Oz Observation #5 - The Restaurant Bathroom

I know I mentioned this in a previous post but thought it deserved a post of its own. So here we go:

1. In many restaurants in Australia you have to go through the kitchen to get to the bathroom.
2. Sometimes that bathroom is indoors - just on the other side of the kitchen. Sometimes it is outdoors -through the kitchen, down the steps, around the corner, past the dumpster, to the left along the short alley (or something like that).
3. When I say you have to go through the kitchen, I mean you have to go through the kitchen. You could actually have a stickybeak in a few of the pots on the stove, perhaps steal a spring roll or chat with the cook about how he gets the sauce just right.
4. Of course I would never do any of the things in point #3 because even though this is the way things are done it still feels wrong. I always ask a waitress permission to go to the toilet (even though no one else seems to and it makes me feel like I am in grade 4 again) and I feel really guilty walking through the kitchen (head down, try not to me seen).
   

Oz Vocabu-slang #2

Stickybeak

1. (noun) a busy body.
2. (verb) to pry or to snoop.

This is one of my favourite pieces of Aussie slang. I don't know why. Perhaps it is the funny image of a person with a long beak that pops into my head when I hear it. Maybe it is the way it pops off the tongue (Say it, you'll see).