Amazingness of Australians

Just to show how genuinely nice the people are here, I have an example from the other night. My friend Cheyenne, a few others, and I went out to a bar. When we were ready to head back to our friend’s apartment (in a big, all-student complex), we caught a cab. We got dropped back off in front of the building and the cab driver said it was “good enough” when we were trying to figure out the last dollar or two among the four of us. Tipping here isn’t as common as in the U.S. where it’s pretty much always expected, but the fact that he accepted a little short of what we owed, shocked me.

We then went inside and were just hanging out in our friend’s room, talking, listening to music, whatever. My phone starts ringing, and it’s an incoming call from Cheyenne’s phone, who was sitting right next to me. After we realized it wasn’t just her butt dialing me, I answer to a very friendly voice saying he was officer so-and-so from the Melbourne Police Department. He told us that he was in possession of Cheyenne’s phone at the department, and asked if I knew the owner, as I was one of her most recent calls. I told him I was with her and that we would head down. He continuously thanked me for answering, being cooperative, and agreeing to come pick it up, as if I was doing some favor for him. So we headed just down a few blocks, luckily, to the station where we were greeted by this overly-upbeat cop. He told us that Cheyenne must have mistakenly left her phone in the taxi, and that the cab driver came and turned it in. From different experiences and stories with cab drivers from America, the driver most likely would have, not only would the driver have tried to rip us off and give the wrong change to get an extra buck, but if a phone had been left, he probably would have pocketed it or sold it on ebay within hours.

The policeman told us that the driver discovered the phone on his drive home, drove back to the apartment complex, trying to find its owner, making recent outgoing calls and asking the security guards if they happened to know anything about it, then drove it down and turned it into the police station after that attempt failed. Cheyenne and I, both from America, were shocked at the kindness and effort that the driver put in. we have no way to find him or thank him, but I hope that guy has some good karma coming for him.