Got back from Melbourne late last night and I had a great trip there, both work wise and exploring some of the seriously hip and chic bars in the city with girlstar7. Pictures and write-up will be done soon.

In the meantime, I would like to say something about why I love this country and it comes from an aspect not often talk about: taxi drivers. During this trip, I took six taxi rides and during these six rides I’ve had drivers of six different nationalities: Lebanese, Indian, Aussie, Pakistani, Sudanese, and Armenian.

With the Aussie who is Melburnian, because he visits Perth often, during my ride from the hotel into the city to meet up with girlstar7 he’d point out some of the suburbs and buildings which reminded him of Perth.

And with the ethnic drivers, we immediately shared a bond from being immigrants. While I gathered that everyone else seems to have a problem with the Sudanese for being too aggressive on the road (it was true with the driver that I had), there was one thing that everyone of them shared.

Muslim, Christian, white, black, or brown, everyone of them used the phrase, “No worries mate”. Despite all the differences, and no matter which part of the world they had come from, everyone ended up being assimilated in one way or another. And amongst other things that indicates that you are from Australia, one of the most obvious giveaways is saying “No worries”.

And I think that’s great. I love it.