Viewing Australia through the eyes of an outsider

Australian houses have garages. This has been brought to our attention many times in the past few weeks by our boys. They seem caught up on the issue. I have to admit, having our car parked practically in our kitchen is a novelty for me! But to them it is even weirder! I'm not sure whether they are feeling positive or negative about it just now, but our middle son got mad about it the other day. Strange - to me it doesn't seem to be an emotive type issue. But maybe it has come to symbolise the many differences our boys are noticing. Things like Australian roads are wide and cars travel fast, we use freeways far more often. They've had to relax and experiment with some different sports too. Culture shock! It is challenging for us to realise that, even though these boys look like ordinary Aussies and call themselves Australians and mostly sound Australian, they really don't have an insider's understanding of the country. Some understanding, but it is patchy. My husband and I grew up here, so imbibed the culture as we grew, these guys have to learn it. Much like we've had to learn about Japan in a not so natural way.