I was listening to Travel with Rick Steves and fascinated by the tale of Helen Thayer, an Australian who travels all over in her sixties. She was talking about her latest trek thru the Gobi Desert when I noticed that she was using "miles" exclusively. Only later in the show did I find out that she had moved years ago to Washington State in the Cascades, which explains her reversion to Imperial.
The good news is that, not only are Australians just as intrepid as ever, it is now quite a surprise to the ear to hear someone with that tell-tale Aussie accent (for an American ear, at any rate ;-) using anything other than metric in their speech. Now it's America's turn to catch up with Australia! Ezra
