10 Australian things I like to complain about

So last month I wrote this post on things I love about Australia. With any luck, you’ll really like most things about your study abroad destination. But I think it’s almost inevitable that there’ll be some things you’re less keen on, and that is normal and okay. Hopefully they’ll be minor things, like everything on this list, and they won’t actually impact on how you much you enjoy your time abroad (rather they’ll just be the things you complain about to family and friends at home, and the things that when you get back home you’ll laugh about). So here goes, 10 things about Australia that I like to complain about.

1. The creatures – I don’t know how to identify spiders, so in my eyes they’re all poisonous. Therefore they all need to be removed from my room (humanely trapped in a glass and released out the window, rather than killed).
2. The traffic lights – my journey to the local shopping centre involves two sets of traffic lights. If I need to be there at a certain time, I will need to factor another five minutes into the journey in case I’m kept waiting at the traffic lights. Why they take so long is beyond me, but having to wait for over two minutes per set is just not cool.
3. The money – coins here weigh a tonne. I walk around feeling like I’m rich because my purse is super heavy, but in reality it’s just a dollar worth of 20 cent coins weighing as much as 10 £2 coins
4. The TV – it just isn’t up to English standard, case closed.
5. The WiFi – considering these guys invented WiFi, you’d think they’d have the thing sussed. Unfortunately not, in many places trying to stay connected is like getting blood from a stone.
6. The birds – the birds here are (generally) crazy pretty but goodness gracious me they don’t half make a racket. The first week I thought there were an above average number of cats screeching, and then I realised it was the birds. Dawn chorus here is not a pleasant melody for the ears – it’s a horrible mess of screeching.
7. Dominos – like most students, I do enjoy partaking in the occasional Dominos pizza. Here, whilst they are so cheap ($5 for a pizza, yes please) they just don’t taste the same. It’s a good pizza for the price, but it’s just not English Dominos.
8. The chocolate – apparently they put something in chocolate here to stop it melting (which I guess is kind of necessary) but it just messes with the flavour so much that I’d rather not eat chocolate here, which is basically unheard of for me
9. The post – now I can’t be sure who’s to blame for this, but I’m pretty sure it’s Australia. It takes two weeks for something to get here from the UK (but only one week for something to get to the UK) and it seems to be because it spends about 10 days on a little journey around Australia. Nothing like two weeks of suspense waiting for something to arrive.
10. Salty chips – you haven’t had salty chips until you’ve had Australian chips. In certain food outlets, I feel like the phrase ‘caked in salt’ isn’t too much of an overstatement. Sometimes you can see more salt than chip, and I probably spend more time brushing salt off than eating them.