AE 1419 - What Do Australians Do On Weekends

How do Aussie spend their weekends, Kel? What's your perfect weekend? What would your perfect weekend be?

Uh depends. Are we thinking kids like family stuff or my own individual weekend?

You can choose your own adventure.

My perfect weekend, if it wasn't like you know, kids, it would be um raining outside uh or just like cold and just at home or going for a walk. Um having hot chocolate and cheese and wine. That's it.

And there'd be no one else there.

No one else just by myself. Nice.

Nice. I don't know what I would do. I guess it'll be something it's probably similar. Enjoying myself, playing guitar, going for a walk. Yeah. Yeah. Having fun. I guess I I totally would spend time with the kids, but we do that every weekend, so we're thinking about ideal individual, like you don't have to worry about other things.

That'll be my goal.

Yeah, your goal.

Yeah.

G'day guys. Welcome to the Aussie English Podcast. Grab a cuppa, get comfy, and let's have a yarn. Alright, guys, welcome back to the podcast. This is the Aussie English Podcast. Today we are chatting about weekends. What do Australians do on weekends? Uh, what are our favourite kinds of weekends, terrible weekends, camping, lazy Sundays, all that sort of stuff? Kel's happy she's here. She's gonna get into it as well and share her views.

You and me, or Australians and Brazilians.

Uh, we could do both. What do you think about me and you? How are we different? What what would you think my ideal weekend is from your perspective?

I think you're less social. Like sometimes I'll have this like urge to see people, sit around people and just talk. You know, I want to go outside, I'm gonna go out and go out for dinner, that kind of stuff. You are much more like I can't be bothered. I just want to stay home. I don't want to see anyone kind of thing.

I feel like I'm being hung out to dry.

Well, it doesn't happen all the time with me. I do like to be by myself, but um I sometimes have this various like social urge to be around people when I want to talk and I want to go out. Like I like going out for dinner and dressing up and that kind of thing.

I know you you always criticize me. You're like, why aren't you gonna go out? Why aren't you dressing up? Wear nicer clothes, why aren't you doing that? And I'm like, I'm like, that's just not me, dude. That's just not me.

Like, you know, I'm always like either going to the gym or going to work, and then I get a chance to put on different clothes and go somewhere else. Uh yeah.

So you think you're much more of a planner when it comes to weekends or are you spontaneous?

No, I like to know what I'm doing. Yeah, I I want to know what's going on and what time we'll be out and what we'll be doing, and the bookings are done and all that. I don't like winging it.

See, that's that's so much more exhausting, I feel. Though I I guess you would probably feel the opposite. I feel like if you've planned everything out, it's like, oh my god, I just want to relax. I don't want to have any anything on the calendar. I don't want to be thinking about what I might be doing later today. I'll just spontaneously choose if something comes up, okay, we'll do this. I feel like doing this, I'll do that. I don't like planning it out.

I need to know what's coming. Like, I don't like being taken, oh, let's go. And like all of a sudden, then I'm like, oh, what am I gonna wear? Where are we going? Like, are we gonna have a table there? I haven't looked at the menu, I don't know what to eat. It's just I need to know. So I'm at ease with like what's coming. Yeah, I like I think for you, what I see is do you get overwhelmed with plans? It feels like everything's so urgent and happening at once.

It's a catch 22. I guess you're screwed if you do, you're screwed if you don't, Kel. You just have to pick one and go with it. Yeah. So, but it's funny, so you do you feel like your weekends are more productive, or do you feel like they're lazy weekends?

I choose sometimes, like a few weeks ago, I had to clean the house. Like I choose, okay, this weekend will be I'll tackle this and that, like I'll clean the clothes or I will do this with the kids.

Yeah.

Some other weekends I'm like, you know, these plates are gonna fall. I'm not doing that. So I just more much more of a let's stay home and see what happens kind of thing.

Yeah. Well yeah, but yeah, but at the same time, you like planning them and being and having all these things. I'm the one who likes the spontaneity. I like being at home and sort of I'm gonna get up whenever. I'm gonna go get a coffee whenever, I'm just gonna relax. And I think it's because my weeks are so structured around taking the kids to school, picking the kids up, teaching classes, making content, and I have a very structured week. So on the weekends, I'm like, you know what, screw that.

Well, yeah. But you also don't you feel like if you if I just come up with something, oh, we have to do this, it's much more stressful than knowing that you had that.

Yeah, but that's because you're planning it, not me.

Okay.

It's because it's not an active choice on my behalf, right? It's sort of like you've just decided, yes, this is what we're gonna do. And I mean, I don't at the end of the day, it's not that bad. But I I guess for me, I'm in my own head, and I'm like, I've got all these ideas of what I won't do and what I I I'm just gonna totally take it easy. So if you're suddenly like, actually we're gonna do this, I'd be like, ah damn it. Like Yeah.

I can understand, like that would frustrate me, not having any idea of like what's coming, and then all of a sudden we're thrown into this social situation, or like, you know, I have to hang out with people or do things.

Yeah.

Um, I like sort of having an idea what like, oh, this is what we're gonna do with the kids that's swimming in the morning, Saturday mornings, and then we come out we come back home and maybe it's a chill afternoon. And it's Sunday, I need an activity, I need something, you know. Maybe like let's just go out, get coffee, go to the park.

Yeah. I wonder what you guys think. You guys listening, are you guys planners or do you like having spontaneous weekends? Alright, let's move on to uh childhood weekends. So what did you enjoy when you were a child? What what were weekends like when you were a child growing up?

Um it wasn't very exciting to be honest. We didn't go out a lot. Um It was more a chance of staying home and hanging out with family and watching TV, um, playing with my sister.

Was it always the same thing? Was it different?

Always the same. I sometimes we would go into my father's house on weekends. That was a big thing. Like we would there was a period where we would like go on Saturday, come back on Sunday, so stay overnight. Um but then after that we didn't do that as much. So it was pretty quiet. We didn't have a lot of opportunities to go out and do things.

Did you ever watch like TV shows in the morning? Did you have like that same TV show that would always be on? Yeah. Because when I was growing up, we used to I think we it was called Rage TV and it was like the music channel. I guess it was like MTV in America where we would see all the latest hits and the music videos would be played for I don't know, an hour or two in the mornings.

No, I don't remember that, but I did watch a lot of MTV. Yep. Um being a house, like my house, we there were like a lot of us, and it was one TV, so it's very structured of like grown-ups have access to the schedule for the TV. They're things that are non-negotiables, like the news, everyone sits down to watch the news. We didn't have a say. Yeah. And then in the gaps, like throughout throughout the day, sometimes we get a chance to watch anything. Yeah, but it wasn't it wasn't very democratic.

It's the complete opposite of what our kids have now, where they just have free reign.

They literally own the TV. We don't watch anything.

We get told off if we want to watch something.

This is boring.

What about um sports? Did you have sports on weekends? Did you or did you have family barbecues? Any of those?

If I was with my dad, we would get together as a big thing and do a barbecue or go to the beach. Yeah. Um, not so much with my mum's side of family. Um it was much more just stay home. Yeah.

Remember just recovering from a busy week at work?

Kind of, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I th I remember going to yes, like sporting events. I w at at school, I always had, at least at high school, I always had sporting events I had to go to that I was competing in. Um, like playing tennis or soccer or doing fencing. Um, and then family barbecues.

See, I love that. Like, I just love the idea of having a break mentally from keeping the house tidy or like you know, handling the the kids, and like you've if you have other people around, all of a sudden like we're just sharing the moment. I love that. Like, not every time. Sometimes I'm like, I just want to be by myself, but um I love having people around.

Did you ever do sleepovers with other kids?

No, absolutely not.

As in, like, was that a Brazilian thing or was that a U or thing?

It was my family thing. We tried once with a friend we had from across the road, yeah, and the separation anxiety was such, like at 3 a.m. we started crying. Oh, you guys went across the road.

Okay, I understand.

My there was no way kids would come to my house for a sleepover. So we once were allowed to sleep across the road at this friend's house, and 3 a.m. we started crying, and they just sent us back. Just by yourselves. You can find your way home. Yeah. There you go. It's a bit too much.

We tried, not never again.

We were we very we yeah, we had very different charts. Uh bring-ins, I think.

Yeah, I definitely had loads of sleepovers. And in Australia, here we used to have these um stores. I guess Blockbusters won everywhere, but we had um Video Easy was the one in my hometown where you would go and you would rent DVDs. In fact, it would have been uh VHS videos originally in the 90s and early 2000s, and there were video games there as well, like PlayStation and Xbox games on CDs that you could borrow, and then it became DVDs later.

How do you feel about sleepovers? Like, obviously, our kids are too young. But there's a massive discussion with like it just became a very um polarizing kind of thing. Yeah, very um, what is the word I'm looking for? Um I don't know.

It was debated a lot or what do you mean?

It's just something that now it's very divisive, controversial. Yeah, because a lot of parents are like Absolutely not, absolutely not, and they're valid points for that, and other parents are like, well, they gotta learn, we gotta let them go a bit. So I don't know. It's sometimes I'm like leaning more against absolutely not unless it's family. Yeah. But even that it's like, well, where do you if it's gonna affect them socially? That's the hard part.

I guess you don't, yeah, yeah, you don't know you've screwed up your kids until you've screwed them up.

My thinking is when time comes, it's like, what about getting to know their friends the best you can? Yeah, oh 100%. Like you get to know the family, sort of like that will give you another.

When I was growing up, it was always like that. Like the parents would all know each other. It was very rare until I was an older teenager that I would be spending the night at someone's house that my parents didn't know that or at least have contact with somehow. But when I was a primary school student, it probably only started from like maybe grade four, five, six, maybe yeah, ten to twelve years old. Oh, really?

Yeah, and there's a lot of discussion about like, oh, what what if that is an older sibling or a a cousin? It's so yeah, I find it really tricky.

I think you just have to raise your kids to be informed decision makers, and then if you get to know the parents and you're comfortable with them sleeping over and you have that discussion ahead of time, it's probably fine.

We did play like I wouldn't say like, oh, play, because I think when you told me a few times you would just be outside and then come back home when the lights were oh after school.

After school, yeah, or on weekends, yeah. My parents would usually say, if if you go out, just make sure you're home when it gets dark and the lights, the street lights come on, because we didn't have phones or we were allowed to play, let's say, in front of the house with the friend from across the road and other kids.

I didn't do much of that. My sister was more social, um, definitely not allowed to wander around the neighborhood and unsupervised, go for walks. My family was very strict. Even when you were a teenager? Absolutely. Really? Literally going to school, come back home. Oh my god. I remember once I went, I didn't go home straight away after school. My mum went after me.

Really?

Yeah.

All right.

It's yeah.

It's super I remember there was this huge drama when I was a kid at the local primary school I went to when I I must have been grade one or two, and this girl didn't go home. She went to a friend's house and she just told the mother, Oh, my mum's fine with me going over. Oh my god. And she was probably six or seven.

Jesus, that's Noah's.

It's like Noah's age, our son, yeah, doing it, and the police were called, there was a big search and everything, and then they found this woman's house, and the woman thought that she'd had permission. Oh, that's all. Yeah, I know, but now it's funny, at the time we laughed, but now you're like, yeah, that'd be my worst nightmare as a parent.

Yeah, absolutely. I I find it like I I'm very conscious of like I was raised in a very strict environment, and I've tried to think I'll do the opposite. Yeah like I'll be be more, you know, relaxed, trusting, and like having all these conversate the right conversations and enabling them to make the right decisions, but who knows? Um it might just be one of those things that you get triggered, and I'm like, nope, calling the cops, where are you?

Jeez.

Alright, let's move on to Aussie weekends, then an Australian culture. How would you describe Australian weekends compared to Brazilian weekends? Do you feel like they're significantly different now that you live in Australia? Like for adults, I guess we're talking about modern sort of times.

No, I think very similar. We're both very um I think both both cultures love to be outside. Yeah. There's this massive beach culture as well. In Brazil or in Australia? Both. Yeah. So you know, if it's sunny, if it's hot, you know, Brazilians are outside on the beach. Same with Australians. I think probably the main difference would be Brazilians drink a little bit more. Really? Yeah. Because you're allowed to drink on the beach. There's a bit, there's a lot around drinking.

Isn't that what we do now? I don't know. Isn't that what I do with my dad? Every time we get together, we go to the farm, we go to the beach, we go on a holiday.

It's a bit quiet, I think.

If you have a few drinks, you don't chat, you know, you're not like Jesus, I'm not getting wasted.

No one's getting absolutely but that I'm talking. Yeah I haven't been to Brazil in 10 years. Yep. That what I'm talking about is what I saw growing up with my father and family. It would be a massive day of drinking and eating, and just, you know, often would end in like fights or people passed out in the back. Like I said, both cultures are very outdoorsy. Yeah. And, you know, people want to be outside and and doing things.

Um we're probably more like road trippy camping, going away on weekends than Brazilians, right? I think so. Because we do that a lot. You will see people with carriage. Camping is massive here. But is that culture a big thing in in Brazil or it's not at all?

Again, I don't think so. Yeah. It's been a couple years, but um, I don't think I didn't know anyone growing up that oh, we're going camping. Yeah. And to this day, I the friends I still have there, my sister, like there's not one of them saying, We're gonna go camping. It's like it's just not part of the culture, I guess. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe you know it's a new thing and people do enjoy doing that.

We also have like the Bunnings weekend thing, right? With the sausage sizzle, where you often we go to where a Bunnings is and there'll be like a Kmart there or a supermarket there. People go and do their weekend kind of shopping, and a lot of us who are doing garden-y type outdoorsy things in our houses will go to Bunnings and there's like a a tent there with a sausage sizzle on a barbecue. You can buy a sausage and bread, you can get a drink. There's that kind of thing.

I think it's hard for Brazilians to picture that.

Yeah.

Can't speak obviously for other cultures, but like we don't have this iconic place where most people go to on the weekend, yeah, and you get a sausage, like it's just not it's very Australian and yeah.

And what about coffee culture? We also have the culture or habit or routine of kind of going away, or not going away, going out and going to a cafe or to a restaurant. Like, yeah, often if we're free on the weekend and we're both at home, you'll be like, let's take the kids to a cafe or a restaurant or a bakery somewhere.

Um you enjoy those? I do. Again, it's like it breaks the day up a little bit, and there's something for the kids to do. Um I feel like we have this um bakeries in Brazil, like padarias, and then that's our go-to for coffee. Like you sit down, it's like at a corner somewhere, and there's like plastic tables and chairs, and you have a coffee kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. But I don't know, things have changed, so yeah.

So what is the worst weekend that you can remember? Have you been on any really bad weekend trips? Anything funny happened, anything embarrassing happened? See, I can start. Like, I remember one time we went away to a place called Wilson's Prom and my dad, we had our four-wheel drive, you know, this white Toyota Land Cruiser. Um, the camping gear was on the top, and when we got there, it was bucketing down, it was piercing down with rain.

Did you guys just return home? You just stayed?

It was a four-hour drive. Oh no. There was no turning back. And it was probably late at night when we arrived because it was dark as well. So we were in the campground and there was no sort of there was no going back. You'd burnt the boats, right? There was no returning. You had to deal with what was in front of you. So that was I remember that.

I think for me as a child, many times we had all this, like we had planned to be with my father, my sister and I, for the weekend. So he would pick us up, let's say, Friday evening or Saturday morning, and then we go to the beach, we were distracted, we had a lot of fun. And we start it started to get tricky when as we got older, maybe separation anxiety, you know. One of us didn't want to be there and the other the other one wanted to be there. So we would really struggle to sleep.

I'm not having fun anymore.

That's it. And then we would watch something scary during the day with the cousins and have nightmares and wake up and want to be in bed with him, and he's like, Oh my god, it's so sleep. Um that was probably that's probably what comes to mind, if I have to say a fail. Many times I was pushing my sis because I was too introverted. I was like, Can you please ask him to drop us back?

Well, she was younger, right?

She's younger, but she's like a year younger. Yeah, and she would be like, I don't want to do this, I want to stay. And I start crying, and she's like, Well, now I have to go. If you go, I go. No, it's staying without you. So yeah, a lot.

Alright, we'll move on to a deeper discussion here. Why do you reckon weekends feel so short? Or too short?

It's only two days. And if you think about it, a lot of people still work on weekends. I'm lucky that I'm lifting my hand up. Yes. Um there's so much you can't do on weekends in terms of life admin. Like I work full time. If I have anything to organize around a house or, you know, with the kids, it has to be done on the weekend.

Yeah.

It's just not enough time.

Yeah. You know.

So you just feel like you're I feel like I've I leave a five-day, you know, full-on non-stop work week. To be resolved in two days. And I also want to rest.

And I also want to And yet you're a weekend planner. See, this is why I like the spontaneous random non-planned weekends because the weeks are so busy that you just need to have a break and just chill out.

I can't relax. I can't sit down and wait for things to happen. I need to know what's going on, and I want to be in charge.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't I don't like that at all. I want to know.

Do you feel like your weekends have changed since you've obviously we've gotten married, had kids, like being in a relationship, the weekend is no longer 100% your own to do with as you please.

Like everything else. Yeah, absolutely.

It's a shared activity.

You get a glimpse every now and then of like, oh, I'm going out with the girls or I'm doing this, you know. But it's everything, it's so many things have to work around that to make it make it happen.

Is Pete free? Is he busy? What do the kids want to do? Are they too tired? Are they exhausted from swimming lessons? Are they going to see friends and they're gonna be too tired when they get home?

Oh, I decided to take them to swimming the other day an hour earlier because I thought oh, they'll have more time to play. Yeah, because their cousins go. They were exhausted, didn't do the lesson, and I'm like, what is going on? They were just cooked, and I'm like, okay, and there was a nightmare. So I find it very stressful.

Do you think smartphone addiction has had an impact on how weekends roll out, play through now, what we do on weekends? Do you feel like a lot of it is spent on the phone?

Yeah. I'm guilty of that. I wanna it's me time. I lie down when I want to be on my phone. Yeah. It's just to be able to turn off my brain, of like I'm not in charge of anything, I'm not planning anything, or serving someone or taking care of anyone. Yeah, this is just my time. Brainless, rotting, mindless activity. That's it.

That's cool.

That's relaxing.

What do you think your parents used to do instead of the doom scrolling on their phones with smartphone addiction? Surely they were still relaxing in a similarly kind of useless way, right? Reading a novel or watching a TV show.

My mom's a massive reader. So reading books, my dad's probably drinking, um, getting he loves being around family, so surely there was always that, at least on his side of family, like getting together with his siblings, um just going to the beach, going to clubs and things. Yeah.

Do you think people don't know how to relax anymore?

I don't. Um can only speak for myself. I don't I don't relax.

Sorry, I'm laughing because I could see the look on her face when she's I don't. I don't relax. No. Yes.

You're very hard, very hard.

Highly strung. Alright, let's finish up with some rapid fire questions then. Oh god. Beach or mountains? What is that? Sorry. Beach or mountains? Where would you rather go on a weekend? Why?

Cold.

Okay.

Hopefully.

Cold. Bloody cold. Camping or hotel.

Hotel a hundred percent. Like, that is not well, how dare you even ask that?

Saturday or Sunday?

Saturday. Saturday night. That's just so good.

Why?

It just gives you this feeling of I still have a day. Yeah. You know, I want to go out, I want to dress up, I wanna Yeah, I don't know.

Sleep in or early start?

I haven't had a sleep in in so long. I'd say early start.

Barbecue or brunch.

Oh, that's a hard one. Barbecue?

Yep. Quiet weekend or busy weekend? Quiet.

Quiet thing. Yeah, it depends on your mean. Like quiet, but also organized. Organized and having a little bit of social time and a little bit, yeah.

Road trip or stay cation?

What is stay cation?

Well, you stay at home as a vacation. It's a staycation. Stay at home case.

Can I stay in someone else's home? Like like I don't know.

Do you know them or is it just a neighborhood?

No, like an Airbnb kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah. I get well, I guess that's a road trip, right?

Road trip, yeah.

Okay. Summer weekends or winter weekends?

Winter. Always.

Night out or movie at home.

Night out.

There you go. Alright, alright. Let's recap a few vocab then. Sleep in. What's a sleep in? How would you describe that, Kel?

Um, you stay in bed for longer than usual.

Yeah. What about having a quiet one? If someone says I'm having a quiet one, what are they doing?

Not going out, it's just staying home.

Yeah.

I would assume that's what they mean.

If you're catching up with mates, what are you doing?

Seeing friends. Going out.

If you head down the coast, where are you going?

To the beach? Yeah.

Well, it could be. It may just be that you're on the you're on the coast and you're driving down it. If that makes sense. Going along it, going for a bit of a road trip, heading down the coast. What's a lazy AVO?

Do nothing the afternoon?

Yeah, yeah. Relaxed. Yeah. Yeah. Uh un unbusy? Is that even a word? No. What does flat out mean?

B uh busy.

Yeah, incredibly busy. What about if you've got a packed weekend?

You've got too many things on.

Yeah, so it's like jam-packed, chocolate block full of activities. What does recharge your batteries mean?

Um, uh, let me think. How to explain that? You do something that is like fulfilling or like, you know, if you like reading, you sit down and that's your relaxing time. Yeah. And then you feel, okay, now I can potentially like go out and socialise and do other things.

Your time to relax and recharge. Yeah. If you go away for the weekend, what are you doing?

You're traveling. Yep.

Somewhere else. Chilled out weekend? What's a chilled out one?

Just easy. Not a lot of things.

Relaxed. Yeah. You got it.

Right.

Anyway, guys, hopefully this episode made you feel a little bit more Australian by the end of it. But we want to know, what does a perfect weekend look like for you? Is it relaxing? Is it busy? Is there lots of family stuff going on? Are you hanging out with mates? Let us know in the comments. And next episode, we're probably gonna talk about some of the most embarrassing things we did at school, which honestly might have been a terrible idea.