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I joined a very exclusive club as I began my trip. No, not the mile high club—I’m talking about becoming one of the ‘elite’ Americans with “the card,” the American Express card.

I had always been hit over the head with all the Am Ex marketing about how good they are with international travel help and benefits. Well, I am here to tell you—don’t bother! Did you know that for any international charges you make with an Am Ex card in another currency they charge you a fee? That would mean a fee for nearly every single transaction I’m doing this whole year! Luckily my other credit card does not do this and pretty much has all the travel benefits that AmEx has. I’m glad I found out about the fees before I left and have basically gotten the Am Ex card for nothing! Until now.

Here in Melbourne I found one good use for it. A few nights ago I joined thousands of Melbournians in Federation Square—the city’s central meeting point and all around ‘hang out plaza”
to watch the final match of the Australian Open.

I had been fortunate enough to go to one match live the first week of the tournament. The Australian Open is the first of the world’s four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, held each January at Melbourne Park. The other three are the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open held in Queens, NY.

The Tennis Grounds here are just a quick ten minute walk from the Central Business District and they are beautiful. There are nearly twenty tennis courts with several matches going on at once as well as the bigger matches taking place in the two larger arenas—Vodafone and Rod Laver Arena. Thousands of tennis fans, local Melbournians, and just plain ol’ tourists looking for a party wander around the grounds. It is apparently one of the livelier world tennis tourneys. For a sport that is a bit on the tame side and more ‘adult’ than say rugby or football, the Australian Open does have its share of crazy, possibly not-so-sober fans. I saw many a young mob from Croatia and other parts of the world draped in their country’s flags and dripping with the requisite face paint. You can buy a simple $20 ground pass and just wander in and out of the lesser matches. My friend Kay, who’s here getting her Master’s at the University of Melbourne, and I splurged a little more and got tickets into Rod Laver Arena for the second round. The arena was named to honor one of Australia’s greatest tennis players of all time. Rod Laver is the only player in the history of tennis to have captured two Grand Slams (1962 and 1969) – the ultimate in tennis where a player wins the four major titles in the same calendar year. We got to see a few of today’s biggest stars play and even saw two who would eventually become champs in the end—the U.S. Bryan Twins in Doubles, and Roger Federer, the Swiss Stallion who went on the win the Men’s Final here for the second year in a row. I also got to see our very own Andy Roddick easily defeat Frenchman Marc Gicquel, but unfortunately he later went on to just get mentally crushed by the fierce and ‘on fire’ Federer.

So, of course, I didn’t have tickets to the actual final match, but they were showing it on the big screen TV outside in nearby Federation Square. So, I hopped on my bike and rode over to join the mobs ready to watch some good tennis. I realized American Express was one of the big sponsors of the Open. They had an ‘exclusive’ seating area just for AM EX card holders, like me. I grabbed a seat, noshed on some snacks, and cheered for the underdog: hot Chilean, Fernando Gonzales. Plus I got to practice my waning second language skills with some friendly Chileans sitting next to me. Muy guapo Fernando put up a good fight, but in the end Federer is just a maven on the court.

So for this one night, I guess membership had its privileges.

In many ways, Australia is just like America. But there are a few obvious differences I must discuss. Even though we speak the same language, there are some definite words and phrases that I had to learn. We all know terms like g’day, mate, no worries and the loo. But whereas we say “how are you,” “how’s it going” or “what’s up,” here in the land ‘down under’ they say how ya going instead. When we say “good going” or “good for you,” these guys here say good on ya! We’ve all heard the Ozzie term barbie for barbecue before. But they seem to “cutesitize” a lot of other words as well: breakfast=brekkie, mosquitoes=mozzies, university=uni, avo=afternoon, and therefore, of course, evo=evening. Of course, because of their ties to England a lot of the vocabulary here uses the Queens English: biscuits for cookies and chips for fries.

Also speaking of food, rockmelon is cantaloupe—I much prefer the word rockmelon anyway—I mean what is a cantaloupe—sounds like some antelope in a can or something. Actually the cantaloupe we eat in the US is really a muskmelon. The Cantaloupensis, (look closer the word you think you just saw is not in there!) the true cantaloupe, has a completely different appearance and is only grown in Europe. Oh, and the aforementioned capsicum (red and green bell peppers)? I’ve done some research and discovered that is their actual scientific botanical name. Wow—that’s very deep of the Australians and just so far removed from their other words like brekkie. I was shopping in a department store recently and came across the Manchester section. The what? Apparently, it’s the household linens and sheets section. I’ve been away so long I can’t even recall what we call it. A bottle shop is a liquor store and a milk bar is a convenience store and speaking of, there is a 7-11 on nearly every corner. And I stopped by Target a few days ago to replenish some of my toiletries. But this major coffee drinking town only has a handful of Starbucks, instead there are hundreds of independent coffee shops and cafes where the locals gather and laze the day away with latte in hand and cigarette in mouth.

Flip flops here? Still called thongs. I’m sure that leaves you with an important follow-up question—and yes, here, it’s still called the G-string. Just like the good ol’ 70s. And lastly, this is definitely a nation that likes its booze or piss (what they call alcohol). You can surmise this by all the slang terms they have for vomiting: pavement pizza, kerbside quiche, rainbow sneeze, technicolor yawn, liquid laugh, drive the porcelain bus, and simply chunder. Mmm…nice images.

I can’t imagine driving here as I’m slowly getting used to just walking on the ‘wrong’ (left) side of the sidewalk and standing on the left side of the escalator or passing others on the right instead of left. But occasionally my right-leaning (not politically speaking) tendencies get the better of me and I drift over to that side. It must be a sheer giveaway to the locals that I am American. I can just hear them, “look at her walking on the right, tsk-tsk silly American girl!”

Besides just driving on the left there are some other driving rules you better know before getting behind the wheel here. At some intersections here they have what are called hook turns, a unique driving rule to Melbourne. Now, again, keep in mind they drive on the left here. A ‘hook turn’ is literally a right turn made from the left most lane. At these intersections, you turn right from the left hand lane, leaving the right hand lane free for through traffic and the tram tracks in the middle clear for trams. So instead of getting over to the right most lane, you actually pull as far to the left as possible (basically perpendicular to the cars waiting at the red light), wait in the intersection for the light to change and then pull a wide right turn across the whole intersection. Think about it back in the US as if when you wanted to make a left hand turn you first pulled all the way to the right curb to do it!

Something else I’ve noticed, especially from working here, is they seem to charge for everything—at my café you have to plunk down an extra fifty cents if you want mayo or mustard on your sandwich, and even just toasting it will cost you another two Quarters (if they used Quarters here)! You want that ‘to go?’ You have to ask for take away containers, and guess what? That will be one dollar more, please.

Now for some of the differences I see as improvements. Here there are simply no pennies. These archaic coins are pretty worthless so they just simply round up. For the most part all prices are multiples of five. Makes life much easier.

Like 95% of the rest of the world, Australia is also on the metric system. Why we never switched over completely in the U.S. is perplexing to me. I remember learning it all in the 3rd grade and then it just seemed to ‘go away.’ The United States is now the only industrialized country in the world that does not use the metric system as its predominant system of measurement. But we’re inching toward it, so to speak. Metric is the preferred measuring system for U.S. trade because our overseas trade partners all use it. Doctors do all measures in metrics especially distributing medicine in cubic centimeters. Virtually all scientists in the U.S. use metric measures exclusively. Track and field events have dropped yards and miles all together. I remember running the 100-yard-dash in middle school, now they do not run yards or miles, but events like the 1600 meter event which has replaced the mile. Congress passed a law in 1975 to work toward making the metric system the standard system in America. This was amended in 1988 when it was decided that the Government itself must be metric before it can start asking the private sector to follow suit. That’s right, people. There’s a creeping “metricization” going on. And someday, you may finally have to admit that kilo for kilo, it really is a better system.

Working in the food service industry, I’m well aware that there is virtually no tipping here. As a traveler, it certainly makes things much easier and as a worker its okay, because the minimum wage here is much higher than the sad low wages we have back in the U.S. In fact, New Zealand and Australia were the first countries in the world to put into effect the ‘minimum wage’ back in the late 1800s to ensure fair pay and no exploitation of workers. The current federal minimum wage for full or part time employees aged over 21 in Australia is AU$13.47 (~US$10.50) per hour. As of January 2007, the United States federal minimum wage is $5.15/hour. I think I made more than that in High School nearly 20 years ago. (Coincidentally, the day after I posted this the
U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25/hour. But as all things bureaucratic, it would not happen quickly. The legislation would raise the minimum wage in three steps. It would go to $5.85 an hour upon taking effect 60 days after the president signs it into law, then to $6.55 an hour a year later, and to $7.25 an hour a year after that. This is the first raise to the minimum wage in a decade.)

Supermarkets here have virtually done away with plastic bags. It seems nearly everyone uses one of those reusable canvas grocery sacks. They sell them only for 99c right at the register and it just seems silly not to. In fact, they have somehow made it seem cool to be seen with a green canvas supermarket bag. I say this because it seems everyone has one. That is probably the simplest, best marketing strategy. Why has this not become the norm in the U.S.?

Finally, it appears that Australia has the friendliest flies I have ever met. Never have I become so aware of my tiny winged friends buzzing around me. Back in the States, it is very rare that I’m bothered by flies. Normally if one is around you, you can ‘bat’ it away and that’s that. Not so here. The “blowies” are just like our standard house fly, but these little buggers are lazy, slow moving, and stick to you like American flies on shit. Seriously, here you bat a fly away and it flies in a circle to land right back on your arm or face. The cute Kangaroo is usually held up as the animal that represents the essence of Australia. However in terms of influencing Australian culture, the Kangaroo is no match for the fly. Although the fly doesn’t appear on any flags, it has shaped everything from the manner an Australian speaks to Australian fashion. In terms of speech, it has been said that the Australian accent is a product of Australians breathing through their noses for fear that flies might blow into their mouths. Flies have also inspired a new style of body language. Known as the “Australian Salute”, Australians have turned flicking away a fly into an art form.

I’d been in Melbourne for only three days and I’d already found a place to stay, made a new best friend, joined a tennis league, and landed myself a job in a café.

Finding a job was not easy since I (shhh…) didn’t have a work visa and was not going to be here very long so no one wanted to take the time to train me if I was giving notice in three weeks. I was at a point though, where I need something “real” to do and didn’t want to just be a tourist anymore. I knew having a real routine and getting a job would allow me that insight into a place and its people that you just can’t get as a tourist taking the double-decker city bus tour. Plus, this country ain’t cheap and I could use the dough to help offset some of the costs.

My first day here I searched for jobs all day walking up and down Brunswick Street which is filled with, what seemed like hundreds of eateries and cafes. I really had to put on my biggest confident smile and sell myself even though fifteen years of TV experience does not a barista make. I had two ‘real’ retail jobs in High School, but, let’s fact it, that was quite a long time ago. Most places I stopped in to would not hire me because:

A. I had NO coffee experience, B. I would not be here very long, and C. I had no work visa.

One place I tried is called “Beans & Bagels.” We have a place in Chicago with the same name. And, of course, like nearly everywhere in the city, I’d done a story there. I told them about ours and they knew about it because apparently when you Google (funny how that is now a verb in our vocab) it—the Chicago one comes up first—naturally! I was really excited and thought this would be perfect—I’m a Jew—I have tons of ‘bagel experience’ (well, noshing on them) but, nope, they said by the time they trained me I’d be leaving. Oy Vey! That’s when I had to start lying.

I HATE lying, but toward the end of the day, I was giving up hope and the few people I talked to said I should. Maybe a place would hire me if they didn’t know they would train me and then in less than four weeks I would leave. Plus many of the area cafes used a lot of ‘casual workers’ that only worked during their school holiday breaks and such.

After about twelve different cafes telling me ‘no’ for one reason or another, I was getting a bit dejected. This is a huge café town and they take their lattes and cappuccinos very seriously. Was this even going to work? I tried one last place. It was a little coffee/deli/sandwich shop. It was more ‘real’ and not as trendy as some of the other cafes. The manager, Vince, greeted me with a smile.

“Do you have coffee experience?” He asked.

“No.”

“Have you worked in a sandwich shop before?”

“No.”

“How long will you be here?”

“Oh, I’m not sure yet…depends if I get the job,” I said with a smile.

“Okay, come in for a trial tomorrow.”

What? He was actually giving me a chance! And I didn’t even know the name of the place! He was the only one all day who didn’t want to see my resume. I had told him I worked in TV and was a professional, but had never really worked in food hospitality before.

“It’s all about the attitude. I can see you are friendly and have a warm smile—that’s the most important when serving our customers.” Vince said.

Cool, I like it here already. I’ve always seen the importance in customer service and completely agreed. No matter where you go or who you call, the person saying “hello” and first helping you is truly acting as an ambassador to that company and this first impression, at least in my opinion, can really determine whether or not you shop there again. I really hoped I’d get the job—then I will at least I would meet some people, make a little cash, and have a routine.

The next day, I walked into Pane Provinciale and became a student of coffee and sandwiches. Vince showed me how to make lattes (one shot of espresso, steamed milk, and only one centimeter of perfect foam and in a glass not a cup!), cappuccinos (one third espresso, one third steamed milk, one third foam or ‘froth’ with a sprinkle of cocoa on top. These are named after the Capuchin Monks who work white flat hats) and then how to make sandwiches—their way—with margarine as a spread instead of mayo or mustard and besides lettuce and tomato they also love their beet root here! Apparently I’d passed the test because he asked me back the next day and I’ve been working about 20 hours a week ever since.

The Licata Family emigrated to Melbourne years ago from Italy. They had run a catering business and took over this café about two years ago. Charlie and Rose Licata owned the place and ran it with their son, Vince and their niece, Natalie. They were all as nice as could be and I loved their Italian/Australian accents. They reminded me of every warm, funny Italian I’ve ever worked for and with.

My first week I was nervous and in that new job phase where it’s frustrating because you don’t know everything yet. I had to keep asking everyone how much the sausage rolls were or what a hedgehog slice was (a brownie). I was hardly a coffee drinker myself so the learning curve was a little steeper. Plus, even the money was new to me—they have way more coins than we do—including a two dollar and one dollar coins. Plus they have a twenty cent one and another for fifty cents. Also—they seemed to stock their register backwards—the bigger bills were on the right where I was used to seeing the singles. This took a lot of concentration as I certainly didn’t want to give someone change of a fifty-dollar bill instead of a one dollar coin! I was most nervous that someone would come in and shout some crazy order at me in ‘Aussie speak’ and I wouldn’t be able to understand a word of it. This, of course didn’t happen –it was just new job jitters. But I certainly was in the disadvantage because not only did I have to learn they way they did things at this particular café, but had a crash course in what they ‘called’ things here in Australia.

• Whole Meal=Whole Wheat
• Mince Meat=Ground Beef
• To-mah-toe=To-may-toe (“You say To-may-to and I say To-mah-to…”)
• Tasty Cheese=Cheddar Cheese
• Capsicum=Peppers
• Sauce=Ketchup
• Flat White=Coffee with milk
• Short Black=an Espresso
• How ya Going=How are you?

Besides the perks of getting a free lunch and being able to take home sandwiches and breads that would just get thrown out (freebies are always nice for the poor traveler), it was great to be part of the workforce again. I hadn’t worked a job where I was literally on my feet all day since my teenage afternoons at Nagel’s Candy Barn and Image Photo & Video. Now, I was dipping my toes into the chilly waters of manual labor again…and I have to say it really felt good. My former job as a TV Producer was sometimes tiring, but it was more a brain exhaustion. Now, I was physically exhausted after a day on my feet running around making sandwiches during the lunch rush, serving up the locals’ daily dose of caffeine, and washing dishes as they stacked up. There is really something to be said for earning money this way—I felt like I was literally working for it, and haven’t felt this for a long, long time. The extra cash would help cover the more expensive costs of traveling in Australia. Plus, I just really liked the feeling of being part of the Melbourne working world and all the benefits that came with that—meeting the locals, the regulars who frequented Pane Provinciale and getting to know my co-workers. And the mocha lattes are starting to win me over.

Most that know me today probably think of me as a city girl and rightly so. I love living in the ‘hoods of Chicago—very diverse and brimming with ethnic eateries of all kinds (if you also know me, you know it’s all about the food!). But for the first eighteen years of my life I grew up in quite a suburban bordering rural, wooded town in  New Jersey. Yes, NJ has its rural woody side.  We lived on the edge of the woods, with tall leafy oaks and elms, where we would often go play and literally swing from the vines. There were no street lights on our hilly street and I would sometimes gaze up at the night sky full of twinkling stars while crickets chirped happily all around. The trees and stars are probably what I miss most about living away from a city.

Manhattan was only forty-five minutes to the east of our house, but we rarely went there. The times we did it was mostly to visit the grandparents. My mom’s parents lived in Brooklyn so we’d drive over the double-decker George Washington Bridge, pass what my brother, David, and I called the tower of “Dr. Shrinker,” which was an ABC TV show in 1976, (the tower itself was actually the High Bridge Water Tower, built in 1872, for the Croton Aqueduct), and through the borough of Brooklyn to the neighborhood of Canarsie. Or we’d be visiting my other Grandma, Esta, who then lived in ritzy Grammercy Park and now in, the ‘it neighborhood of the moment,’ Chelsea. We’d drive through the engineering marvel that is the Lincoln Tunnel where our radio would die out and David and I would shout out when we whizzed by the “New Jersey/New York” border line painted on the white tiled walls of the tunnel. After eight thousand feet of riding under the Hudson River, we’d shoot out into the stinging daylight of New York City to be welcomed by the ubiquitous and grungy ‘squeegee guys.’ These ‘working men’ would just start cleaning your windshield whether you wanted it or not with a filthy rag (anything for a buck!), which would usually make the glass dirtier than it was when you arrived in the Big Apple just moments earlier. Like many things that have been ‘cleaned up’ in NYC, those squeegee guys are no longer there. At least the nuisance is gone, although, maybe now they’ve resorted to something more illegal, yet more profitable, like selling crack.

We would head straight to my grandmother’s apartment building without passing ‘Go’ or ever stopping for some good New York pizza (the best!). So I really wasn’t a city girl at all. And of course the New York City I saw of the 1980’s is not the same city it is today. Even though I was only ten years old or so, it really was a scary place back then—graffiti everywhere, sirens wailing at all hours, and some of the worst crime in the world. But all that has really changed. Times Square, once a nasty home of drugs and ‘triple-x’ peep show houses, is now the center of entertainment and is a shiny mini-Disney World. Like many areas, the 80’s were a rough time, in large part to the cheap drug, crack. And, like many cities now, downtowns and old warehouse districts are being rebuilt, refurbished and rehabbed.

It wasn’t until I was in college and landed a few internships in New York City at WCBS-TV News and “Late Night with David Letterman,” that I began to appreciate the ‘city that never sleeps’ for some its finer offerings. I discovered it had neighborhoods—virtual villages where people could feel part of a smaller community. And I started discovering some of the best food I’d ever had. Growing up, we rarely went out to eat except for the occasional Chinese Food take out (a favorite food of Jews everywhere), the rare pizza slice, or a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich at diners like “Bud’s Family Restaurant” with my mom for our weekly ‘Wednesday-night-divorce-court-approved-dinner.’ So when I first tried Penne with a tomato cream vodka sauce, or sun dried tomatoes, capers, and pesto or some amazing spice infused mashed potatoes from Union Square Café, I was amazed and delighted at the enormous food world that awaited me (and my stomach!). Even just something simple like fresh basil was new and so lovely to me. Of course I also had some great street food too—juicy gyros, falafel pitas with tzatziki sauce, and lest I forget, the best hot dogs, pepperoni pizza, and bagels known to man.

I continued my city love affair when I moved to Chicago six years later…and here more new foods revealed themselves to me—Japanese Sushi with fresh morsels of maguro, flavorful Indian rice biryani and samosas, Middle Eastern cous cous, and the amazing saganaki, spanakopita, and charcoal grilled octopus of Greektown.

Melbourne, Australia is also an epicureans dreamland. It has the third largest Greek population after Athens and Thessaloniki in Greece. Over half of the city dwellers here have a parent that was born somewhere else in the world. Waves of immigrants have brought major cultural influences from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The city sits on and around the banks of the Yarra River and is chock full of different ethnic neighborhoods. In one night in Melbourne you could dine on cuisine from any corner of the globe.

My first week here I had a cold Australian beer at Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream outdoors in the Botanic Gardens, shopped the rows and rows of colorful stalls of fruits, cheeses, and knick knacks at the huge Victoria Market and strolled through Fitzroy, the city’s bohemian enclave where every other establishment on happening Brunswick Street is a café. And, of course, I ate—Malaysian Penang Curry in ethnically diverse Fitzroy, rich Italian gnocchi on Lygon Street in Carlton, the thriving Little Italy neighborhood, sizzling Turkish lamb souvlaki, and Indonesian Nasi Goreng (fried rice) in St. Kilda. It’s a good thing I was walking so much or I’d be as big as a house. Melbourne already seemed to have a friendlier, down to earth vibe that was missing in Sydney and as a former suburbanite turned city gal–I knew I was going to like this lively, colorful, and tasty town.