There's a lot to love about living in Australia — from our incredible weather, to our mouth-watering cuisine and the high liveability of our major cities.
But, as with all good things, there's also a fairly robust list of downsides to life ~Down Under~ — particularly for new visitors and immigrants.
In a recent Reddit thread discussing some of the biggest changes non-Aussies had to get used to when they moved to Sydney, people shared their frustrations over the worst aspects of the Australian lifestyle and culture.
Here are some of the most insightful responses:
1. "It's a very common theme that migrants resort to their compatriots for friendship. Integration in Australia is very difficult if you move after university."
—u/mythoutofu
2. "Australians don't really go away for uni the way Americans do. So their circle of friends is usually comprised of high school friends. They don't really know what it's like to have to start over with a new social circle, so they're not especially inviting or inclusive of new people."
"Tangentially related, people don't go to pubs to meet people, they just go to have a good time with their friends — whereas in the States, if you're new somewhere, you just go by yourself to a bar and by the end of the night you'll have made friends."
—u/dearsarah
3. "Where I come from, we have really discernible seasons (i.e. snow in winter), but I view Sydney as just having four different summers."
"You've got winter, which is more like a British summer, then comes spring where things are more like a Mediterranean summer, then actual summer, which is just a hot mess, then back to Mediterranean autumn and the cycle repeats. Stick a couple of weeks of rain between each season to mark the change and that's pretty much it."
—u/Murrian
4. "Crappy insulation and no central heating in houses. First rental had a literal two inch gap under the front door and a wood burner. This did not seem to be unusual. No-one seems to have heard of double glazing. The builder laughed his arse off when I requested this in a front door with a glass insert."
5. "The damn hole in the ozone layer here! You don't realise until you get here and experience it for yourself, but you burn so fucking fast and I feel like nobody warns you!"
—u/jugh6
6. "Restaurants close early — after nine, it's virtually impossible to get a meal, after ten, forget about it. I've been to restaurants at 2am back home and going out with friends for a late meal was a normal thing."
—u/Murrian
7. "Almost everything being shut before you get off work was the hardest. I could only buy things on days off, instead of being able to pick something up after work. It meant I had so much less free time since the shops are so crowded on weekends and I had to travel back into commercial areas just for X or Y."
—u/oiransc2
8. "Poker machines are still in? Also, gambling seems to be a big thing here in general. Like back home, I think I went to a casino once in my life as a joke. Here, locals were asking me to come along to spend some money after we had evening office drinks."
—u/Trontotron
9. "A lot of people get up real early. Like, I'm not a morning person, but back home when I had to be out at 6am, it'd be very quiet, barely a soul. In Australia, it's already starting to get busy!"
—u/Murrian
10. "How geographically isolated the country is. Moving from the US East Coast, the time zone shift and regularly staying in touch with friends and family back home has been more challenging than expected."
"I initially, naively wrote this off — we live in the digital age, it's easy to stay in touch, etc. But often, your beginning of day is their end of day and vice versa. There's a relatively small window for a genuine impromptu chat that isn't disrupting someone's day. I’ve found I need to really plan for the calls, or resign myself to the fact that my text will be responded to tomorrow."
11. "Looks-wise, everyone's a ten in Australia. I get reminded of this every time we go to the beach. Everyone is just so fit and chiselled and toned. Back at home, I felt like I was above average, but here I've lost all self esteem — I'm invisible compared to all these people."
12. "Retail store staff in small shops are weird. Not an issue at big stores, but every small shop I walked into where the staff can see you when you walk in, I just feel very uncomfortable to be in. They often have this expression on their face that feels like they're saying 'get out'."
—u/oiransc2
13. "How freaking tall people are! I'm six two, that made me tall back home, but I feel thoroughly average here."
—u/Murrian
14. "Absolutely ridiculous housing prices, I bought my first home for the equivalent of a $100k, and it was in an okay neighbourhood, with good access to both nearby major cities. That's barely a deposit in Australia."
"Ok, wages are higher here, but that's still only worth two and a half years of the median wage back home. Whereas here, let's be generous and say the average wage is a $100k, would you find a three bed semi for $250,000 within a ten minute drive of the city? Would you find a studio for that?"
—u/Murrian
15. "No coffee at night. In the US, we have diners and coffee shops open late or all night. You sit and have coffee and talk with your friends for hours if you want. Here, the norm is to go to pubs and drink alcohol instead."
—u/oiransc2
16. "The distances. I moved from Singapore and it blew my mind that people had to commute for an hour and a half one way each day for work. If we drove that long, we'd be in a different country. Now I'm used to it as I've lived here for a long time now and am one of those people with a long commute."
17. "Something I had to get used to (a tiny change really and a first world problem), is the way I get my change back. In the Netherlands, they would give you paper money in one hand, coins in the other. Here, they give all your cash back in the one hand. In the beginning, I was terrified I'd drop it all trying to put it away. I much prefer Sydney though, couldn't imagine living anywhere else."
—u/MirSydney
18. "Not so much a change, but a surprise I found is how far you are away from a beach unless you live in a wealthy suburb. I always just imagined if you live in Sydney that you'll be close to a beach, but I'm at least an hour's drive away from a beach."
19. "Road rage! I haven't had so many people tailgate me for driving to the speed limit and honk and yell at me when they overtake me (and no, I was not in the 'fast lane')."
20. "The need to have a car to get around and the fact that cycling is almost exclusively a hobby rather than a means of transport."
—u/saiko75011
21. "The roads are very narrow and horrible to drive on. Cycling is even worse. For the nice climate, I expected a more cycling-friendly community and attitude, but it couldn’t be worse. Drivers are very hostile towards cyclists and the infrastructure makes it even worse."
Screw tiny narrow one way Sydney streets!!! Not only did I have to do a 20-point-turn to get out of a no-through fucking hallway, let alone a road, but two guys sitting in a car nearby watched me the entire time and I just skdjdkajhshs
22. And finally: "Surprised how common roaches are — we consider them a sign of unhygienic living, but here they are a power force that can be impossible to stop."
—u/NiceTerm
In sydney you get extra housemates called cockroaches but they don't pay rent and live in your microwave and your microwave smells like fried cockroaches it's cool
