20 Things that culturally define Australia

Living in the United States is an interesting experience for someone who was born and raised in Australia. Quite often, I get asked a lot of questions about what it is like back home. Sometimes I even get questions such as, "Do you know Crocodile Dundee?" - To which I reply a line made famous by Kevin Bloody Wilson: "Know him? Mate, he's my brother!"

The longer I live here in the US, the more it becomes clear that a lot of Americans have some really interesting concepts and visualizations about what the land down under must be like. For example, I get the impression, quite often, that many of our American friends see Australia like these images:

If you ask an American who the current leader of Australia is; or what the capital city of Australia is, they would be hard pressed to answer you correctly; despite Aussies and Yanks being quite close friends on the international scene. If you ask an American what images (besides kangaroos) come to mind when they think of Australia, they would talk about these landscapes:

Well, I'm here to tell you that there's more to us Crazy Australians than koalas, kangaroos, the outback, and Sydney. So, to help you understand why we are the way we are, I have compiled a list of things that culturally shape Australians into the fun-loving, laid-back, hard-asses that we are. On we go:

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