In This Economy?

On the previous two episodes of ITE’s Globetrotting with SurlyZ*…

Without taking the time to look at the title of this post, we wonder what today’s episode has in store for us.

Cuddly AND delicious! Grilled kangaroo steak.

Cuisine

As I wrapped up my first trip to the Southern Hemisphere, I felt like I didn’t eat as much local cuisine as I should have. But that’s my fault for watching 10 episodes of The Simpsons each day. I had pizza, venison spring rolls, subpar/unidentifiable Chinese food, pizza again and sushi. There are a lot of sushi places in Melbourne. In fact, the city has what experts call a “fuckload” of sushi shops.

But before you go thinking Aussies are a bunch of sushi-eating, latte-sipping, Harvard-educated, hemp-wearing, gay-married abortionists who rarely, if ever, suck the eyeballs out of baby seals, there is a (am I using this word correctly?) “fuckload” of McDonald’s and Subway restaurants too. So the next time the Crocodile Hunter makes you feel like you should be more outdoorsy, tell him that all those Big Macs made him too slow to dodge a stingray’s tail. And tell him he’s dead.

Steak sandwiches are a staple in Melbourne. But I forgot to get one. I did, however, remember to eat a whole kangaroo alive. Or, rather, a modest portion of grilled kangaroo. It was a bit gamy, but tasted mostly cow-ish. I’m pretty sure it was pouch meat because it was garnished with newborn joeys.

Maybe I'm all turned around on this vegemite stuff.

What else? I guess you want to know about vegemite. Didn’t touch it. Wouldn’t even eat in the same room as that shit. According to my research, vegemite was invented as a practical joke on a tourists visiting down under. The Brits didn’t catch on because they have retarded taste buds. But the rest of us would rather eat human afterbirth. … I may be exaggerating. I didn’t try vegemite. Though I can’t argue with their marketing strategy.

Slang

Aussie slang is endearing and adorable. Brekky = breakfast. Bizzo = business. Dickless Tracy = policewoman. For real. Thus, I decided to buy a book of slang so I wouldn’t slow down any conversations I joined while I was in Melbourne.

Here are some other cute words and phrases I heard:
Bang
Crack a fat
Flog the log
Getting off at Redfern
Give the ferret a run
Knock off
Root
Sink the sausage

Upon looking them up, I discovered they mean things like sexual intercourse, erection, masturbation and coitus interruptus. So these horndog Australians ain’t so cute after all.

More surprising is the amount of slang they have for vomit, which actually becomes less surprising when you remember vegemite. A few examples:
Chunder
Drive the porcelain bus
Perk
Technicolour yawn
The big spit
Throw a map

Let’s use some of the slang we’ve learned so far:

She gave a technicolour yawn after she sobered up and saw that it was Dustin Diamond who had given the ferret a run inside her, but she thanked the lord he had gotten off at Redfern and flogged the log to completion, even though the thought of that caused her to drive the porcelain bus until she couldn’t perk another morsel of chunder.

That’s all I learned during my time in Australia. My apologies to ITE and ITE’s financial backers.

*Other potential titles for my travel blog posts:
Exploring the Non-Ancient Cities of Earth
Our Planet and Beyond, Minus “and Beyond”
Around the World in 80 Credit Cards
Roadtripping Balls with SurlyZ
Where in the World Is SurlyZ… ‘s Pants?

Tags: Australia, Dukes of Hazzard, euphemisms, international travel, kangaroo, Melbourne, Palin, slang, vegemite

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 11:11 AM and is filed under Human Encounters, Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.