Wierd NZ

Hey, so I know I really suck and told you all to come and keep up with my New Zealand goings-on here and have failed to update but will rectify that with some short updates of all fun events in two weeks after spring break with even more to tell! But for now I will leave you with some fun tidbits to mull over about differences I have found here in New Zealand:

1. So the dairy (milk, CHEESE) here is amazing. It is creamier and tastes better than in the US. They have different percentages of fat in the milk: 99.9%, 99.5%, 98%, 95% fat free so I go for the 99.9% which is excellente. The cheese, well there is really only one type of cheese here that comes in always four forms (or I guess 'types'): Tasty, Edam, Colby, and Mild. They all are just variations of Tasty cheese, which is like a white cheddar-ish. The tasty is the sharpest, then Edam is tasty with only 60% of the fat but tastes more like monterey jack because of it somehow and colby is supposedly designed to melt well but tastes a lot like edam and I havent had the mild yet because it has the most boring name of course! Anyway, All of them are amazing - I eat WAY to much cheese here. (But less meat as I will get to) They do have things like Feta but that is not a standard like we have and is not in the main cheese section, you get the gist. The milk is also creamier and has an excellent taste to it and is fresher. Makes sense with thousands of cows less than 30 min away from my grocery store. But for some reason their ice cream here sucks. Their best ice cream is much like our crappiest. This makes me sad, with such good dairy they dont make good ice cream. But the Magnum ice cream bars sold separately (especially peppermint) is wonderful and tastes much like home with nice and creaminess to it. I find the name amusing as well.

2. I am turning vegetarian here. Not because I dont like the meat but because I am so used to chicken and here chicken is the luxury and costs so much! Fish and beef are much cheaper and so is lamb, but passing the cute little lambs every weekend on the roads definitely keeps me from eating the cute little things. Plus, it is just so easy to be veggie here because the cheese and produce is great. And I learned how to make rice and use spinach in like every meal. It is quite fun. I eat the fish at least once a week. Salmon is cheaper than chicken!!!! MMM and very yummy

3. They are very straightforward, obvious and direct in how they talk about things and name them especially. I cant think of all the things right now so I will add them later, but nifty names are not the Kiwi's forte. Oh, I know, like "Tasty Cheese". No names, it is cheese, and it is tasty. :)

4. I am enjoying the whole walking on the left side of the road and driving on the left side and being on the right side of the car. I dont know, it was very easy to change over and seems right somehow. It will be interesting to come back home and drive like the rest of non-UK world.

5. At first, New Zealand seems very environmentally friendly with their half-flush and full-flush toilet button choices and all the green everywhere and the shuttles they have everywhere and how so much is solar-powered, but then you live in an apartment in cold weather with no insulation and are like, ummm, this is super energy efficient! NOT, so New Zealand is on the forefront of regular use of many sustainable sources but then they seem behind in some things we consider normal in the US like central air/heat and not having to use space-heaters or HOT WATER BOTTLES. Even though I have grown fond of them...so much warmth for so long in such a little rubber package :) (Perfect for the feet at night)

6. Back to food. So New Zealand is the third fattest country in the world behind the US and Australia. Or somewhere around there because I think the rankings changed recently for this year. This is surprising when you see so many thin, stick white kids around. But then all the sudden you see chubbier people and are like, ok, ok, now why? Well, they enjoy pork here and this I have seen mostly from things like pork-flavored chips and other very wierd things that are pork-flavored. They love candy and you get a chocolate fish with every coffee you buy everywhere. Chocolate fish are marshmellow inside a chocolate coating, fish-shaped. Also, they love this marshmellow stuff and they dont sell only white marshmellows. You have to buy the pink and white. Always pink and white. I asked Tim, Ellen's kiwi-host and he didnt understand why that was wierd at all. Aren't yours pink? Umm, no. whatever, pink is cool, so those are a few of the food things. Oh! And normal chocolate bars are at least three times as big as a normal hershey's bar. They are probably about the size of 8 hershey bars and Cadbury is their main chocolate and candy producer, followed by Whittaker's. Both VERY yummy.

7. Some more british things: They use always "s"s instead of "z"s and i miss the z's !!!!!!! stupid, but i miss them. So much character when a word has a z. Dinner is called "tea" which is especially confusing when you just want some tea (the drink). Speaking of tea, I am becoming a big fan - still love hot chocoloate more (Cadbury and the energy drink hot choc here, called "Milo")- but the tea here, called "Bell" I am definitely taking some home with me!

8. Back to being fat. Everyone that came in my program came for the outdoors one way or another and most all pretty fit. So we all expect New Zealanders to have been all over their country on all the tramps as they call "hikes" here, etc. but many have not seen all of nz or as much as I have/will when i am here and most dont seem to be outdoorsy. One kiwi was telling me how it annoyed him a little that all internationals come here for is "hiking!" hahaa. But every kiwi seems to enjoy at least a day tramp. (instead of a night one, heehee).

9. So New Zealand is known, especially by Australia, to be kind of behind. Which by the state of their heating and lack of insulation in most buildings I understand. But the University seems very up to date and in classes that are not designed to be international we talk about world issues and other countries quite a lot. Sometimes I think that because NZ is so small, they are more aware of the rest of the world because so much of it affects them compared to in the US we learn little about the world because we are the ones affecting everything else. I quite like the global view instead of the US with a little global view.

10. Oh! And last thing for now is that food here that sounds gross and wierd, which they have a surprising a lot of, reminds me of Japan (speaking of, there is a lot of asain influences here, esp in Maori language, ok anyway) is that this wierd food is always almost really good. earlier today I had an amazing Pineapple Cheese Scone. Oh, good thing about the British: Scones and Crumpets, their best gifts to the world!

Love you all! Will update with more soon! Thanks!
Sara