I was a little surprised with how similar Australia is to the United States. But, having a heavy British influence and being on the other side of the world from the US, Australia did have a few interesting differences and a few things that I'd like to see here in the US:

• One nice thing about making credit card charges in Australia was that rather than signing a piece of paper that nobody ever verifies, you entered a PIN for pretty much every transaction. It seemed like a much more reliable way of verifying that you were the owner of the credit card you were using. I really never understood why you have to sign your receipt here because, really, nobody ever looks at it and it's more work than typing in a PIN.


• Crosswalks in Australia all featured sound, which was helpful when crossing, since the sound changed when it was time to walk and when the time remaining to cross was running out. Some of the crosswalks here have sound, but not as many, and the sounds at the crosswalks in Australia were more useful, and I'm sure appreciated by the blind.


• All prices at stores and restaurants include tax. Having tax included is so helpful and so much more logical than the way we do things. Plus, at restaurants, tips were not expected, so I didn't have to multiply by 15% every time I ate out and what we saw was what we paid. It seemed like such a convenient and sensible way of doing things.


• Melbourne and Sydney both had a lot of cafes. It would be great if there were more sidewalk cafes here. You know, an inexpensive place to stop for lunch or dessert or tea or whatever.


• All toilets in Australia have two buttons for flushing - one button to flush with a small amount of water and another button for, um, bigger flushing needs. But that makes so much sense. Why should every flush use the same amount of water, when there's normally not a need to use that much water. Just another simple and sensible idea.


• Another common environmentally-friendly feature is that electrical outlets have switches. So, rather than unplugging something you're not using, you can just flip the switch to turn it off. There are a lot of things that use electricity when they're plugged in, even if you're not using them, such as cell phone chargers and electronics. It would be really convenient to be able to just turn them off at the switch to save that electricity instead of having to unplug them.


• I saw the best hand dryer in the world in the Melbourne Airport. Not only did I see it, but in fact I got to use it. It's a Dyson Airblade and you insert your hands and it blows a blade of air, which blows the water off as you slowly pull your hands out. It dried my hands more completely and quickly than using a regular hand drier or paper towels. This isn't unique to Australia, and it wasn't common there, but it's the best way I've ever dried my hands, which is saying something considering that I've washed and dried them a lot of times since I was born.



• Australian bills of currency were much more interesting than ours in the US. They were very colorful, for one thing, which make our bills look very boring in comparison. One thing that is better, though, is that the bills have various different anti-counterfeit measures. And, they're easier to use by blind people because of the differences between denominations that you can feel. By contrast, United States bills can't be told apart by blind people because they all feel the same. Also, Australia doesn't have pennies, and even though we were using more coins because they have $1 and $2 coins instead of bills, not having a 1 cent piece makes it easier to pay with cash.

I'm sure there are some other things in Australia that would be worth bringing over here, probably some not quite as trivial as what I've mentioned, but I'd be happy if we could see some of these good ideas in the US.