There is no Blue Monday in Australia, mainly because it’s already Tuesday and also because it’s Summer.

I thought we, as a society, agreed that the four seasons were: depression, allergies, tomatoes, and spooky.

Culture shock is something only cool people experience… - Like jet lag, or knowing how and what to order at Starbucks. As it turns out, my standards for defining cool people are way lower than expected.

If it’s true that ‘nomen est omen’ (= your name is your destiny) maybe that's why I haven’t felt out of place in Australia. Despite what most people assume, Barbara is more than an old-fashioned name: it means ‘one who cannot speak’ and, as barbarians ultimately were, ‘foreigner’. Even so, being a foreigner in a city like Melbourne, mostly populated by Italians, Greeks, and Asians, was not a real challenge. Was I still a minority? As my nose looked quite European and my accent was exotic but undefined, I could understand why people pronounced my name a’ la Greek, or guessed I was from Romania or the Middle East. But I still have genuine doubts about the mental sanity of the dude who thought I was from Russia. Someone even asked me if I could speak Italian! Most people here seemed to miss that I was, above all, Italian. Not Italian by cultural background but quite literally.

The dust under my shoes is older than Australia.

For Border and Immigration reasons I would like to clarify that was a joke. My shoes were clean when I landed and I definitely did not transport a dried lucky clover behind my driver’s license when I moved to Australia.

Here is a list of questions that were running through my head as I adjusted to my new life in Melbourne:

• What time is it in Italy?

• What the hell is chicken parma?

• Why aren’t ‘hundreds and thousands’ called ‘fairy freckles’?

• Why haven’t I encountered ‘fair dinkum’ and ‘ridgy didge’ in any English class?

• Why is it so cold?

• Where are all the kangaroos?

• How do I know if there is a spider in my shoe?

• Drop-bears aren’t real… right?

• Where do I get a SIM card with data?

The last time I bought a new SIM card was in England. I signed up using my teenage e-mail address and chose ‘Dr’ as a prefix considering I was this close to a double major in philosophy and therefore technically almost a doctor. Philosophically speaking. I was already envisioning myself wearing a laurel wreath. Yet, I did not foresee a more imminent aspect of my studies abroad: me, standing in the middle of London Gatwick airport at the end of the school year, holding twelve kilos worth of books and notes in my carry-on bag and wearing sixteen layers of clothing that didn’t fit in my suitcase.

It was my suspicious Michelin-Man shape that got me selected for an extra security check, which meant swiping my laptop battery for drugs and/or explosives and removing all sixteen t-shirts before putting them back on in the right order under the unamused gaze of a police lady who thought airport security would be an exciting career choice.

I was all sweaty from the clothing gymnastics, trying to find my gate and, at the same time, producing the correct spelling of my email loud enough for a clueless phone operator to understand that I wanted to cancel my British sim card through several language, time, and reception barriers. All while being addressed as ‘Doctor’.

I did not learn my lesson as my current sim is, once again, addressed to Dr bLaCkScArLeT_666@hotmail.com

Also, not my real e-mail but pretty close!

Literally a magpie overlooking a city that looks so much like Melbourne. This could have been the one that swooped me. Courtesy of Canva PRO.

Coming to Australia I was very well aware that any animal or plant could kill you.

I have heard the stories and seen viral videos of clouds of spiders floating in the sky and huntsmen lurking in your shoes. I was ready to never set foot in the outback, even better, never venture more than forty minutes (by car) away from one of the main cities. Despite my personal policies and best intentions, imagine my surprise when crossing a big intersection I get attacked by a magpie. Not even a weird prehistoric-looking wild creature, but a plain black and white bird! At first, I thought someone kicked a deflated soccer ball to my head, it felt squishy and rather dusty, but this was ‘Straya, there were no soccer balls here. Then, I felt the sting of a small cut above my eyebrow and thought it must have been one of those infamous Drop-bears! I’ve been attacked! But then a tradesperson nearby checked that I was OK (I quickly learned tradies are known for doing not much work when deployed to a street site) and commented how odd the event was since it’s not even swooping season.

Swooping season!? There is a season for being physically attacked by real-life angry birds?

The concept of seasons, down under, was creative, to say the least. If you asked any normal person about their favourite season the answer would usually be the season their birthday is in. Whereas a Melbournian’s favourite season could easily be every day between 4 and 5 pm. And they will proudly chant ‘Four seasons in a day!’ Also, can we please address how I am a Scorpio, therefore an autumnal pistachio, and October is supposed to be the pinnacle of Spooky Season and that must come with yellowy-orange leaves? None of this windy sneezy spring with flowers and shit.

Although I am partial to Persephone’s narrative, Spring just doesn’t match my pumpkin spice latte aesthetic.

I needed to get my revenge on Australia, somehow. So, after several failed attempts and extensive testing, I brought you the top things that will enrage Australians. Okay, they are pretty chill people so they might not punch you in the face but they would feel deeply betrayed, to say the least.

1. Breaking scotch fingers ‘the wrong way’.¹

2. Saying Ned Kelly wasn’t a real criminal.²

3. Saying you don’t like Vegemite and that yes, you had a whole spoonful.³

4. Ignoring the mandatory ‘Acknowledgement of Country’ formula.⁴

5. Saying you don’t support any footie team.⁵

Use with caution!

And when is not ‘footy season’, yet another season I don’t care for, it’s another sport.

Victorians (geographically, not chronologically) brought sports to a whole new level. I should be used to this level of madness, coming from soccer-fueled Italy where every main city had a team, and apparently flying soccer balls everywhere, but Melbourne is one single city with thirteen football clubs.

They have tennis, swimming, rugby, surfing, and horse races, and have built the largest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere for (get ready)… Cricket. How anti-climactic. I was not quite sure what cricket even was. At first, I thought it was what Alice in Wonderland played with hedgehogs and floppy flamingos. When I came across an advert on TV for a cricket match I noticed they added special effects to throws and balls, so my second theory was that someone needed to make it look interesting with trickery just to fill that stadium.

I care to say, to this day, I haven’t heard anyone denying this theory yet.

Sport unified the population so much that some events are formally considered State Holidays alongside the United Kingdom’s Regent’s various coronations and horses’ birthdays. I’ve always called them ‘random holidays’ although I was aware that, coming from a Country where we have days off for the scientifically questionable Virgin Mary’s ascension, I couldn’t complain about a day off to wear fancy hats and get drunk at the races.

Pish-posh, alert the corgis!

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Directly from the archives, please enjoy this authentic photographic evidence:

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Everyone knows ‘she’ll be right, mate’ but is anyone wondering if I will be alright?

Answering some frequently asked questions about food and fashion in Melbourne

Memorising the Acknowledgement of Country and other rites of passage

1. They are tea biscuits meant to be snapped in half kinda like Kit-Kat.

2. It was a dude with a bucket on his head. Literally.

3. Anyone will proceed to tell you how they personally achieved the best Vegemite toastie and ensure you did things right. If given the opportunity they will make a toast for you. Run.

4. At the beginning of any formal gathering, they have to acknowledge the British stole the land from First Nation peoples. Like a Thanksgiving Day but all the time and without food. Imagine if Italians had to acknowledge the Tuscans, and the Roman Empire, and the Ostrogoth Kingdom, and the Byzantine Empire, and the Lombard Kingdom, and the Frankish Kingdom, and the Holy Roman Empire.

5. Once, I saw a colleague wearing a black and yellow scarf and I got so excited thinking it was a Hufflepuff scarf. I approached them with a nerd smile full of hope and they asked me if I was a Richmond fan too. Sure. Yep. Hmh. That was exactly what I was about to say.