Geography lesson

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Rachelle, one of the students in the lab, gave us an “orientation” about Australia. She drew a map of the country and had the rest of us identify the cities and the states in Australia. The clueless traveller in me forgot my high school geography lesson, and asked if Perth is the capital of Australia. Big mistake, because the capital is Canberra. The convicts were sent to Sydney, the Britons settled in Adelaide, and the friendliest Australians can be found in Perth… according to her.

She was giving us the white board tour because an officemate, Vito, is going there next week to attend a month of training at CSIRO. I am scheduled to be in Sydney in February 2006, so it’s high time to learn the locales.

Rachelle also thought we need to learn the local terms… the dunny (that’s the toilet), a bloke (a guy), a git (an idiot), the lift (the elevator), the uni (the university). Crikey!

During our morning tea, we asked her about accents. We are exposed to the Crocodile Hunter, and we’ve heard Today pronounced like To Die. So, we asked her about that. She was really embarassed because we pronounced the words really badly.

It looks like our next lesson will be on pronunciation!

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