American who moved to Australia reveals ‘weird’ things about our country

From our unreasonably slow internet to eating kangaroo, an American expat has revealed the biggest culture shocks she’s experienced in Australia.

An American woman who moved to Sydney early this year has revealed all the things she finds strange about life in Australia in a series of TikTok videos.

Kaymie Wuerfel left her home in Clearwater, Florida for Sydney in January after getting married to her Australian partner.

She said she’s getting used to Australian life amid some unusually difficult times, including the Australian bushfire disaster and the coronavirus pandemic.

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But she’s still found plenty of differences between the way Aussies live compared to back home – including some new discoveries she’s grateful for.

“Number one is payWave. I’ve never seen this used in the US and Australia is the first place I’ve ever seen it,” she said.

She also said Americans don’t have switches on power outlets and nowhere in America had she seen her new favourite seasoning, chicken salt.

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

Wuerfel 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.

But there are other things Australia doesn’t have that she misses from home.

“Americans get free refills on drinks, we have drive-through Starbucks everywhere and Chipotle restaurants, which serve Mexican food,” she said.

But there were some aspects of Australian life she didn’t get.

For one, Australian Wi-Fi is “so bad” – despite Australia having invented Wi-Fi.

“And why do you eat your national animal? The kangaroo? We don’t go eating the bald eagle, we protect it,” she said.

Wuerfel also revealed she didn’t like the taste of pavlova but had become a massive fan of other Aussie food classics, including Weetbix, Anzac biscuits, sausage rolls, pizza flavoured Shapes, Caramello Koalas, Cherry Ripes, meat pies, Golden Gaytime ice creams, lamingtons, Milo, fairy bread and even Vegemite.

Wuerfel’s TikTok revelations come after a fellow American in Australia took aim at all the things she found weird about life Down Under.

Nutritionist Emily Keefe, who is originally from Boston, lived in Melbourne for 12 months before releasing a YouTube segment about “weird Australian habits” in August last year.

While she said she loved living in Australia, things like slow internet and our overuse of the word “reckon” were among the many things she found odd.