Random Facts Learned While Traveling

Eggs at Queen Victoria Market Melbourne

A lot of people say that travel is the best education. I think that is true! While you’re travelling, you learn so much about people, history, and culture. I learned a lot on the road and I’m not even including history or languages. I wanted to share some random facts learned while travelling.

 

 

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Animal random facts: 

This may sound silly/weird but I was surprised when I saw parrots in Australia. Parrots are animals I have only ever seen in cages or on a shoulder of some weird guy on a beach. I always thought they were more tropical birds found in lush jungles. When I was going for a walk on the property of my friend’s family farm north of Melbourne, I saw parrots hanging out in the trees. I didn’t take a photo of course but here’s one I found on Flickr. 

Random Facts I Learned While Traveling - Parrots

Photo credit: Flickr

Bats are also normal things you see in the trees in Australia. I saw bats circling around at dusk when I was walking through the Sydney Botanical Gardens. Let’s just say I sort of ran like a crazy person out of the park. I later found out these bats only eat insects or fruit. I freaked out for no reason. Haha.

Bats in a tree - Random Facts I Learned While Traveling

Photo credit: Flickr

It’s pretty impossible to see koalas in the wild in Australia. I tried. I made my friends drive around and look for some. We failed. I did see kangaroos as well as wombats while driving. Excuse the horrible quality photo below. I was so excited and of course, I didn’t have a camera, just my iPhone. The kangaroos were far away and they hopped away after they saw us.

Kangaroo Australia | www.rtwgirl.com 

They are just like how I imagined them to be, everything I learned from cartoons.

Australia also has the biggest spiders I’ve ever seen in my life. The baby ones were the size of tarantulas. I don’t have photos nor will I include them in this post so I don’t freak out. I don’t have arachnophobia or am totally scared of them but I don’t like looking at bugs and insects.

Food random facts:

In Australia and New Zealand, bell peppers are called “capsicum” and zucchini are called “courgettes”. I discovered this while ordering an omelet with my friend Michelle. She is Canadian and was living in Sydney and explained this to me. My friend Helen in New Zealand taught me about courgette because her daughter Ruby plucked one from the garden for me.

Capsicum

See? Capsicum. Photo credit: Education Abroad Network

Australians love to put beets on hamburgers. It was weird but now I like it. They also put eggs on burgers. Now that’s weird.

Burger With The Lot

Photo credit: Robyn Lee on Flickr

Did you know that eggs are not refrigerated in most of the world? I was shocked!

Eggs at Queen Victoria Market Melbourne | www.rtwgirl.com

At Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne

New Zealand eggs | www.rtwgirl.com

At a Grocery store in Auckland. On a regular shelf. Not refrigerated.

Cilantro is called coriander everywhere else in the world. I learned this while trying to make Mexican food in Spain.

Road random facts:

Driving on the other side of the road is hard. I didn’t like it in a car but on a scooter I was fine. Below is a map of driving in the world. Red is driving on the right side, blue is on the left side.

Random Facts Learned When Traveling

In countries like England, Australia, and New Zealand there are signs that remind you to look the other way before crossing the street. I almost got run over after 2 hours in New Zealand.

Random Facts I Learned While Traveling | www.rtwgirl.com

Here’s a sign to help people cross the road in Sydney

Actually, in countries like England, the crosswalk is called a “zebra crossing”. In Canada, we called them “crosswalks”.

Have you learned random facts while travelling?? Please comment below

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