Tomorrow Peter and I are taking a little road trip down to the surfing beaches, which we are really excited about. As the employed half, Peter has yet to really venture out of the city too far, and neither of us have been down toward the famed Great Ocean Road. We don't plan to venture too far tomorrow, but I think we will more or less get to the starting point. These are the "real" Australian beaches, where you see surfers and beautiful white sand and turquoise waters. The city beaches are nice, of course, but rockier, a little murkier, and in the bay, so there isn't any surfing.
Now some observations:
1) Australia/Australians are not nearly as concerned with political correctness, which I appreciate. When the news featured a story the other day about a teenager who assaulted two developmentally disabled people on a bus, unprovoked, the caption was "cowardly thug attacks disabled passengers". This is such a fabulously accurate description. The newscaster did not mince words and I noticed on multiple occasions, criminals have been referred to on the news as "cowards" and "thugs".
2) Some words are pronounced differently here. The best one so far I heard while watching a steak commercial- fillet is pronounced with the "T". It sounds so funny to me! Also, the letter "H" is pronounced by many people as "Haych", with a strong H.
3) Many restaurants are BYO, which means you can bring your own alcohol! I am not positive, but I think this has to do with whether or not the restaurant is licensed to serve alcohol. While you can often bring in alcohol, taking home extra food isn't really a thing. I asked for a box at one restaurant and the waitress stared at me like I had 3 heads. When I explained that I wanted to take home the rest of the food I was too full to finish, she said they didn't allow it. Someone told me it has to do with insurance requirements, but I am still a little confused by it.
And here are some random pictures from this week!
My friends Katie, Katie, and me posing with our ice cream. Katie and Katie both moved here from California (as did almost every other American I have met here) but Katie in the middle is originally from Vermont and actually worked at the Ben and Jerry's factory in high school. Dream. Job.
Hi Laura, unfortunately many restaurants don't let you "doggy bag" food (that's what we call it) - but many also do. So the next time you feel like saving half your meal, just ask if you can doggy bag it and see if they let you! :)
ReplyDeleteDo you happen to know why some don't allow it?
ReplyDeleteI think its because of the possible legal liability or for insurance reasons. For example if you doggy bag food and somehow get sick from eating it hours later, you might have a claim against the restaurant for food poisoning even though it was somewhat out of their control. So many implement a no doggy bagging policy. But it's not illegal to doggy bag.
ReplyDeleteThe difference with takeaway is that it's hot when it leaves the shop/restaurant but usually people have to re-heat leftovers.
After writing that post, I found this article. Probably explains it better than I did:
Deletehttp://www.theage.com.au/victoria/mixed-bag-may-leave-you-sick-as-a-dog-20111015-1lqnl.html
Apparently one restaurant has a disclaimer.
That's really interesting! Because of the generally large portion sizes in most American restaurants, it's more common than not to take leftover food home. I've never heard of this resulting in a lawsuit, but the laws are probably different. Luckily, I rarely don't finish my meals here...portions are smaller and the food is better :).
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