A Week's Reflection

Now that I've officially been out of Uncle Sam's reach for a week, I thought now would be a good time to lay down my initial impressions of New Zealand culture. These are likely all trivial and silly, but, in my opinion, food (mostly) for thought.

The good:

Meat pies- These may be one of the greatest culinary inventions existing today that are almost entirely absent from American eating. The moment I entered the grocery store in Auckland, I made a beeline to the cold food section and stocked up on Big Ben's Minced Meat and Cheese pies. Hardly a day has gone by since I've arrived that I haven't worked one into my daily eating regime. As the kiwis would say, "they're brilliant." And, what I can't quite figure out is why they haven't caught on to an American consumer. It's thick, chunky, unhealthy steak stuffed into a PIE filling that's easy to eat anywhere. Convenient. Tasty. Unhealthy. I just broke down three of the most important must-haves to your average American eater.

Heated Towel Racks- Little did you know, the guy who invented these won a noble peace prize. Also, there's a good chance that's entirely untrue - but he should have. Also, I have no idea if it was a guy - but it probably was. Regardless, heated towel racks strike me as being one of the most impressive inventions since those little lights you can attach anywhere for "hard to light places!" I envision that one day Billy Mays will be marketing this to an awe-struck American audience (But wait! Order in the next 12-and-a-half seconds and we'll throw in a free bottle of oxyclean! That's a $30 value, for free!). I'd take two. Really. I cannot explain the absolute bliss that comes along with stepping out of your shower and wrapping yourself up in a pre-warmed towel. Although I've been told some classy, 5-star hotels around the US do actually include these, it's a staple "appliance" in all New Zealand homes.

The bad:

Driving laws– It wasn’t even 24 hours of arriving that I decided against purchasing a vehicle for my 4-month stay. Unfortunately, my brain functions in this really annoying way that requires logic to be present before it can function properly. And, also unfortunately, there seems to be quite a bit of that missing in the New Zealand rules of the road. At several points in my adventure last weekend, my three friends debated on which car, in fact, had the right-of-way. If New Zealand natives of at least 20 years struggle to grasp the insanity, it's probably a safe assumption I certainly would as well. An example: If I was to come to a green light and wanted to turn left (in which case I'd be on the curb-side, since kiwis drive on the other side of the road), I would have to GIVE WAY to any cars coming head on that were turning right. That is, the cars CROSSING AN INTERSECTION have right-of-way before cars hugging the very curb they are attempting to turn on. Attempting to justify such nonsense will only result in the killing of valuable brain cells. So just stop.

Internet caps – Apparently in New Zealand there’s this epic marketing ploy that you can spend more of your hard earned kiwi notes (dollars) to “buy more Internet” for the month. Our household’s current plan allows for us to use 20 gigs a month. For your average Internet user, that could actually suffice. Needless to say, within four days of my arrival I’d (with the help of my flat mate Will) managed to bring our connection to a painful crawl, capping out at 20gigs barely halfway through the month. The frustration of spending 20 minutes attaching a 3MB .jpeg photo to an e-mail is up there with Friday-afternoon traffic jams. What I can’t quite seem to figure out is why an Internet cap exists in the first place. As I recently remarked to my flat mate, we’re not talking about a rare commodity or finite resource. It’s as if the online providers here want you to believe there’s going to be some sort of Internet crisis, maybe even the Americans will be invading soon to steal this poor country’s 1s and 0s (okay, that’s geek humor. So if you don’t get it, you’re not alone.)

The silly:

Terminology and pronunciations- I’ll gladly admit this is a very subjective topic, but as I’ve already pointed out before, I do find some of the kiwi terms and pronunciations to be comical at times. There seems to be this really interesting contrast of having names for things that make them sound very important, such as their pronunciation for aluminum (pronounced “Al-You-Min-E-Um” which, to me, sounds like a rare, kryptonite-esque mineral) and then also using these very childlike terms like “nibbles” (for snacks) or “lollies” (for candy). To be fair, it’s all actually very interesting to see what other things are called (and I’ll be sure to include a list in a later update) in comparison to our terms.

That concludes this update. I’ll continue to post messages a few times a week regarding what’s going on here or whatever odd little insights that I feel might be important enough to share. Of course, feel free to tell me when they’re not.

Take care,
John