@Small Fryz is exactly what my Aussie cousins are like - in fact he could easily pass as one of them. I think they are all clones in there.
Actually, I've got cousins in different provinces and they are somewhat different to each other.
Kind of like over here - Newfies are quite different to people in New Brunswick and Quebec and BC are night and day.
Those two were my parents final two choices, I was 8 at the time.
Apparently the weather is what tipped the scale in Australia's favour in the end and I'm glad they did.
That's in no way to be disparaging towards Canada but I do love my adopted home.
You say 'apparently' - so I'm taking it you haven't visited in Winter. Winter here can kill you - 'nuff said.
In comparison, Australia has wonderful weather pretty much all year round.
We are used to the cold. If you were born here, the cold is a natural habitat - kids play street hockey in t-shirts and it's -10 C out there.
Nothing that some hot chocolate or warm soup won't fix.
New emigrants find it harder and kind of go into shock for the first couple of years.
They die or flee back home. Those who stay become Canadians - a very special breed - the huskies of humanity.
I miss the endless beaches, balmy breezes, fragrant oleander, and the smell of a bar-b-que on the beach though - sites and sounds and smells I grew up with before the Great White North captured me with a whole different Planet Earth.
Sure Australia has it's faults (what country doesn't) but I proudly call myself Australian albeit with Scotland still in my heart.
I would say that with most developed and even developing countries that are not engaged in some civil war or whose citizens fear for their lives because of routine and widespread crime or terrorism, it's six of one half dozen of the other.
There's good and bad - but - and I may be just an optimist here - I see the world constantly improve in many ways - especially in parts of the world that such is given the chance to manifest. and people are moving around - settling in countries of their choice a lot more than they did before the age of travel and info tech.
People are realising that just because they are born on a certain patch of land does not mean they are necessarily chained to it - that they have more choices now about their lives than in the past.
But, to be Australian and proud of it and still hold Scotland in your heart is a wonderful thing - it enriches you. To completely throw away the country one was born in, or whose ancestors had their roots, is to throw away a major part of your DNA - and I'm not talking bloodlines either, but the cultural heritage that flavours your very neurons and makes you who you are.
You are an Australian - the Scottish version of it - and factoring the consequences of a restricted gene pool on
any organism, then Australia is all the better for it.
)
