So they drink a lot in Oz

In the US Australia is assumed to be a drinkers heaven. We assume everyone spends all day drinking(or "on the piss" as they say here). While this is partly true, alcohol is not the beverage they take most seriously here. Coffee is by far.

I don't drink coffee so I can't comment on quality, but I can say Aussies are obsessed. I read an article where Starbucks had to close down 3/4 of their Australian stores because they couldn't compete with domestic cafes. Based on what I have observed this is not surprising. Every block it seems has 3-4 cafes that all make coffee. I have seen impassioned debated on Facebook and in real life as to the merits of various beans, blends, devices used for preparation, and other nuances I can't even comprehend as a non-coffee drinker. Listening to some of them it is almost as if it a matter of life and death.

So really Australia is more a nation of over caffeinatied coffee snobs, not the drunks everyone assumes they are. Makes for more boring parties, but at least they can get up early in the morning.

A post about where I pee

Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy a trough urinal. I have been known to say that there are only two reasons to go to TOTS and one of them is the trough urinal. It therefore makes me quite happy that Australia has embraced the trough urinal and his cousin the piss wall. They exist in easily more than half of the public bathrooms I've been into in Oz. And not just parks or dive bars. Even classy joints have very nice piss walls in their bathrooms. Something I wish was more common back home.