Dude, where's my country?

I just used that as the subject line on an e-mail that I sent someone, and I liked it so much I thought that I'd recycle it. I have been in Australia for 11 hours now. I still can't seem to get it into my head what a vast shift I have made. I'm in Australia. Australia is now where I currently am. You know, I think at least part of the cognitive dissonance is that when I was packing up and getting ready to head out, Australia seemed like such a distant and exotic location, in many ways so much farther away than London was. But now that I'm here, it seems like, on the surface at least, things are not so bewilderingly strange as I had expected them to be. I think my biggest promblem (no offense, Aussies!) is that I keep feeling like I am back in London. A lot of things are similar to what I remember of my time there. Milo, Cadbury chocolate, calling a shopping cart a trolley, using random terms of endearment with strangers. It all seems so familiar. But that could very well be a product of the fact that I am "jet-lagged" (said with derision because I don't feel sleepy at all) and because I have only seen the tiniest chunk of my new residence. I was quite afraid before coming, but I think that was the prospect of wonky logistics more than anything. Now I really find this place rather enchanting (hello, honeymoon stage!). The smell of wet eucalyptus in the rain (reminding me very much of my early years in California). The wonderful strip mall with the wonderful greengrocer who sells the wonderful produce (I am such a sucker for good produce). Our wonderful, wonderful house, which is so cute and comfortable and already seems homey. Okay, maybe it's true, this has got to be the jet-lag talking, because it is rare that I am so positive about anything. Other first impressions: this place is totally multicultural, which excites me, but in a way the very fact that I find it exciting show me what a novice I am and how untrained at dealing with people of other cultures. Stupid, stupid white girl from West Omaha. The houses here, at least in our neighborhood, actually seem kind of like a shabbier version of suburbia. They are also a lot more spread out than the houses were in England. The people, at least the ones I've met so far, seem to be warmer and friendlier than a lot of Americans I have known, they are all so curious when they find out that we're from the US, they want to know which state and what it's like there. And they don't seem to be intimidated by the fact that we're strangers. But honestly, most of my impressions now are very likely to be broad generalizations based on very little evidence, because I am still so new to this place. So I think I will stop generalizing now, and go have some toast and a cuppa.