The Little Things

The little things. Of course there are lots of everyday bits that we find odd and therefore entertaining. A personal favorite is the electrical box at one of our rental houses (pic), along with the old-fashioned front door keys it makes coming home our Victorian villa feel more like arriving at a museum. Driving on the left is not a little thing, but one easily forgets about walking on the left, occasionally creating an amusing pedestrial mishap. The newspaper is wider here, and I didn’t realize I had become accustomed to it until we received the Denver Post in the mail and it looked puny and “skinny as”. This is my favorite Kiwism: “______ as”, as in, “that car accident was scary as!” Or “that beer disappeared quick as”. No need for extra words, fill in the blank for yourself. Another oddity: here, people mean what they say: a verbal commitment to offer a job or buy a house is binding—no fussing about. Down under in eN-Zed, with 4 million people and 2 islands, there is no place to hide,so you had better mean what you say. Litigation is frowned upon and is limited--hallelujah. The banking system puts ours to shame—very easy and fast to pay using plastic, and just as easy to transfer funds to someone else’s bank account, or set up automatic rent payment. As a small and progressive country, it is relatively easy to introduce new technologies here.

The language is fun for us as it is different without being a major barrier, although the occasional bloke from the UK can be tough to understand. We are immediately obvious as either Canadian or American, but easy to understand probably because Hollywood (and that clown-suited Ronald McDonald, a.k.a. Ronald McVoldemort) is entrenched here as well. As Americans we are an easy target for humor, though most people refrain, understanding that we aren’t ambassadors of the current regime back home.