Differences Between Living in the USA and Living in Australia - Part 2

There are many ways in which Americans and Australians are very much alike. However, there are certainly also many differences between our countries . In this article I will be referring to the ways in which Americans and Australians differ in the fields of sport, entertainment and cuisine. I hope this will be of considerable value to many Americans who would just like to know more about us or who are possibly even planning to travel to or take up residency in Australia.

Our most popular sports are not baseball and grid iron football, as they are in America. Aussies love their footy (Australian rules, rugby league, rugby union and soccer) in winter - and cricket in summer. Cricket has a reputation for being something of a national religion. Ice hockey isn't really big over here either, as it seems to be in the US. Some of our most highly-esteemed heroes are our Olympic swimmers and we follow national swimming championships on TV far more avidly than Americans seem to do. On an international level we are just below America - even though our population is significantly smaller at just over 20 million.

As far as entertainment is concerned, we do share many of the same interests as Americans. Modern technological obsessions such as the internet, video games, DVDs and personal music players such as the iPod occupy many people's free time. We love movies too and the cinema is probably more popular than ever in spite of people having extensive DVD collections and good home theatre systems.