Exchange an eye-opener

By Lachlan Ellis

A young Italian man on exchange in Australia has thanked the Lions Club for making his visit possible, and shared his thoughts on the country.

Twenty-year-old Simone Cascio Palmieri from Perugia was sponsored to visit Australia through the Lions Club Gualdo Tadino, and has been staying with Bacchus Marsh Lions Club members Gerry and Anne Monaghan since he arrived on 30 December.

Mr Palmieri said Australia was the last continent he hadn’t visited, so he was grateful to have the opportunity to come here.

“I like to travel, and this was my last continent. You have a lot of cultures here, in one place here I could experience many different cultures. You can experience nature, I also got to pat a kangaroo and see a koala. These are animals we don’t have back home, so this was the only opportunity for me to see them,” he told the Moorabool News.

“We’ve been to the Ballarat Wildlife Park, in Bendigo inside the mine, to Melbourne and Eureka Tower, we’ve also had a tour here in Bacchus Marsh. We went to the Grampians Park and the Brighton Bathing Boxes, and the Queen Victoria Market and South Melbourne Market. My favourite thing has been seeing the Great Ocean Road, with the beautiful landscape.”

While one of the more obvious differences between Italy and Australia is driving on opposite sides of the road, Mr Palmieri noted some of the differences he’s appreciated in the people and services here in Australia.

“I think that a lot of Australians are nicer, walking you can meet a lot of people that just say ‘hi, how was your day’. Usually something like this doesn’t happen in Italy. You also have a lot of free art, free museums and stuff. Also the public transportation is very good here,” he said.

“There’s a lot of different cultures of food…in Italy we have our food, and then the food coming from the nearest countries.”

The sheer size of the country is another difference, and surprise, for Mr Palmieri – and he hopes to one day return and see parts of the country he didn’t visit this time around.

“I could not have thought that all of Europe could be put in Australia in terms of area. Another thing I found interesting was the look of your towns – I come from a city that’s very historical, all the houses are built not out of brick, but rocks. But the towns here look more like they’re from Western movies,” he said.

“I need to come back, I have been in Melbourne and will visit Adelaide and Kangaroo Island, but that’s just a little piece of Australia. I need to come back and see the northern part, and also one day I’d like to see Uluru.”

Mr Palmieri will head home on 18 January – no doubt with many photos and memories of his time across the world in Australia.

Bacchus Marsh Lions Club has been hosting young people under the Lions Youth Exchange Program since the 1980s, with Mr and Mrs Monaghan having hosted nine young people, including Simone, under the program for 10 days or more, and a further five for 1-2 days to facilitate logistics.

For more information, visit the Lions Club Australia website, or email [email protected] for any enquiries.