The Land Down Under? You Mean Where Women Glow And Men Thunder?

This is not Texas upside down. It's Australia.

Everyone who is not from the US knows and is unnecessarily smug about the fact that Americans are a bit short in the area of world geography. We have other priorities. Getting our Starbucks first thing in the morning being of greatest importance.

Earlier today I was speaking with my friend who is from Australia. I'll call her Diane. Mainly I asked Diane if they have states in Australia. How would I know. They don't call it the United States of Australia. We put the word States in our country name so we will have the correct answer at our fingertips in case anyone from another country tries to trip us up.

I didn't know the capital either. (I said Perth, okay? So get it out of your system and we'll move on.) Or exactly how big Australia is. I planned to find these things out before I take a trip there. Which will probably be never because I am still unemployed. My friend, who I will call Diane again, said most people she speaks with are about as bright as I am. She said it much more nicely, but that's what it all boils down to.

The problem lies in that most of America's first hand knowledge of Australia comes from one or more of the following :

Thorn Birds (TV Series)

The Land Down Under by Men At Work (song)

Waltzing Matilda by the Seekers (song)

A Town Called Alice (TV Series)

The Onion's World Atlas

Nicole Kidman Australian Here's a picture of Nicole in Australia


Other than that we have no information. We slept through geography class. Had we not we would have known that the greatest contribution to the world's pantries comes from Australia; Vegemite It's a lovely black sandwich spread. There is even a song to sing while you enjoy a breakfast of Vegemite on toast. Vegemite Song. We don't eat Vegemite in the US because the jars come in 150 Gram and 220 Gram sizes and we don't know what grams are. Except people who do drugs.
I took a poll of 6 people on General Knowledge of Australia - including my waitperson Jason, at Applebees. He was very nice and helpful and met all of our expectations.

First I asked everyone:
Name the first 5 things that come to mind about Australia.
The numbers after an answer indicate multiple responses:

Accent
Beaches
Beaches with assorted dress codes
Beer
Continent
Desert
Funny Accent
Great Barrier Reef
Kangaroos 2
Koalas 2
Opposite Seasons to US
Outback (not the steakhouse)
Penal Colony of Great Britain
Rugby
Sydney Opera House 3
Steve Irwin 3
Steve Irwin has a zoo somewhere
Tropical Climate
Wallabies
Water in toilet swirls in opposite direction of US (Diane, is this true or not?)
Wilderness

I've provided a picture of a kangaroo for you:


The next question:
What is the Capital of Australia?
Canbarra (correct)
Sydney 3
Perth 1 (this was me, ok?)
Don’t Know 2

Third and last question:
How much of the US can fit in Australia?
Texas
1/3 ish
All of the continental US 4 (correct answer)

By this you can see that we were all able to at least come up with some answers.

I asked my son, Jason, to look up Australia in his copy of The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth and provide us with additional historical information about Australia. These are the important dates in Australian History he sent along to me:

1800 English authorities get suspicious when an elderly woman visits the penal colony with 35,000 birthday cakes

1854 The nation develops Australian rules football, a combination of rugby, soccer, and murdering people in cold blood

1911 Canberra is founded and designated as Australia's capital, which is odd because isn't Sydney the capital?

2000 Hosting its first Summer Olympics, the city of Sydney spends all day nervously worrying if any of the other 199 participating nations are going to show up.

2001 Sir Donald Bradman, Australia's most famous cricket player, dies of anonymity.

If you would like more information about Australia, just click here. It's all provided by the CIA. Yes. really.