible fall down the slope, and you would have attended a safety briefing upon paying your entry fee.

My favourite thing though is the nuts. England has soft nuts. Australia has firm nuts. To be clear, yes, I am talking about nuts that grow on trees. Every packet of nuts I have bought from a multitude of different shops, and yes they are all uniquely soft. Australians obviously prefer a specific amount of crunch when they bite into their nuts, whereas England seems to prefer some softness with their nuts.

None of these things make either Australia or England better. It is just a small number of quirky differences which make travel throughout England so interesting and at the same time make this Aussie girl feel very far from home.