On a still hot summer night in the city you look out to the road and notice it is moving, or you wonder what that small helicopter is landing on the verandah and realise it is time to get some cockroach paste.
Australians wear winter clothes indoors in Winter. Getting a credit card is hard because they want to make sure that people can comfortably repay their debts.
Winter is a season, we get it, but unlike America we don't have to dig ourselves out of snow. 10 degrees is not cold and our seasons are correct, it's yours that's backwards!
I'm glad you get it! I don't think I ever...once said your seasons were wrong??? Not sure when I said that. Your seasons are correct for the hemisphere that you live in! I don't think anyone has it backwards!
Sydney is the most expensive city in Australia. I’m from rural Queensland and I know a lot of people who moved to Sydney after school finished and ended up moving back to if not our home town qld in general because it’s a lot cheaper to live here. Plus in my town I know loads of people who will go to the chops in their pjs or swim wear with no make up.
Average wage is higher , so cost of living is higher, aslo the price on the tag is the actual price not like in the USA where tax is added to tag price
The average wage in San Francisco is much higher than Sydney, and there are far more people making BIG money. San Francisco has a GDP of $548 Billion US, Sydney with a larger population only has $349 Billion US. Even with the tax added, most things are still cheaper in the US. A case of beer is twice as much in Australia, gas is far cheaper in the US, restaurant meals, so are clothes. Very few things are cheaper in Australia.
@@lowerthenthelowestdeck You must have lived there several years ago, before all the Silicon Valley money came into the city of San Francisco. Regular street cops with their overtime make 400k per year, also same thing with Seattle.
@@gracedagostino5231 Wow - I was in Paolo Alto during Y2K dramas & the Aus dollar was flying high. I lived high on the hog as I never spent much to live on. Work provided apartments & I saved my $$$$. I only did 2 x tours (5 months in total). Post Y2K most of our buildings just shut & locked the front doors.
@@matthewbrown6163 A lot has changed in Palo Alto in 20 yrs. That apartment you got provided for, would start at 3k us per month, but average salaries in Palo Alto are 200k us. Sounds like you had a good time in the good old USA!
Our house doesn’t seem to have insulation and we’ve noticed the cockroaches tend to show up more in the summer! Also it literally says The Hills Shire on my bins so I just assumed that it was a shire! But thank you!
@@lowerthenthelowestdeck hmm, ours say "The Hills - Sydney's Garden Shire" -- I wonder if it's because our bins are new? We got new bins when we moved into our house a year ago - maybe that's it!
@@datenightwife9504 Maybe, anyway great videos, I use to live in San Francisco only thing I miss is Starbucks here dont know how to serve a bagel and cream cheese that isnt stale haha
Welcome to this beautiful land, I am in South Australia but I did live in America for 10 years and I can relate to a lot of what you said :) Glad you are with us now
Getting a credit card here won't help your credit score in Australia. In fact, it will bring your borrowing power down. The benefits of having a credit card in the US are completely different to Australia. So unless you know it will benefit you in specific ways, just don't get one. Pay cash.
The cost of living is higher here because we pay workers a higher minimum wage. Don't stress about women being dolled up all the time. It's mostly a Sydney and Melbourne thing. Other places are more casual. And don't worry about magpies swooping - they freak us out a bit too!
It's a Hills thing about dressing up just to go to the Supermarket. I live about 15 minutes away from that area and most people don't dress up just to shop where I live.
Only 1.5 million workers in the US make the minimum wage, in a country of 331 million. Several US cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, etc. have far higher average wages then Sydney or Melbourne. Even with the sales tax added, most consumer goods are still cheaper in the US.
Thanks for this, it's always good to see another's perspective on your own country. I have to admit I look a complete slob when doing a quick grocery shop, because the shopping centre I go to is plonk between the well-heeled rich area I live and a public housing area. If it's winter and I'm in trackies and a hoodie (I'm 61 by the way) I just grab the keys and proudly strut my low-rent clothing (and uggies) into the supermarket. The credit card situation arose because the banks in the past were issuing huge credit limits to people who could not afford to keep up payments (a bit like the sub-prime crisis in the US in 2008 on a smaller scale). They were told to really tighten their lending criteria, and they did... Magpies are clever and friendly birds if they live near you and get used to you. They can be hand-fed and they have the most melodic range of calls - almost like a musical language.
Oh and if there are magpies that frequent your property feed them. If you regularly feed the magpies that live at your house they won’t swoop you come swooping season as they learn to recognise you a friend not a threat. I have done this where ever I have lived my whole life and they never have tried to swoop me, but will swoop the postie if he gets out of his car (because I live on a farm in an area that is all farms the postie just drives in his car instead of one of this little motor bikes because there is a t least a few Km between mail boxes most of the time) magpies are actually very intelligent and are capable of being trained. My cousins raised an orphaned one from a chick when we were kids and taught it to play fetch with tiny sticks, it would even drop the stick when asked and could play dead. If you feed them enough they will become very friendly. Mine even comes and sits about 30cm (1ft) away from me on my day bed while I have my cup of tea in the morning, even if my little dog is on my lap haha. Oh they eat any type of meat or cat/dog food (both wet and dry), they do eat bread but it’s not good for them as it can clog them up, they also love hot chips (fries)haha
Thanks Maddy! We always talk to the magpies around our house -- just say hello to them when we walk by, etc. and we've never had any issues with swooping! The closest it's come to was at the dog park near our house, and the magpie swooped the lady in front of me, but not me! Our neighbour behind us feeds the magpies though, and I've been over to her place when she was feeding them which was cool!
@@datenightwife9504 oh that’s great! They are actually my favourite birds. The one my cousins raised even learned to mimic a dog bark (it was best friends with their kelpie and would clean the dogs teeth while it slept) you would hear non stop barking and start to yell at the dog only to realise it was sleeping! Haha Maggot (the magpie) was a little character we even used to have to chase her out of the house lol.
Holy crap no, don't EVER regularly feed wild birds or animals. It messes with their natural lives in so many ways that it should be a crime to do so. If you feed a bird, it begins to rely on YOU feeding it, and as a consequence it will stop flying around its territory looking for food - that leads it not defending its territory, which is then taken over by neighbours. When you stop feeding it (you forget, can't be bothered any more, go on holiday, whatever), the bird then has to fight to recover the territory it lost so that it has access to enough food to sustain it again. Which is more stress than the bird needs in its life. There's also the issue of incorrect food, and most of what people feed wild animals is in no way appropriate for their digestive systems.
Just want to clarify, we never ever carry a balance on our credit cards and we never spend what we don't have. In the US, we used our credit cards to build credit so that we could apply and be approved for lower interest rates when making large purchases. Just because you have a credit card does not mean you have to spend what you don't have. It can be tempting and it can lead down a spiraling path towards debt, but assuming that everyone who has a credit card is spending what they don't have is doing just that, assuming.
Not only do we have winter, but there are lots of places in Australia much colder than Sydney. Our property is on the New England Tablelands (1,050 metres above sea level) and winter nights here are often in the -6 to -10 degrees (Celsius) range with single figure daytime temps. and we get snow, so, not exactly Norway, but proper winters. I do find it amusing that people move to Sydney and then complain about the cost of living. Sydney is expensive, particularly housing costs. I've watched so many "I moved to Australia" videos where people come here and then live in Sydney. Well, you couldn't pay me enough to live in Sydney, but then I'm not a city person. And the cockroach thing. We never see any where we live. Not one. Maybe it's because Sydney is a poxy, overcrowded hole that it has such a cockroach problem? And most houses are insulated. In fact all new houses are required by law to be insulated and it's been that way for quite a while.
Thanks David! We live in Sydney because that’s where my family lives, and we wanted to be near them. And I just want to clarify that I definitely wasn’t complaining at all about the cost of living - was more so just stating that that’s the way it is in Sydney and to expect it if that’s where you’re moving.
@@datenightwife9504 No worries. Thanks for clarifying, and given that you have family in Sydney it's understandable that you'd want to live there. I hope you take the opportunity to explore some of the more rural parts of Australia. We really do have some spectacular scenery and cities are much of a muchness no matter where in the world you are. Sydney certainly has its positives. My wife and I lived at McMahons Point, only one block up the hill from Luna Park, when we were first married because my work was at North Sydney. It was very nice to be able to walk down to Blues Point of an evening and admire such a beautiful harbour, but we had a huge cockroach problem. I worked with a man at my North Sydney job who commuted down from Springwood in the Blue Mountains every day. Two hours in each direction by train! And he had been doing that for sixteen years when I met him. I think my aversion to cities and cockroaches would be outweighed by the desire to NOT sit in trains for twenty hours a week.
Buying a car or house here in Australia is very easy if you have a job and financially you can show the bank or car dealer that you can pay the regular payments. There's no bank that will give you a credit cards here if you are jobless.
Glad your giving facts On Sydney , Australia is huge , Queensland is warmer Perth is warmer central Australia is warmer Sydney does have 4 seasons , Victoria our weather is harsher we have 4 seasons in one day our temps rise and fall in a day you need rain wear , tee shirt , jumper, jacket all for one day it’s torture but makes us tough 😂 Tasmania is cold as well pretty though Adelaide is similar to Victoria beautiful wine country well worth a visit, we do have beautiful weather in Victoria and you will be able to swim in summer and ski In Winter
Many Australians daggy dressers when they go to the shops. It's a matter of where you live. To see makeup all the time says your area is a bit posh. Our birds are our nature's alarm clock and they can sound like dinosaur noises when they're all having a go at the crack of dawn.
Good honest summary of your first impressions. It's true that many Australian homes don't cater well for winter but that's because the winters are usually relatively short. Also, while the costs of living are quite high, the salaries and wages are also high to match. Cost of living varies depending on the area just like in the US. Sydney would be the equivalent of New York in terms of property prices. Just my opinion but I rate Sydney as one of the most beautiful and liveable cities in the world when all things are taken into account.
Hi there, the pest|(insect) control industry is big here in Sydney for a reason. But once you do it your self or pay someone beginning of every spring to spray or fumigate your house inside, up, down and around. no more insect problems ever.
How did you adapt to roundabouts at intersections? You said you adapted well to driving on the left (the correct side)... but I was wondering about roundabouts. Most Americans don’t understand them. Personally, I think they make more sense than a 4 way stop sign.
Hi, really enjoyed your video and all the best in Sydney. Used to live in the north-west suburbs near Castle Hill and still have sister living out near Kenthurst, but moved to the northern outskirts of Brisbane almost 25yrs ago and would go back to Sydney anymore. Cheers.
I'm sorry and maybe this is just me but it is not winter if you do not have at least 6 inches of snow on the ground at all times, in other words if you can't ski it's not winter. (this is just my personal opinion)
Magpies aren't terrifying - they can swoop during certain seasons but in general they are harmless. I feed a pair and this season they have two babies (who are about 95% the size of the adults) who spend most of the day playing in my yard. With Magpies it's mainly about Territory and protecting their young so if you are there regularly they see you as a normal part of their territory and don't worry about you at all. It's mainly bike riders that need to watch out because Magpies don't understand bikes and just see them as a fast moving threat. Weirdly and don't let this freak you out - the Lorikeets who I also feed bully the Magpies (despite them being much much smaller) and they love to eat meat .... which since they are supposed to be nectar eaters was strange to me. Apparently they are built to do it though and will happily chase the magpies off by hopping at them (which is hilarious since they are tiny) and nibble happily on the dog treats we feed the magpies. They mainly eat fruit and the Bottlebrushes in our yard but they are a lot more omniverous than you'd expect. winters not really cold here - it exists but in general it's still in the teens in Winter - it's just that people from elsewhere know it's hot in Australia so they dont really expect there to be the cool winter months. Glad you are enjoying Sydney
@@datenightwife9504 - I you want to feed things like Magpies I just use those Chunkers dog food that Woolies sells they are little chunks of lamb or chicken & veggies. Given you already have a dog you've probably seen them. Kookaburrs like them too. Lorikeets eat stuff like Apples, Pears, Grapes etc. Ideally dont feed them Bread as apparently they have tongues that can get damaged by grains like that. As far as attracting them the plants they really like are Bottlebrushes. so if you have them in your Yard then Lorikeets will tend to head to your yard.
Most of what you said is correct, but the part about looking good to go to the shops must just be in your area , most go in their pyjamas in areas I have lived in here
Dress up to go shopping. Are you living in Potts Point? Crikey girl. I don’t dress in my trackies and t-shirt, but I never go full beat to go shopping.
Some parts of Sydney do tend to get more dressed up. I noticed it more after I moved interstate because whenever I was planning a trip back to visit relatives and friends I had to pack my makeup and my “Sydney clothes”
I'm not sure of the getting all dressed up to go grocery shopping. Maybe it's a Sydney thing. If you get up into far north Queensland, shirts are an option for blokes and a lot of the women do the grocery shopping in their bikinis! The further north you go, the more casual things get.
If you are cold in Sydney in winter, you are probably inside. Try going outside. The sun will probably be shining and the sky will be a blue you have not seen.. Debit cards should be easy to get.
Hello I will be moving to Australia very soon and will be living with a host family. I am coming from California, USA. And I was wondering what a good gift will be to bring to my host family. I’m not quite sure If Australia has the same snacks as us!
Loved your presentation style - and glad to see you chose some different points to other bloggers - refreshing. How are you managing that Work/Life balancing act ??? Compared to Seattle is your life more relaxed less stress ???
I think my situation is slightly different since I work for myself and work at home! But I know my husband's work/life balance experience has been pretty good so far! We are by far and away more relaxed in Australia than we were in Seattle!
@@datenightwife9504 Yes that situation plus COVID does make it hard but it will get better as we put this virus behind us. I worked in banking most of my career and banking is different here. Banks are heavily regulated and if they are found to extend credit to persons without the means to repay - they the banks - face significant fines and can effect the banking license. So they do vet applications carefully to ensure they lend ethically. Wishing you both a safe, health and prosperous 2021. 👍
@@datenightwife9504 Seattle is a very beautiful city, with very high wages. Lots of people make very good money in Seattle! I enjoyed your video, very honest. You told the good, and the bad. I hate those videos that only tell the good!
I name our spiders, as someone who doesn’t like them for some reason naming them to makes it more bearable, and yeah we have 2 seasons summer and winter, we get about a week of spring and autumn (slight exaggeration but you get the point)
know when i was in Vietnam many years ago they drive on the right hand side of the road when at a T junction the first time I turned right and I was facing on coming right at me why cann't everyone in the world drive on the correct side of the road. . . .
wait ... you obviously haven't been to Campbelltown you can rollout of bed and land in dog shit, go too the shops and still look better then half the people there .. lol .
Driving on the right was scary for me. Having only driven in Australia, my first time driving on the right was peak hour in Istanbul. Don't get me wrong, the Turks are wonderful, friendly people. However, they are CRAZY drivers.
I am comment as I go along with the video, pause, write, pause. I am from Sydney so I can relate to all of these. 1. I hate cockroaches with a vengeance. Have plenty of insect spray in the house. Always hit them with the spray to stun them and then hit them with a shoe or a sandal (whichever takes your fancy). We do have some dangerous spiders but if you leave them alone they will leave you alone. I do kill them if they are in the house, especially the huntsman spider which is freaky fast and scares me the most. 2. Left hand driving - you are now driving on the correct side :D 3. Friends - I dont have many but the ones I do are close. It must be me :) 4. - No comment 5. Winter - is not that cold, come on, unless you come from Arizona or Texas 6. Christmas in summer - how awesome is it :D 7. Public transport - its okay. It could be better. It was a lot worse when I was growing up. 8.Yes it is expensive - I call it the Australia tax. They do it because we are so far and isolated. 9. Im not sure - As a man I dont use make up. Trust me we have plenty of ugly people :) 10. Credit cards - use to be easier to get one, they used to hand them out like lollies. After the GFC not so easy. 11. I do love the birds here, they do sound great. The bin chicken is the bird I hate the most (Bin Chicken = Ibis). It loves to scavenge out of the bins. Welcome to Australia and welcome to Sydney.
Sorry it's been hard for you to make friends. I hope you don't feel too isolated.... Fellow Sydney girl. Hope you find some good friends now that we move around a bit now.
Propane? like, for a barbecue? That's not usually LPG. It's Natural Gas like what is plumed to your house for hot water and the stove.. 'Coz we have that in abundance. LPG is for cars. Modern homes have a lot of insulation. To shield against both cold AND heat. Cost of living... It's called the Australia Tax. BUT the price on the sticker is the price you pay. Taxes are included. The really pretty birds are attracted to the flowers and "nuts" (they're not really nuts) of the native trees, mostly types of eucalypt, of which there are MANY.
LPG, Liquid Petroleum Gas or propane is also for barbecues. It’s what is in all those gas bottles you see outside service stations. They don’t bottle natural gas, it is only available plumbed into a building from the mains.
@@paspax No, it’s not. It’s LPG. In some areas people have giant versions of those tanks in order to have gas to the home for hot water and cooking. I recently had the Natural Gas connected to the house instead of dealing with the bottle gas. Because the bottle gas is LPG, which is different Natural Gas, I had to have my gas cooktop and space heaters converted in order to run on Natural Gas because of the difference.
Seattle and you think the winter is cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Christmas is beach or pool time. You get used to it. People are social distancing at the moment, friends is not encouraged yet.
Lived in Sydney for 15 years and hardly ever saw a cockroach. They are not like little ones that breed in your house...they are more like beetles that fly around on their own. Every one of the homes I have lived in in Sydney had insulation! ????? Things in Sydney are more expensive than most other places in Australia. Which shops are you going to?? No one dresses up to go to the shops.
Depends on your house & environment. They love warm & wet places - at night they are active but a few baits do help. For everyone you see, 100 are lurking.
Long days in summer in Australia 🇦🇺 day light saving. I seem that you whinge about things we have good transportation. Cost of living works with the same of wages as we have the highest low income earner. We go to the shops in our bathers and flip flops. We believe that you work hard. If you don’t have money and a job. We don’t do cheques either like americians. We live close to the equator so we have heat except down south like tassie and Melbourne.
Thanks Caroline, very familiar with day light savings as we had it in Seattle as well. To be clear, this video was not about whinging at all, and was more about talking about some of the differences we’ve seen since we moved here. I did not whinge about the high cost of living - I just said that the cost of living is high. I said the transportation here is great, and that we love it. Just to put it in perspective as the last thing I was doing in this video was whinging about the place we live, because we love it here. Maybe that wasn’t clear.
If your Shire is Sutherland then I disagree with COLD WINTERS. Cold nights perhaps but most days are sunny. Being a coastal location there is absolutely no snow. Your other many woes could be resolved by return to your homeland.
Im originally from the shire - Grays Point to be exact! I now live just south of the qld border!. Winter has become a thing up here only in the last 10 years!. I miss winter in the shire and the smell of combustion heaters as of 5 pm every day!. Yes there is no snow in the shire. I miss good public transport, public transport is crap up here where we live. Still no trains between Port Macquarie and Reedy Creek on the Gold Coast.
@@lowerthenthelowestdeck Actually, the name of the local council was originally The Hills Shire Council. The Hills district most definitely is a shire. Same as Hornsby is a shire. Unlike Sutherland, they are just not THE Shire.
Where abouts in Sydney are you that that is your shopping experience? Spend a bit of time on TH-cam looking at other American's experience and it will sound the exact opposite. You have probably found one of the reasons that the rest of Australia only tolerates Sydney. BTW, have lived in the US and in Australia and I would say the part of the US we lived in sounded a lot like your experience in Sydney shopping. Great video though BTW.
Cockroaches are easy to control. Don’t kill your spiders, let the big huntsman roam around and they will eat them and control the cockroach population! You’re welcome.
The best part of Sydney public transport is the ferries. It's a little cruise everyday.
Bloody great trip to Manly from Circular Quay - a few rough trips in my years too.
Cockroaches are Sydney's alternative public transport system - you stand on them and balance while they continue to walk away.
On a still hot summer night in the city you look out to the road and notice it is moving, or you wonder what that small helicopter is landing on the verandah and realise it is time to get some cockroach paste.
Australians wear winter clothes indoors in Winter.
Getting a credit card is hard because they want to make sure that people can comfortably repay their debts.
Winter is a season, we get it, but unlike America we don't have to dig ourselves out of snow. 10 degrees is not cold and our seasons are correct, it's yours that's backwards!
I'm glad you get it! I don't think I ever...once said your seasons were wrong??? Not sure when I said that. Your seasons are correct for the hemisphere that you live in! I don't think anyone has it backwards!
Welcome to Australia. Love the video.
It's mainly Sydney and Melbourne people that get dressed up to go out to the shops. No one else gets dressed up.
Sydney is the most expensive city in Australia. I’m from rural Queensland and I know a lot of people who moved to Sydney after school finished and ended up moving back to if not our home town qld in general because it’s a lot cheaper to live here. Plus in my town I know loads of people who will go to the chops in their pjs or swim wear with no make up.
I thoroughly enjoyed that, thanks for the tips, Kendall!
Average wage is higher , so cost of living is higher, aslo the price on the tag is the actual price not like in the USA where tax is added to tag price
The average wage in San Francisco is much higher than Sydney, and there are far more people making BIG money. San Francisco has a GDP of $548 Billion US, Sydney with a larger population only has $349 Billion US. Even with the tax added, most things are still cheaper in the US. A case of beer is twice as much in Australia, gas is far cheaper in the US, restaurant meals, so are clothes. Very few things are cheaper in Australia.
@@gracedagostino5231 I use to live in San Francisco on Geary street , so I guess things have changed alot since then.
@@lowerthenthelowestdeck You must have lived there several years ago, before all the Silicon Valley money came into the city of San Francisco. Regular street cops with their overtime make 400k per year, also same thing with Seattle.
@@gracedagostino5231 Wow - I was in Paolo Alto during Y2K dramas & the Aus dollar was flying high. I lived high on the hog as I never spent much to live on. Work provided apartments & I saved my $$$$. I only did 2 x tours (5 months in total). Post Y2K most of our buildings just shut & locked the front doors.
@@matthewbrown6163 A lot has changed in Palo Alto in 20 yrs. That apartment you got provided for, would start at 3k us per month, but average salaries in Palo Alto are 200k us. Sounds like you had a good time in the good old USA!
You need to holiday in North Queensland this winter
Its beautiful :) love Townsville and Magnetic Island
??? Most houses do have insulation, cockroches never been an issue in my home.
Our house doesn’t seem to have insulation and we’ve noticed the cockroaches tend to show up more in the summer! Also it literally says The Hills Shire on my bins so I just assumed that it was a shire! But thank you!
@@datenightwife9504 Interseting because Ive lived in the same area since 2006 and my bins just say ******* Hills on them ..maybe Im wrong.
@@lowerthenthelowestdeck hmm, ours say "The Hills - Sydney's Garden Shire" -- I wonder if it's because our bins are new? We got new bins when we moved into our house a year ago - maybe that's it!
@@datenightwife9504 Maybe, anyway great videos, I use to live in San Francisco only thing I miss is Starbucks here dont know how to serve a bagel and cream cheese that isnt stale haha
@@lowerthenthelowestdeck Star Bucks should serve coffee to the enemy - we will win the wars LOL
Maybe in the hills people dress up for shopping, but some places people don't even put on shoes, or they wear pj's with a pair of Uggs
Yes colour matching & fashion is all a bonus for some people leaving the house LOL.
Also remember that speedos worn beyond the sight of water are underpants. :)
Welcome to this beautiful land, I am in South Australia but I did live in America for 10 years and I can relate to a lot of what you said :)
Glad you are with us now
LPG is “liquified petroleum gas”
Getting a credit card here won't help your credit score in Australia. In fact, it will bring your borrowing power down. The benefits of having a credit card in the US are completely different to Australia. So unless you know it will benefit you in specific ways, just don't get one. Pay cash.
The cost of living is higher here because we pay workers a higher minimum wage. Don't stress about women being dolled up all the time. It's mostly a Sydney and Melbourne thing. Other places are more casual. And don't worry about magpies swooping - they freak us out a bit too!
It's a Hills thing about dressing up just to go to the Supermarket. I live about 15 minutes away from that area and most people don't dress up just to shop where I live.
Only 1.5 million workers in the US make the minimum wage, in a country of 331 million. Several US cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, etc. have far higher average wages then Sydney or Melbourne. Even with the sales tax added, most consumer goods are still cheaper in the US.
Thanks for this, it's always good to see another's perspective on your own country.
I have to admit I look a complete slob when doing a quick grocery shop, because the shopping centre I go to is plonk between the well-heeled rich area I live and a public housing area. If it's winter and I'm in trackies and a hoodie (I'm 61 by the way) I just grab the keys and proudly strut my low-rent clothing (and uggies) into the supermarket.
The credit card situation arose because the banks in the past were issuing huge credit limits to people who could not afford to keep up payments (a bit like the sub-prime crisis in the US in 2008 on a smaller scale). They were told to really tighten their lending criteria, and they did...
Magpies are clever and friendly birds if they live near you and get used to you. They can be hand-fed and they have the most melodic range of calls - almost like a musical language.
Oh and if there are magpies that frequent your property feed them. If you regularly feed the magpies that live at your house they won’t swoop you come swooping season as they learn to recognise you a friend not a threat. I have done this where ever I have lived my whole life and they never have tried to swoop me, but will swoop the postie if he gets out of his car (because I live on a farm in an area that is all farms the postie just drives in his car instead of one of this little motor bikes because there is a t least a few Km between mail boxes most of the time) magpies are actually very intelligent and are capable of being trained. My cousins raised an orphaned one from a chick when we were kids and taught it to play fetch with tiny sticks, it would even drop the stick when asked and could play dead. If you feed them enough they will become very friendly. Mine even comes and sits about 30cm (1ft) away from me on my day bed while I have my cup of tea in the morning, even if my little dog is on my lap haha. Oh they eat any type of meat or cat/dog food (both wet and dry), they do eat bread but it’s not good for them as it can clog them up, they also love hot chips (fries)haha
Thanks Maddy! We always talk to the magpies around our house -- just say hello to them when we walk by, etc. and we've never had any issues with swooping! The closest it's come to was at the dog park near our house, and the magpie swooped the lady in front of me, but not me! Our neighbour behind us feeds the magpies though, and I've been over to her place when she was feeding them which was cool!
@@datenightwife9504 oh that’s great! They are actually my favourite birds. The one my cousins raised even learned to mimic a dog bark (it was best friends with their kelpie and would clean the dogs teeth while it slept) you would hear non stop barking and start to yell at the dog only to realise it was sleeping! Haha Maggot (the magpie) was a little character we even used to have to chase her out of the house lol.
Holy crap no, don't EVER regularly feed wild birds or animals. It messes with their natural lives in so many ways that it should be a crime to do so. If you feed a bird, it begins to rely on YOU feeding it, and as a consequence it will stop flying around its territory looking for food - that leads it not defending its territory, which is then taken over by neighbours. When you stop feeding it (you forget, can't be bothered any more, go on holiday, whatever), the bird then has to fight to recover the territory it lost so that it has access to enough food to sustain it again. Which is more stress than the bird needs in its life. There's also the issue of incorrect food, and most of what people feed wild animals is in no way appropriate for their digestive systems.
You timed your move amazingly well. Hope your still enjoying it 👍
Winter is not a thing in Queensland it is for every other state but unfortunately we do not have seasons up here.
@J Wood What for one or two days..LOL.
We don't get cold winter's like N.S.W or Vic trust me it gets bloody cold there.
It’s the heat and rain people have a problem with
Indian miner birds are actually considered a pest here. Can't remember why but something to do with native birds.
These buggers take over the nests of other birds - bit like squatters
They're an introduced species just like cane toads, foxes and rabbits
So many of us here don’t use credit cards. Why spend what you don’t have? Makes no sense!
Just want to clarify, we never ever carry a balance on our credit cards and we never spend what we don't have. In the US, we used our credit cards to build credit so that we could apply and be approved for lower interest rates when making large purchases. Just because you have a credit card does not mean you have to spend what you don't have. It can be tempting and it can lead down a spiraling path towards debt, but assuming that everyone who has a credit card is spending what they don't have is doing just that, assuming.
Hubby and I use our credit card for nearly everything we buy and have done so since 2000. We also pay out the entire amount every month. Works for us.
Not only do we have winter, but there are lots of places in Australia much colder than Sydney. Our property is on the New England Tablelands (1,050 metres above sea level) and winter nights here are often in the -6 to -10 degrees (Celsius) range with single figure daytime temps. and we get snow, so, not exactly Norway, but proper winters. I do find it amusing that people move to Sydney and then complain about the cost of living. Sydney is expensive, particularly housing costs. I've watched so many "I moved to Australia" videos where people come here and then live in Sydney. Well, you couldn't pay me enough to live in Sydney, but then I'm not a city person. And the cockroach thing. We never see any where we live. Not one. Maybe it's because Sydney is a poxy, overcrowded hole that it has such a cockroach problem? And most houses are insulated. In fact all new houses are required by law to be insulated and it's been that way for quite a while.
Thanks David! We live in Sydney because that’s where my family lives, and we wanted to be near them. And I just want to clarify that I definitely wasn’t complaining at all about the cost of living - was more so just stating that that’s the way it is in Sydney and to expect it if that’s where you’re moving.
@@datenightwife9504 No worries. Thanks for clarifying, and given that you have family in Sydney it's understandable that you'd want to live there. I hope you take the opportunity to explore some of the more rural parts of Australia. We really do have some spectacular scenery and cities are much of a muchness no matter where in the world you are. Sydney certainly has its positives. My wife and I lived at McMahons Point, only one block up the hill from Luna Park, when we were first married because my work was at North Sydney. It was very nice to be able to walk down to Blues Point of an evening and admire such a beautiful harbour, but we had a huge cockroach problem. I worked with a man at my North Sydney job who commuted down from Springwood in the Blue Mountains every day. Two hours in each direction by train! And he had been doing that for sixteen years when I met him. I think my aversion to cities and cockroaches would be outweighed by the desire to NOT sit in trains for twenty hours a week.
Buying a car or house here in Australia is very easy if you have a job and financially you can show the bank or car dealer that you can pay the regular payments. There's no bank that will give you a credit cards here if you are jobless.
For supermarket shopping depends on which part of Sydney your in will determine who dressed up someone is.
Glad your giving facts On Sydney , Australia is huge , Queensland is warmer Perth is warmer central Australia is warmer
Sydney does have 4 seasons , Victoria our weather is harsher we have 4 seasons in one day our temps rise and fall in a day you need rain wear , tee shirt , jumper, jacket all for one day it’s torture but makes us tough 😂 Tasmania is cold as well pretty though Adelaide is similar to Victoria beautiful wine country well worth a visit, we do have beautiful weather in Victoria and you will be able to swim in summer and ski In Winter
Magpies and Butcher Birds are expert mimics of other bird calls but strangely your experience may vary from suburb to suburb.
Many Australians daggy dressers when they go to the shops. It's a matter of where you live. To see makeup all the time says your area is a bit posh. Our birds are our nature's alarm clock and they can sound like dinosaur noises when they're all having a go at the crack of dawn.
During Magpie swooping season, take an umbrella.
winter is a thing if you're not in Queensland..
Good honest summary of your first impressions. It's true that many Australian homes don't cater well for winter but that's because the winters are usually relatively short. Also, while the costs of living are quite high, the salaries and wages are also high to match. Cost of living varies depending on the area just like in the US. Sydney would be the equivalent of New York in terms of property prices. Just my opinion but I rate Sydney as one of the most beautiful and liveable cities in the world when all things are taken into account.
Great video! It's really good that you have talked about subjects other than the usual Top 10 Australian Things that we see on every other video.
Number 12: Understanding Australian rhyming slang can be a challenging but rewarding experience!
Hi there, the pest|(insect) control industry is big here in Sydney for a reason. But once you do it your self or pay someone beginning of every spring to spray or fumigate your house inside, up, down and around. no more insect problems ever.
How did you adapt to roundabouts at intersections? You said you adapted well to driving on the left (the correct side)... but I was wondering about roundabouts. Most Americans don’t understand them. Personally, I think they make more sense than a 4 way stop sign.
I am a big fan of roundabouts! We've never had any issues with them. :)
That looking good all the time is a Sydney thing ,
Hi, really enjoyed your video and all the best in Sydney. Used to live in the north-west suburbs near Castle Hill and still have sister living out near Kenthurst, but moved to the northern outskirts of Brisbane almost 25yrs ago and would go back to Sydney anymore. Cheers.
I'm sorry and maybe this is just me but it is not winter if you do not have at least 6 inches of snow on the ground at all times, in other words if you can't ski it's not winter. (this is just my personal opinion)
Magpies aren't terrifying - they can swoop during certain seasons but in general they are harmless. I feed a pair and this season they have two babies (who are about 95% the size of the adults) who spend most of the day playing in my yard. With Magpies it's mainly about Territory and protecting their young so if you are there regularly they see you as a normal part of their territory and don't worry about you at all. It's mainly bike riders that need to watch out because Magpies don't understand bikes and just see them as a fast moving threat.
Weirdly and don't let this freak you out - the Lorikeets who I also feed bully the Magpies (despite them being much much smaller) and they love to eat meat .... which since they are supposed to be nectar eaters was strange to me. Apparently they are built to do it though and will happily chase the magpies off by hopping at them (which is hilarious since they are tiny) and nibble happily on the dog treats we feed the magpies. They mainly eat fruit and the Bottlebrushes in our yard but they are a lot more omniverous than you'd expect.
winters not really cold here - it exists but in general it's still in the teens in Winter - it's just that people from elsewhere know it's hot in Australia so they dont really expect there to be the cool winter months.
Glad you are enjoying Sydney
Our neighbours feed a couple of magpies! My husband really wants to start feeding them as well! I had no idea about the lorikeets (I love them)!
@@datenightwife9504 - I you want to feed things like Magpies I just use those Chunkers dog food that Woolies sells they are little chunks of lamb or chicken & veggies. Given you already have a dog you've probably seen them. Kookaburrs like them too.
Lorikeets eat stuff like Apples, Pears, Grapes etc. Ideally dont feed them Bread as apparently they have tongues that can get damaged by grains like that. As far as attracting them the plants they really like are Bottlebrushes. so if you have them in your Yard then Lorikeets will tend to head to your yard.
Magpies are very intelligent, similar to crows/corvids.
They remember faces so you will fare better if you feed the ones near your house.
Most of what you said is correct, but the part about looking good to go to the shops must just be in your area , most go in their pyjamas in areas I have lived in here
Dress up to go shopping. Are you living in Potts Point? Crikey girl. I don’t dress in my trackies and t-shirt, but I never go full beat to go shopping.
Some parts of Sydney do tend to get more dressed up. I noticed it more after I moved interstate because whenever I was planning a trip back to visit relatives and friends I had to pack my makeup and my “Sydney clothes”
I'm not sure of the getting all dressed up to go grocery shopping. Maybe it's a Sydney thing. If you get up into far north Queensland, shirts are an option for blokes and a lot of the women do the grocery shopping in their bikinis! The further north you go, the more casual things get.
It must be a Sydney thing!
There are flying cockroaches too.
ha
Oh yes, the ones that always seem to fly straight at your face.
If you are cold in Sydney in winter, you are probably inside. Try going outside. The sun will probably be shining and the sky will be a blue you have not seen.. Debit cards should be easy to get.
Yeah, head out to the burbs... No shoes required for some...
Hello I will be moving to Australia very soon and will be living with a host family. I am coming from California, USA. And I was wondering what a good gift will be to bring to my host family. I’m not quite sure If Australia has the same snacks as us!
Loved your presentation style - and glad to see you chose some different points to other bloggers - refreshing.
How are you managing that Work/Life balancing act ??? Compared to Seattle is your life more relaxed less stress ???
I think my situation is slightly different since I work for myself and work at home! But I know my husband's work/life balance experience has been pretty good so far! We are by far and away more relaxed in Australia than we were in Seattle!
@@datenightwife9504 Yes that situation plus COVID does make it hard but it will get better as we put this virus behind us.
I worked in banking most of my career and banking is different here. Banks are heavily regulated and if they are found to extend credit to persons without the means to repay - they the banks - face significant fines and can effect the banking license. So they do vet applications carefully to ensure they lend ethically.
Wishing you both a safe, health and prosperous 2021.
👍
@@datenightwife9504 Seattle is a very beautiful city, with very high wages. Lots of people make very good money in Seattle! I enjoyed your video, very honest. You told the good, and the bad. I hate those videos that only tell the good!
I name our spiders, as someone who doesn’t like them for some reason naming them to makes it more bearable, and yeah we have 2 seasons summer and winter, we get about a week of spring and autumn (slight exaggeration but you get the point)
know when i was in Vietnam many years ago they drive on the right hand side of the road when at a T junction the first time I turned right and I was facing on coming right at me why cann't everyone in the world drive on the correct side of the road.
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wait ... you obviously haven't been to Campbelltown you can rollout of bed and land in dog shit, go too the shops and still look better then half the people there .. lol .
just noticed i missed out traffic in my first post sorry
You guys must live on the north shore
Lived on the North shore...no dressing up for the shops, except for my time in Mosman ...then it is dressy active wear
@@amandast100 i live in the shire
Northern rivers NSW have nice winters hardly rains mild temperatures
Driving on the right was scary for me. Having only driven in Australia, my first time driving on the right was peak hour in Istanbul. Don't get me wrong, the Turks are wonderful, friendly people. However, they are CRAZY drivers.
I am comment as I go along with the video, pause, write, pause. I am from Sydney so I can relate to all of these.
1. I hate cockroaches with a vengeance. Have plenty of insect spray in the house. Always hit them with the spray to stun them and then hit them with a shoe or a sandal (whichever takes your fancy). We do have some dangerous spiders but if you leave them alone they will leave you alone. I do kill them if they are in the house, especially the huntsman spider which is freaky fast and scares me the most.
2. Left hand driving - you are now driving on the correct side :D
3. Friends - I dont have many but the ones I do are close. It must be me :)
4. - No comment
5. Winter - is not that cold, come on, unless you come from Arizona or Texas
6. Christmas in summer - how awesome is it :D
7. Public transport - its okay. It could be better. It was a lot worse when I was growing up.
8.Yes it is expensive - I call it the Australia tax. They do it because we are so far and isolated.
9. Im not sure - As a man I dont use make up. Trust me we have plenty of ugly people :)
10. Credit cards - use to be easier to get one, they used to hand them out like lollies. After the GFC not so easy.
11. I do love the birds here, they do sound great. The bin chicken is the bird I hate the most (Bin Chicken = Ibis). It loves to scavenge out of the bins.
Welcome to Australia and welcome to Sydney.
Sorry it's been hard for you to make friends. I hope you don't feel too isolated.... Fellow Sydney girl. Hope you find some good friends now that we move around a bit now.
We live in the shire ,winter isnt really cold to europe or the SS though.ave 20deg c. Yes its expensive but wagers are much higher than the US
you must live in Sydney cbd as i live in the sub and they do not dress up to go around
Propane? like, for a barbecue?
That's not usually LPG. It's Natural Gas like what is plumed to your house for hot water and the stove.. 'Coz we have that in abundance. LPG is for cars.
Modern homes have a lot of insulation. To shield against both cold AND heat.
Cost of living... It's called the Australia Tax. BUT the price on the sticker is the price you pay. Taxes are included.
The really pretty birds are attracted to the flowers and "nuts" (they're not really nuts) of the native trees, mostly types of eucalypt, of which there are MANY.
LPG, Liquid Petroleum Gas or propane is also for barbecues. It’s what is in all those gas bottles you see outside service stations. They don’t bottle natural gas, it is only available plumbed into a building from the mains.
@@miniveedub,...
" It’s what is in all those gas bottles you see outside service stations"
Nope. That's natural gas.
@@paspax it's lpg which is propane compressed as liquid. natural gas contains propane,butane,ethane and other gases and is a gas
@@paspax No, it’s not. It’s LPG. In some areas people have giant versions of those tanks in order to have gas to the home for hot water and cooking. I recently had the Natural Gas connected to the house instead of dealing with the bottle gas. Because the bottle gas is LPG, which is different Natural Gas, I had to have my gas cooktop and space heaters converted in order to run on Natural Gas because of the difference.
If you think Australia is expensive now then 8 years ago when $1AUD = $1:05 USD, my my EU and US staff used to freak out when in Sydney.
Seattle and you think the winter is cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Christmas is beach or pool time. You get used to it. People are social distancing at the moment, friends is not encouraged yet.
sydney is in no way a representation of australia. it's a city.
Absolutely! That’s why I made the video specifically about Sydney and not about Australia as a whole.
Most houses don't have insulation.... WTF
What date in winter 2020 did the temperature in Sydney drop to 0?
Forgot to write in my diary which night it was that got down to 0!
@@datenightwife9504 But hey... on the bright side... in Sydney there isn’t any snow in winter.
I’m from Adelaide, South Australia, on my first trip to Sydney I couldn’t believe how many cockroaches there are in Sydney!
Great video - thank you...
Indian miner birds are a introduced pest here,they push out other birds eggs
Lived in Sydney for 15 years and hardly ever saw a cockroach. They are not like little ones that breed in your house...they are more like beetles that fly around on their own. Every one of the homes I have lived in in Sydney had insulation! ????? Things in Sydney are more expensive than most other places in Australia. Which shops are you going to?? No one dresses up to go to the shops.
Depends on your house & environment. They love warm & wet places - at night they are active but a few baits do help. For everyone you see, 100 are lurking.
Just make sure u never imitate the kookaburra, especially as a form of mockery, unforgiving I don't think that curse can be retracted
Long days in summer in Australia 🇦🇺 day light saving. I seem that you whinge about things we have good transportation. Cost of living works with the same of wages as we have the highest low income earner. We go to the shops in our bathers and flip flops. We believe that you work hard. If you don’t have money and a job. We don’t do cheques either like americians. We live close to the equator so we have heat except down south like tassie and Melbourne.
Thanks Caroline, very familiar with day light savings as we had it in Seattle as well. To be clear, this video was not about whinging at all, and was more about talking about some of the differences we’ve seen since we moved here. I did not whinge about the high cost of living - I just said that the cost of living is high. I said the transportation here is great, and that we love it. Just to put it in perspective as the last thing I was doing in this video was whinging about the place we live, because we love it here. Maybe that wasn’t clear.
If your Shire is Sutherland then I disagree with COLD WINTERS. Cold nights perhaps but most days are sunny. Being a coastal location there is absolutely no snow. Your other many woes could be resolved by return to your homeland.
She's just stating what she found to be different from her city in the US. Telling her to go back is just nast..
Im originally from the shire - Grays Point to be exact! I now live just south of the qld border!. Winter has become a thing up here only in the last 10 years!. I miss winter in the shire and the smell of combustion heaters as of 5 pm every day!. Yes there is no snow in the shire. I miss good public transport, public transport is crap up here where we live. Still no trains between Port Macquarie and Reedy Creek on the Gold Coast.
What part of sydney are you guys in.
West south North ect?
We're up north in The Hills!
@@datenightwife9504 This Hills instant a shire. I live in the Hills near Castle Hill Norwest Etc..... Sutherland (south Sydney ) is a shire.
@@lowerthenthelowestdeck Actually, the name of the local council was originally The Hills Shire Council. The Hills district most definitely is a shire. Same as Hornsby is a shire. Unlike Sutherland, they are just not THE Shire.
Where abouts in Sydney are you that that is your shopping experience? Spend a bit of time on TH-cam looking at other American's experience and it will sound the exact opposite. You have probably found one of the reasons that the rest of Australia only tolerates Sydney. BTW, have lived in the US and in Australia and I would say the part of the US we lived in sounded a lot like your experience in Sydney shopping. Great video though BTW.
she lives in the SHIRE .. so lots of pretentious people. who do dress up to go too the shops
Winter is indeed a thing. That is why is is associated with a noun, Winter. oh fuck me, really?
You should move to Queensland
Then you won’t have a problem wearing whatever you like when you need to go shopping.
Bogan central up here. 😜
get a pest man to spray your house . we do it every year. no more cockies.
Ive been europe twice and states 10 times.do you live in sutherland shire we do and love it
We are up in the Hills! We love it here.
@@datenightwife9504 ah enjoy
Sydneys a good place
@@datenightwife9504 dural baulkam hills nice are you here for good or will you return to the US
You think they’re big - move to Darwin. 😱
Xmas day & it's Bloody Boiling Hot LOL - 110F is not uncommon on Xmas
To build on this....embrace it...go to the amazing Sydney Fish Markets..largest in the Southern Hemisphere....enjoy prawns, bugs etc for Christmas
Cockroaches are easy to control. Don’t kill your spiders, let the big huntsman roam around and they will eat them and control the cockroach population! You’re welcome.