Where are you from?

When I'm out and about doing my work thing here in Perth, or I meet someone for the first time, often people ask me, "Where are you from"? Since I've been living in Perth for almost 11 years now, sometimes I tell them I'm from Mullaloo (my suburb) just to play with them a little bit. Then they look at me funny and say, "No....I mean where are you FROM"? People here don't usually try to guess whether you are from the US or Canada because apparently sometimes this is a touchy subject. Go figure. Anyway, when I say I'm American, they usually tell me really good stories about the time that they visited the US-usually LA or New York.
In my office, many of us are "transplants" here. Frankly, you wouldn't move to the most isolated capital city in the world unless you had a good reason.
My friends here are from all over the world and I find it fascinating. In a single day I can speak to people who were raised in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, India, China, South Africa, Singapore, Canada, and the Netherlands. You can imagine the variety of perspectives you can get on just about any topic! Even the way we describe things is different. Here, I use the lift and go to the loo. I have a coworker who tells me I'm "pure dead brilliant" and calls me "poppet". I put petrol in my car. I ring people on my mobile and I go to the newsagent to buy lotto tickets or a paper. We don't have much ketchup, but we do have a lot of tomato sauce.
For all the differences between us, all of us have something in common, no matter where in the world you came from....we are all getting older. People older than we are are getting older too! That's a gift! Really!!
Given than that I work in community aged care, it makes me think a lot about this ageing thing. What types of support and services will I want when I'm older? What will my parents want? How can I make a difference now to what is available for all of us later? Where in the world has really good supports and networks for older people? How can we make those work here?
I'm just curious....does this ever cross your mind? Do you know of some really fabulous models for ageing, anywhere in the world? Have you had a particularly good or bad experience with aged care for a relative? Drop me a comment and let me know what you think. I'm multilingual in American and Australian, so I'll be able to work out what you're saying. :)