Language Barrier Cont.

Ever since the dawn of time I’ve wished I had an Australian accent.  For obvious reasons, though lots of Aussies have told us, awwwww we love your accents!!!  Nutty.  Australians basically speak a different language than Minnesotans.  I’d say one of the most identifying qualities of the Minnesotan accent is the strong R (followed by the strong O), whereas Australian accents drop the R completely.  So when a girl at the bar asks me for a millah and I ask her to repeat herself several times during which she eventually notices my Fargo-esque vernacular and finally says milleRRRRR, I say ohhhhh.  You might wonder why anyone would have trouble understanding someone trying to order a Miller at the bar no matter how outrageous their accent was, but this was actually an exceptional circumstance, the explanation of which I won’t bore you with/the circumstance wasn’t that exceptional and I don’t want you to judge me.  Anyway, she then told me she had done some study program thing in Wisconsin for a couple months and had the same problem asking for watah.  Smart cookie trouble shooting that one.  Another thing I’ve noticed is almost every single person to whom I serve food says cheers.  Almost always cheers and about fifty percent of the time cheers, mate.  So I say cheers back sometimes and always feel like a poser when I do (mostly I say you betcha to bring them a taste of Minnesotan culture).  They also say, how are YOU going, rather than how’s IT going.  It threw me off the first time.  And they call sweatshirts jumpers.  How cute is that.  Australians also have tons of cutesy abbreviations for things, as well as tons of three-letter acronyms.  As far as three-letter acronyms pertinent to us that we’ve encountered so far, there are BSBs, BSAs, TFNs, RSAs, and for sure more that I can’t think of right now.  So I can’t imagine how many there are total.  Probably hundreds.  I just got my RSA this afternoon, actually.  It’s the Responsible Service of Alcohol course and it’s mandatory in every state before you can legally serve alcohol.  It was kind of riveting.  For two reasons, firstly because almost all male Australian voices remind me of Flight of the Conchords (even though flight of the conchords is New Zealand and apparently there is a major difference between the two accents as far as Aussies and Kiwis are concerned) and so his dry, stoic demeanor came across as very comical (to me) and secondly because I learned a lot about the responsible service of alcohol and the liquor laws in the state of Victoria and it was very interesting.  Anyway, back to the language thing, it’s definitely been a life-enriching part of the trip so far.  Adam’s the culture sponge in this outfit so he’d likely sound like a native (not aboriginal, regular native, you know) if it weren’t for spending time with me.  But since I’m 25 now and pretty set in my ways I don’t think there’s much hope for me assimilating the language, but we’ll see.  WE’LL SEE.