I know I'm In Oz When....

I know I'm teaching in Halls Gap, Australia when: 

I sip my morning coffee on my cabin veranda and watch the kangaroos hopping to gather for their al fresco breakfast

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I look out of my classroom and notice this Victoria license plate.

 

I put a kookaburra in charge of supervising safety procedures at the cutting mat.

 

I add new expressions to my growing antipodean list of idioms. "A blind man would be glad to see it," one student declared while reassuring another her craftsmanship was good enough. "A ball of muscle," another student replied when I asked her how her evening had been. Turns out that's the Ozzie equivalent of "Box o' birds, mate," which I learned from some Kiwi friends years ago and am still lobbying to add to the American lexicon.

I borrow a bike, gratis, from the local backpacker's accommodation by leaving the owner with no more information than my first name.

I share breakfast with tutors from Ireland, England, New York, and Florida as well as far flung Australian states like Western Australia and Tasmania -- and from the wonderfully named town of Bundadoon. And breakfast is always muesli and fruit. Unless I want Vegemite and toast.

I watch students and teachers playing petanque while the roos watch from the neighboring cricket pitch.

I answer, "She'll be right, mate," when a friend worries about how we'll get to class without access to a car. And I believe it. And it's true.