I’m American and lived in Australia from 2005-2010. 
Loved it there so much, I miss it sometimes!
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Yep, coming from outside the US, the idea that tea is served cold is odd, at least until you experience the heat and humidity. Then it makes perfect sense. The sweetness, however, can be extreme, even for natives. I order my tea half ‘n’ half, i.e., half sweet, half unsweetened, or better yet, half unsweet tea, half lemonade. That is heaven.
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Not mistakes. Your English is excellent. It has to do with the way native speakers of more inflected languages parse English sentence structure. My first wife was German. A friend and occasional writing partner is Czech. You pick up on the idiosyncrasies.
BTW, southerners, as you will soon learn, are effusive and sometimes overly friendly and familiar, from a European perspective. I have heard from a couple of European friends that it can be weird and a little off putting at first. Conversely, we find European reserve and bluntness to be somewhat rude. The Dutch are their own category 
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I only drink unsweetened. When I am in Raliegh, I drink water, they seem to leave that alone.
And proud of it! 
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I know. Friend of mine. Woman of color from San Diego thought that everyone here is racist because we really don’t smile in public at all and services here are the other way around. (You as a customer should respect me as an owner of a store.) She thought that everyone is rude to her because of her race. After a few nights out she understood that … the blank stare without a bit of emotion is our public persona no matter who we interact with. … one of many “perks” of a society that is still really heavily entrenched in mentality of 40 years of Socialism.
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