What is Australia like?
It's completely understandable that you're very nervous about moving half way across the world to a strange country and it will be difficult at first but Australia is a great place to live. Australians are very friendly and welcoming to newcomers and you're most unlikely to have any trouble making new friends. You'll find school very different though my own kids moved between schools in Australia and the USA and back again several times without any significant problems. You'll have to wear a school uniform which will be very strange but so does everyone else so you won't stand out from the crowd. You could possibly go to a private school as private schooling is much more common here than in the States and while government schools are nearly all co-educational, many private schools are single sex - that can be a shock to the system though it does have its advantages. You'll probably find as my children did that you'll be a bit ahead in some subjects and a bit behind in others but it will all work out over time so don't stress about it - 15 is quite a good time to be moving in terms of your education. What grade you'll go into will depend to some degree on the state you move to and when your birthday is in the year but if you're coming soon, you'll most probably go into Year 10, at least until the end of the school year. Our school year begins in late January/early February and runs until December. Most other things are pretty much like the US - same television shows, same movies, same level of technology, similar food, malls etc etc. Our major sports are different with virtually no American football - here it's two different rugby codes and Australian Rules football with soccer also very popular. Basketball and baseball are played here, they're not nearly as popular as in the USA. Most Australians live fairly near the coast so if you're into beach activities there should be scope for that for at least part of the year but the country is as large as the 48 states with fairly wide variations in climate from south to north though overall, Australia is warmer. If you tell us where in the USA you're coming from and where in Australia you'll be moving to, we can give you some kind of comparison and should be able to give you a better idea of what you can expect in some specific areas.
Why is Australia called Oz?
It’s a play on word pronunciation.In everyday conversation Australia is pronounced “A.straylia”, whilst English and posh people pronounce Australia as “Aw. straylia”. Americans tend to refer to Australians as “Ossies” . To reduce their accent Australians pronounce Australia as “Oz. straylia” or the land of “Oz” a pun refering to the land in movie “The Wizard Of Oz”. This is because Australia was often refered to as “the lucky country”.
What is australia's Culture consist of?
I have a cultural project about australians & their cultural behavior, I would like to ask all australians out there for help. What is Australia's culture consist of ? how is it different ? & what makes it different from any other culture ?
What is Australia's equivalent of the FBI and CIA?
Australia's foreign intelligence agency is the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, or ASIS. The domestic side is actually handled by two agencies. One, the Australian Federal Police, has police powers that deal with issues larger than those handled by state/territorial police forces. This is somewhat analogous to the FBI's work against money laundering, drug smuggling, and kidnapping. A second agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, is responsible for domestic intelligence, including counter-espionage, counter-sabotage, terrorism, and the like. The best analog here is Britain's MI5; the FBI does some similar duties, and their brief has certainly expanded since 2001, but the US has no formal domestic/internal intelligence agency.
What is the national dish of Australia?
The national dish is Australian meat pie (it's like a delicious mini pot pie). Australian meat pie refers to the most common variety of meat pie consumed in Australia. It is a hand-sized pot pie containing largely minced meat and gravy and consumed as a takeaway food snack. It is considered iconic in Australian culture and has been described by former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr as Australia's "national dish". Australians consume an average of 12 meat pies each per year. The popular brand Four'N Twenty Pie produce 50,000 pies per hour. The meat pie is heavily associated with Australian rules football and other sports as one of the most popular consumed food items whilst watching a game. Another national dish is pavlova. It's also quite delicious. Pavlova is a meringue dessert named after the ballet dancer, Anna Pavlova. It is crispy on the outside but light and fluffy inside. Yet another national food is vegemite. Frankly, I think it's disgusting. Vegemite is the registered brand name for a dark brown, salty food paste made from yeast extract, mainly used as a spread on sandwiches and toast, though occasionally used in cooking. It is popular in Australia and New Zealand and is known as a national food in both. It can also be found in many Australian diaspora communities around London. Food technologist Dr. Cyril P. Callister invented Vegemite in 1923 when his employer, the Australian Fred Walker Company, had him develop a spread from brewer's yeast after war had disrupted the supply of imported yeast spreads.
If Australia is a continent, then what is Oceania?
Oceania is a geographic region, which consists of Australia and the three main Pacific island groups (Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia). Most of the islands of the Pacific Ocean lie in this region.Loosely defined, a geographic region is just a continuous geographic area that shares some sort of common feature. These features could be based on physical geography (e.g. climate, ecology, geology) or human geography (e.g. political boundaries, language, religion).Broadly speaking, Oceania is a distinct region because it has an ecology different from Asia, is historically a political region distinct from Asia, and has its position across the Pacific Ocean as a unifying geographic feature.By contrast, continents are generally defined by their geology. While continents have never been consistently defined, what is common across definitions is that land must be part of the same area of continental crust - i.e. the same landmass or an island that is part of the continental shelf.Oceania cannot be a continent because its landmasses do not lie on the same area of continental crust. As you can see below, Australia and New Zealand are actually on two separate continents. Most of the other islands of Oceania do not lie on a continental crust, being formed instead by volcanic eruptions from the ocean floor.