US woman raves about Australia’s Kmart in viral TikTok video

A Florida woman has listed the “strange” things she’s noticed after moving to Australia – including a slang word she’s never heard of.

An American expat has listed the things she has found “strange” about living in Australia – including how much better Kmart is here compared to the US.

Kaymie Wuerfel moved to Sydney at the end of 2019 with her Aussie other half.

Since then she has been “learning to live” on the other side of the world in the midst of a pandemic – and it seems she’s found a way to adjust by creating videos about her new home on TikTok.

RELATED: ‘It hurts’: American mocked over accent

American expat Kaymie Wuerfel (left) has compiled multiple lists detailing ‘strange’ things she’s noticed while living in Sydney. Picture: Instagram/Kaymie Wuerfel

In one video, she compared Kmart in America to the ones she’s been visiting in Sydney, saying they are “very different”.

“Almost nobody shops there (the US stores) because it’s kind of like the lowest of low stores,” she said in a video shared last month.

Kaymie added the American stores are littered with “cheesy everything goes signs because they’re always closing down” – revealing there were only “34 stores left” in the country.

In complete contrast, Kaymie said Kmart stores Down Under are “bomb” explaining that whenever anyone asks her where she got the outfit she’s wearing, she smugly replies “Kmart”.

“Moral of the story is if you go to America, don’t look for a Kmart,” she said.

@kayywuerf

What should I compare next? ##fyp ##foryou ##foryoupage ##kmart ##australia ##american ##sydney ##aussie ##merica ##aussielife ##aussiethings

♬ original sound - kayywuerf

In another video, Kaymie listed three things you would only understand if you have lived in Australia.

First on her agenda was revealing that no one drinks Foster’s beer here – despite it being famously known as “Australian for Beer” overseas thanks to a clever slogan from the 1960s.

“I guarantee if you walked into any pub in Australia no one would be drinking Foster’s,” she said, explaining it was a common mistake made by foreign visitors.

“The second thing is, everything is abbreviated. If you want to get something from the service station, no, it’s the ‘servo’ and if you want to do something in the afternoon it’s the ‘arvo,’’ she said.

At that point in the video the backdrop behind her changes to include a list of “Strayan” words versus “English” words which includes “dunny” instead of “toilet” and “pash” instead of “making out”.

She revealed no Aussie would ever drink Foster’s. Picture: TikTok/Kaymie Wuerfel

And said everything is abbreviated here. Picture: TikTok/Kaymie Wuerfel

The final “strange” item on her agenda was the term “eshay” which is used to describe a certain type of Australian lad.

The term is the equivalent of a British “chav” according to Urban Dictionary but different to a “bogan” which is another Aussie term described in the dictionary as “an unsophisticated person regarded as being of low social status”.

The video has been liked over 22,000 times and had hundreds of comments, many from Aussies who loved Kaymie’s points.

“We only have a limited amount of time in our life. We ain’t gonna waste it talking. Abbreviate EVERYTHING!” one wrote.

“Right? I’ve never even seen Foster’s at bottle-Os,” another said.

“Eshays are located in either Melbourne or Sydney; I’ve never seen one anywhere else,” someone else wrote.

One asked if America had an equivalent of a lad/eshay, to which Kaymie said, “Eshays are their own breed.”

It’s not the first time Kaymie’s videos about Aussie life have gone viral. The Florida woman’s previously shared a series of other things she finds “weird” Down Under – including payWave, switches on power outlets and chicken salt.

“I never knew it existed and now I can’t live without it,” she said last month.

She said there were a lot of other things Australians have that Americans don’t, including beeping pedestrian crossing signals, frozen Cokes at McDonald’s, free healthcare and dual flushing toilets – which give the option of half or full flushes – until she moved to Australia.

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