An american author weighs in on the laid-back aussie nature.
I thank the customs agent who has graciously allowed me to enter Australia.
“No worries,” he says.
This stops me for a second. It sounds as if he is absolving me from some sin rather than simply responding to my perfunctory gratitude.
In the cab, I ask the driver to take me to the W Sydney Hotel.
“That’s all right,” he says. “No worries.” I begin to suspect a pattern.
In fact, everyone I come across in Australia spouts the “no worries” mantra as if it were required by law. The phrase certainly gives the impression of being oh-so-laid-back, just like Australians are supposed to be, but I wondered if the stereotype was true, or if Aussies weren’t really Type-A-obsessive-compulsive-over-achievers. Maybe this cheery calm was just something trotted out for foreigners. I imagined Australians in their homes, sniping viciously at one another about dirty socks on the floor and crusty dishes in the sink.
Alas, after having spent two weeks in the country, I have concluded that the “no worries” attitude is not a farce, but rather, most of the time anyway, a way of life.
The first big test of the “no worries” attitude was at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels on Woolloomooloo Wharf (where most of the clientele, including myself, seemed exceptionally inebriated). I ordered a chicken and cheese pie, but became concerned when the clerk wielded a mammoth squeeze bottle and began to douse my pie with gelatinous white glop.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying not to grimace. “What’s that?”
“It’s the cheese, mate,” he said with a patient smile.
“That’s the cheese? Oh, no. No, I can’t eat cheese out of a bottle.”
“No worries,” he said. He dumped the pie in the bin and gave me another one, sans scary liquid cheese.
At Sydney’s stunning opera house the next night, I saw Rigoletto on opening night. My amazing seat was so close to the stage, I could see the pores on Rigoletto’s face, but the subtitles, which were flashed above the stage, were nearly impossible to read. Time and again, I swung my face upward, contorting my neck in an effort to decipher them. At one point, I accidentally head-butted the lovely woman to my left who bore a strong resemblance to Cherie Blair.
“I’m so sorry!” I whispered.
She glanced at me beatifically. “No worries.”
At Cargo Bar for post-opera drinks, I also noticed that the bartenders were unfailingly cheerful and able to take 10 drink orders at once, all the while, giving me a “no worries, mate” response when I didn’t have quite enough cash to cover the round. In the States, if you place a drink order of more than three cocktails at a time, the bartenders will often shoot you dagger looks and make you wait while they search for pen and paper.
The most extreme example of the laid-back Aussie way came when I decided to take a few friends skydiving. When I’ve jumped in the US, a two-hour training session is required, replete with video footage of someone being hauled away in an ambulance, as well as ominous warnings about how you may die a painful, albeit quick, death. But at Sydney Skydiving Centre, we were suited up and inside the plane within fifteen minutes of arriving there.
“Isn’t there anything else I should know?” I heard one of my buddies say to his tandem master after receiving a two-minute in-flight lesson on how to freefall from 14,000 feet.
“Ah, no worries,” the tandem master said.
A few short seconds later, my friend was hurtling out the yawning mouth of the plane.
The only area I discovered where Australians were decidedly not laid-back was politics. Everyone had an opinion about the potential war with Iraq, and, being an American, everyone decided to tell me that opinion. Whether I was shopping at Rundle Mall in Adelaide or having lunch at Iceberg Café in Bondi, the Australians I came across weighed in with their thoughts. One man I met in a pub in Paddington was particularly vociferous, becoming more and more agitated as he described the vendetta that George W was allegedly carrying for his father. He railed on about knowing your enemies; he huffed and puffed about North Korea being a bigger threat. At one point, as he accused all Americans of being oil-hungry mongers, his face turned a deep purple and his words reached the shriek level.
But suddenly he stopped. “Sorry,” he said blinking, his face returning to a normal color. “I was getting a bit carried away.”
I smiled and patted his hand. “No worries,” I said.
I was starting to get the hang of it.
**Laura Caldwell is an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and contributing editor of Lake Magazine. She is also acting as the Editor in Chief of a new medical/legal text book.
Laura is the author of Burning the Map (Red Dress Ink) which is available in bookstores everywhere. Her second book A Clean Slate will be published by Red Dress Ink in December 2003.**
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