This Week in America — Representing Australia at a Tennessee School Night

What does everyday life in America actually feel like? In this episode, I share a week that started with representing Australia at a school international night in Tennessee… and unfolded into a series of small moments that say a lot about living in the United States as an Australian.

From sausage rolls, Vegemite, and Tim Tams at an American school event… to watching kids grow up in a naturally multicultural environment… to the small everyday differences you don’t really notice until you do — like ice in drinks, mailbox flags, and even how Easter quietly passes here.

There are also moments that feel a little heavier — rising gas prices, school lockdown drills — and how those realities sit alongside a very normal, routine day-to-day life that often looks nothing like the version of America seen on the news.

This is a reflection on the difference between seeing America from the outside… and actually living here.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

You better take cover. I had one of those weeks recently where a few small things just sort of stayed with me. Nothing big on their own, but when you look back at them together, they start to say something. Not in some big dramatic way, just quietly, about what it actually feels like living in America. Recently, Georgia and I were part of something at her school that neither of us had experienced before. They held their first ever international night, and there were about 15 different countries represented. Uzbekistan, Samoa, Guatemala, India, and we were there for Australia. We set up a booth. I made sausage rolls, Nikki made vegemite sandwiches and fairy bread. We had Tim Tams, Violet Crumble, even had a few things that the Australian Embassy in Washington, DC had sent down for us. And all the school kids had these little passports. They go from country to country getting them stamped, which was actually a really simple idea, but it worked. Because you could see them moving around, learning a little bit at each stop without it actually feeling like learning. The Tim Turns were incredibly popular. I might need to have a chat to Arnett's next year about maybe being a sponsor. And it started off fairly quiet and then almost without noticing, the place just filled up. People everywhere. And we ended up running out of food about halfway through, which I took as a pretty good sign. But what I really enjoyed was just standing there talking about Australia. People who had been there, people who wanted to go, a few people wanting to talk about cricket, which always catches me off guard a little bit. Because you don't expect that conversation to start in the middle of Tennessee. I even ended up speaking a bit of Samoan with that booth, which took me back to when I used to live there. It was one of those things I hadn't thought about in a long time, and then suddenly it's just there again, speaking a few words, nothing major, but enough for them to realize I knew what I was saying. And you could see it straight away, that little shift, that connection. They were so excited they called their dad to say there's this guy here who used to live there and could speak the language. And it's funny how something like that comes back. You don't think about it for years and then suddenly it's there again, like it never really left. Now our booth was next to Belgium, although the couple that were running it weren't actually Belgian. She was from Belarus. But given everything going on, she didn't really feel comfortable representing that country right now. So they went with Belgium instead because they went there for a vacation last year. And I remember thinking, even something like that, where you're from, it carries weight. Sometimes more than you expect. Georgia, of course, well, she disappeared pretty quickly once her friends turned up. And I was left there stamping passports for what felt like hundreds of kids all by myself. We even had a bluey and bingo there, which might have been the most popular part of the whole setup. I was also genuinely surprised by how many people liked the Vegimite, although there were still a few strong reactions and a couple of people quietly turning green and looking around for a garbage bin. But I walked away from that night thinking I really enjoy being able to represent Australia like that. Not just missing it, but actually sharing it and feeling proud of our country. Not long after that, Georgia had a sleepover, and it was one of those moments that doesn't seem like much at the time, but it sticks with you afterwards. There was an American girl, a Polish girl, a girl from Spain, and our Aussie girl, all just hanging out together like it was the most normal thing in the world. And for them, maybe it is. There's no label on it, no sense that it's anything unusual. It's just their group of friends. And I found myself noticing that because I think when I was growing up, you were a bit more aware of where people were from. And that wasn't in a bad way, but it was just something that you noticed. I had a girl from Malta in my class, I had one from Italy, and I think the rest of us were all Aussies. Whereas for the kids now, they're not really noticing at all. They're just growing up with it. And there's something quite nice about that. And it's something quite simple. And I think that's the part of what living here has been like in general. There are these moments where something feels different, but not always in the way that you expect. Sometimes it's not what's there, it's what's not there. One thing that still throws me a bit around Easter here is how little actually stops. Good Friday isn't a public holiday in the US, and neither is Easter Monday. Schools might close, but banks are open, businesses are open, everything just keeps moving. And for a place where religion is quite visible in everyday life, well that still feels a little strange to me. Back home, everything pauses. Even if you're not particularly religious, there's still that shared sense of slowing down. Here it just moves straight through. And it's one of those things that you don't really think about until you notice it. And then there are the smaller things, the ones you don't really think about at all until someone points them out. I had a listener from up north message me about a recent podcast where I was talking about how much ice you get in drinks here. And he said, Well, it's basically a bit of a scam, which I hadn't really thought about before. But once it's pointed out, you start noticing it. That moment, a few sips in where you look down and realize you're pretty much just holding ice. And you kind of think, well, there's not a lot of drink left in there. It's a small thing, but once you see it, you can't really unsee it. I had something similar happen with a comment on one of my videos recently, too. I was talking about the little flag, it's on the mailboxes here. And I always thought that that was a uniquely American thing. But someone mentioned that in rural New Zealand years ago, they used to do the same thing, which I had no idea about. But it made me realize some of the things that we think of as cultural differences are really just practical solutions that different places have arrived at. And I'm curious if that is something that we ever did in Australia years ago, too. Every now and then something shifts from being an observation to something that you actually feel. And fuel prices have been one of those. They've more than doubled from where they were a few months ago. You hear about it, you see it on the news, but it doesn't really land until you're standing there filling your car up. And what used to be$40 is suddenly$80. And there's a moment there where it sort of just sinks in, not as a headline, but as part of your everyday. And I know everyone around the world is feeling that right now. I also got an email from the school recently letting us know that they had conducted a lockdown drill. It was written very calmly, very matter-of-fact, something that had been scheduled for weeks, but it really stood out to me. Especially with a nearby middle school having recently received threats that had to close them down for two days, even though they turned out to be false. It's one of those things that feels quite heavy, but it's handled as something routine. And I think that's what makes it noticeable. It's not the drill itself, but just how normal it is. I asked Brianna about that, and in her seven-year-old wisdom, she said, Oh, yeah, I think we did something. I don't remember. But that shows just how normal it becomes. I think all of that ties into something I get asked about from time to time. People back home wondering how we can even live here. Because the version of America that they see is often through the news. And it can feel like everything is happening all the time. But living here, our day-to-day life is actually very normal. We're in our own little bubble most of the times. School, activities, groceries, the usual routines. And when we do step outside of that, it's not like we're putting ourselves in situations where things feel unsafe. You know where to go, where not to go. It's just life. The same as what it is back home. That even extends to things like guns, because there's this perception that they're everywhere. And while, yes, I've seen them, it's not something I come across regularly. I saw an old bloke once at the supermarket with a couple of them strapped to his hip. And more than anything, I was thinking, how's he going to draw them in a hurry if he can barely push his shopping trolley? That was a while ago, and to be honest, I haven't seen one in ages. And I think that's the thing I keep coming back to. There's the version of America you see from the outside, and then there's the version you actually live in, and they're not always the same. And I think that's probably the hardest thing to explain to people back home. Not that things don't happen here, but that most of the time life just feels normal. Quiet, everyday moments that don't make the news, but end up meaning the most. And that was this week in America.