The NZ List

I enjoyed making my list for Australia a few months ago, so I thought I'd compile another one from my experiences here in New Zealand. Enjoy.

1) At first I thought their accents would be just slightly off from Australian accents. I was right. The difference? A slight infusion of what sounds like a Boston accent. That and they say "eh" like Canadians. It's all quite infuriating.

2) NZ people are called Kiwis, the Kiwi is the national animal. But it's nocturnal and admittedly impossible to see in the wild. And it's only in very dark nocturnal spaces in certain wildlife parks. For being such an important image of the country it's shockingly hard to see. I've seen one, and that was considered lucky.

3) in America we have chips and French fries. In England fries are called chips and chips are called crisps; same deal for Australia. In New Zealand both are chips, you just have hot chips and cold chips. I find this irritating and unnecessarily confusing.

4) Many people know the stat the ratio of sheep to people here is 10:1. But that ratio is getting smaller because the wool industry over here is going down the tube. More lamb chops for everyone!

5) On the subject of animals, one non-native species here is the possum, and it has no natural predators so they just multiply. There are 80 million here. Not thousand, million!

6) If you use google maps to go from one main city to another it doesn't say "stay on highway one for two hours" because everything is so small the main roads go through each town. So your directions have an additional 649165 steps to stay on this road or that one. Old school maps rule the day here.

7) You could probably write a thesis on this subject, but the relationship with the native people in NZ is 100% different than the situation in Australia. Think of Australia's situation as how we handled the American Indians, and with the native Maori people and European settlers the cultures are now harmoniously intertwined, respectful of each other, and there is crossover in many ways during everyday life.

8) NZ cops don't carry fire arms. At all. Nothing. That's nuts, it's insane. Two cops have died in the past two years, and seven others were shot and wounded. Dear NZ, wake up!

9) In NZ they rank schools on a scale of 1-10 based on family incomes, with 1 being the poorest schools. The lower the ranking the more government funding they get. Interesting approach; of course the rich parents just complain their kids are getting shorted.

10) This country is obsessed with rugby, but it is also very into net ball. It's like basketball except there are no backboards and no dribbling. If you have the ball you can only take one step--and the same if you're the defender of the player with the ball. Otherwise you can move freely; but if your opponent is open and it's your person it's basically a free shot at the basket. My nomination for most worthless sport.

11) They don't yield to pedestrians here. At all. It's not a law or anything. So I've stood at an intersection for five whole minutes just waiting.

12) There are never street address up. You may see one address for every ten buildings. Trying to find a particular place while driving is especially vexing.

13) They call water polo underwater hockey.