OZ! Nice to see you back in this tangent.
I thought you had abandoned it!
Seems like a LONG time (if ever?) since you've been to Australia if you say
In point of fact, I have never been to Australia (much to my chagrin). But I simply reject your implication that one must visit a place to be able to comment on it. I can tell you with certainty that the moon is not made of green cheese despite the fact that I've never been there...
there were NO European who settled Australia until 1788, so where your 500 years comes from I have no idea, or who taught you math.This country was not settled by Euopreans until 212 years back.
Seems rather presumptuous on your part. How can you say with certainty that none of the Dutch explorers who landed in Australia at the beginning of the 17th century (and established many colonies in the region) left no failed colonies on the island? In fact, all we can say for certain is that
England did not establish a colony on Terra Australis until 1788.
Actually, the 500-year mark was my safe delineation between the arrival of Europeans in the region and the far earlier arrival of the aboriginal inhabitants of the island (for the sake of discussing culture). But I can understand your getting confused over this point since I went from talking about European settlers to the English (or at least to Commonwealth) culture. I'm sorry for not being more clear.
Oh, and I was taught addition and subtraction by my first grade teacher Mrs. Betty Lowrey, who coincidentally later became my very first travel agent after she retired from teaching.
There are entire sections of Sydney where not a word of English can be basically seen in signage, shop names and displays.
This description sounds more like segregation than a "melting pot." But I do accept that Australia and many other nations have seen the wisdom of allowing immigration and integration. After all, Homo Sapiens proved the superiority of mixing the gene pool and generalization over Neanderthals' specialization millions of years ago.
But that's another topic entirely...
[This message has been edited by kokonutz (edited 08-02-2000).]