By arosema93
Well the Australian election was today. So was the Australia vs. South Africa rugby game (Wallabies and Springboks). In terms of importance to the rest of the world I reckon the rugby game was probably more important. Australia got destroyed but it was heaps of fun to watch with a bunch of friends. In the election, the Liberal Party won by a landslide (read Liberal party as equivalent to the American Republican Party). I enjoyed seeing the results simply because I am a huge supporter of third parties, and in Australia those can actually make a difference. Over 20 parties were represented in the election with 8 or so candidates for prime minister. These included parties from all ends of the spectrum including things like Animal Justice, Bullet Train for Australia, Stable Population Party, and many other extremely interesting parties. While none of those actually gained any representation, some did, with one seat in the senate even going to one of my favourites, the Australian Motorists Enthusiasts Party.
In other news, spring is starting to get beautiful in Canberra. The first days of spring here are already just as warm as the summer is in America. Flowers are blooming, and there will be an upcoming festival in the next weeks known as Floriade which is just a massive park filled with hundreds of thousands of flowers. Supposed to be really pretty, but we will see how my allergies hold up. That is one thing I have noticed though, it seems that allergies in other countries for me are a lot different, meaning basically non-existent.
Last week I spent the weekend in Wollongong and Sydney and had a blast just spending time relaxing down at the beach and fitting in with the local culture by pretending I am a good surfer. Unfortunately, in reality, I was probably just laughed at the whole time. I have some family down in Wollongong, although they are very loosely related. However, their hospitality has been amazing. It seems that many of the exchange students here have some sort of family somewhere in Australia. I don’t know how loosely related, but it seems that everyone knows someone here which goes to show for the multicultural-ness of Australia. In fact, approximately a third of Australia’s population was not even born in the country! People come here from all over, and some simply choose to stay. Each year, there are tons of new immigrants and people applying for permanent residency and with such a beautiful country with a strong economy; it isn’t hard to see why. This is impressive progress considering the country allowed virtually no immigrants and only white ones up until the end of WWII. Now, only half of the country has parents who were both born in Australia.
Those figures are astounding as an American from Michigan where probably 50% of the people I know haven’t even been out of the country, and some have never even left the state. Perhaps the multicultural-ness of Australia is partially due to their small population, but Americans have never in the same way been as multicultural, or had such a love for international travel.