I'm sure Oz isn't a huge cultureshock to anyone arriving from UK or Ireland.

But every now and then I get what I call "mini-cultureshocks". For example: people in the supermarket doing their shopping in their bare feet

What's your mini-cultureshock?

many many things over the last decade have struck me as perculiar.. hard to single things out really but heres a few:

• Bank CHARGES?!
• Bag searches on leaving a shop
• Insistence on getting an electrican just to change a plug ('cos thats WAAY dangerous)

never realised just how American it is

not had any of the first two, not that I'd mind having my bag looking into.

the latter is just myth I changed all ours and the electric police never appeared

What i really can`t get used to is when u leave (some) checkouts the person at teh checkout says u have a good day if we heard taht back in norn iron i think she was having a joke lol. And yes the bag searching it does my headin sometimes .And last but not least u can`t get a desent chinese curry like back in iron

Sure - I've done a bunch of electric work, but when I ripped a plug off and put it back so I could feed an extension chord through a narrow space everyone at work looked at me like I was from outer-space and doing something crazy!

Bank charges I've never paid - but thats only because when any bank I do business with mentions fees I walk away and a find a bank with 'proper' arrangements!... Locals just seem to be happy to pay a monthly fee, pay each time they use an ATM, pay to check balances online etc etc... fools....

Hmmm. Mini-culture shock.

• How seriously they take things like Anzac day. In the UK you'd get the MPs, rail employees and a few offices doing the old minute's silence - but everyone else seemed to carry on as normal. I was amazed that schoolkids would willingly get up at five in the morning to 'honour the war dead'.
• How nobody gives a shit if you pull out right in front of them in your car. I guess it's because everybody does it, but I still feel guilty if I do it and I sit there waiting for the flashing lights, beeping horn and middle finger in the rear view mirror ... but it never comes. It's just accepted as standard practice.

Agreed - ANZAC day is a weird one and something I'll never comprehend. Occassionally in careful circumstances I like to suggest that Australia should standardize with the rest of the world and drop anzac day in favour of the more globally recognised November remembrance day. The strength of the repulsion of the idea always surprises me... (have to be careful who you make that suggestion too - some will be genuinely *very* offended)

Seeing kids down the supermarket in their pj's

Something that was just pure ignorance on my part was I was shocked to find how many Australians were involved in the Vietnam war and that it was their longest serving war, being conscripted etc

and adults

mine is a bit obvious..

The friendliness - people standing there and chatting as if they have known you for years and have all the time in the world for you..

Em x

Im used to that being from Norn Iron we r a friendly bunch lol

Yeah, a myth widely perpetuated - and believed - on BE. Even if it was illegal to do, it would be one law that would need to be broken.

No courtesy when driving. I always let people in/out (give- way) but most never let on, no wave of the hand to say thanks.
I find it very ignorant on the roads.