Little Things

When you leave an African Country, to come to a place like Australia, the little things catch your eye first. The clean cities, the roads that are mostly in good condition. The road works are constant in upgrading and even the number of signs to tell you what where and how you should drive. Signs like "wrong way go back". Its just something that you will find out as you go along in South Africa, no sign is going to let you know that you are going the wrong way...
Traffic lights have bussers to let Labradors know when to walk across the road... or is to let the blind person know when to walk, I forget. But what about the deaf person.
Not being racist at all, but it is a real difference to see a "lollipop men/ women" that is white and friendly. It is just natural that in a country where most people are "white", these things are done by white people. This might sound weird to anyone who did not grow up in a country where most people have darker skins.
In South Africa, because of the multitudes, there were people at every traffic light, selling goods, being very persistent and sometimes, scary. Here, if you need a coat hanger or a pair of sunnies, you actually have to go to a shop in a shopping centre and pay real money for it too.
Talking to anybody and everybody in line at the post shop (not a post office) or at the medicare office (something we did not even have in SA).
Everyone has to be able to speak English, so there's no need to try and figure out what language you might need to communicate. This makes life a little easier. It feels as if most people are immigrants as everyone has a different accent, but they all try to speak English. It is also easier to communicate because you don't have to think who is going to attack you or steal your purse every second of the day. You can tell people that you are new and don't know the system and they will not try to make life difficult for you.
Going through the drivers license process and getting insurance can be a little daunting, because everything is computerised and everyone is accepted to be literate. In Africa, this is not the case, literacy is a very big problem. Using pictures and trying to find a language your client understands is quite a challenge. Very often, I had to use the fingerprint system to identify someone when they wanted to draw their own money at the bank. Here, they don't even have your fingerprint on your drivers license...how good is that!
Yip, its the little things that you notice first, good things and bad things, irritating too sometimes.
Try to get some service at a coffee shop of restaurant in Aus... nobody tells you that, that service is an optional extra!. You have to stand in line to order, then take a number or worse, they might choose to scream out your name and your order so everyone in the world knows what you chose to order today.
Then you have to pay before you receive your order and if you need anything else, well you have to stand in line again. The sign on the order window of one shop finally made it clear to me: Fast service: Open tomorrow. And the other one: It is harder to pay for a sandwich after you have eaten it.
This was a very BIG THING to me and it could have made me turn back, but now, it is just another LITTLE THING. It just makes you appreciate what you did have in South Africa. After a hard day's work, it was always good to relax at some restaurant and get pampered a little. Now you still have to get up and do it yourself. Clean the table yourself, Pick up the mess that someone else made, through away the takeaway cups and thing, because you have to ask to get a real ceramic cup or plate...
Well now, I don't expect service and get o with life.