Adjusting has been a little interesting:
First: the cold. I do love the cold, but coming from a summer of 90 degrees, to a winter of mid 40s was a bit rough. But I do love it, it makes me love of drinking tea excellent. (I came to the right country for drinking tea--they drink it all the time--they have designated "tea times", which is phenomenal).
Second: the accent/words. I usually pride myself on understanding accents and such, and where as I can understand most of the words here, they speak very quickly, and so I feel like I'm constantly asking them to repeat what they said..(sorry family!). Since this is only my third day here, I'm not too worried about it, with time, it'll be easier! When I told people I was going to New Zealand, everyone said "oh good, you chose an English speaking country". Well, yes and no. They are English words, but a completely different vocabulary. They have different words for mostly everything (i.e. sandals=jandals, swimsuit=togs...) Bizarro. Also, one thing I have come to realize, Kiwis (A New Zealander), love saving time when they speak, so they shorten lots of things (also instead of saying lots, they say "heaps"). First off, New Zealand is called En Zed, breakfast becomes brekkie, and so on. Also, in saving time, when describing something as very cool, they say "cool as". It ends there: cool as. Not cool as whatever is cool. So that's weird as. Also, Maori (said kind of like "moldy"). Sort of the native language, not many people speak it, I don't think--if they do, it's not like an everyday sort of thing. A lot of road signs and things are in Maori though, so hmm. Allysia did give me a book on "instant Maori" so who knows, maybe I'll become fluent.
It's actually kind of sarcastic and hilarious.
Third: the roads. Yes, they drive on the wrong side of the road. Well, the left side of the road, and the right side of the car. Let me tell you, roundabouts are scary as. I hope I get the hang of it...Also, the pedestrian walks actually mean something here--cars actually slow down/stop and let you walk, you don't have to rush to the other side which is a new feeling.
So today I went for a walk to go explore downtown a bit (I get a car next week, I think). I started out going the right way, and then used my GPS and thought it told me to go the opposite way, so I walked that way for about 10-15 minutes and then realized that I was going the wrong way. Super. So then I turned back around, and passed the same people who saw me turn around the other times...just a stupid American, no worries. But I did pass some cool scenes on the way once I was headed in the right direction.
On the way, I stopped and snapped a few scenic pics:
Stopped at a little cafe called Rouge and enjoyed some Moroccan Mint tea (that's my cool NZ money on the left). They give you a tea cup and then your own little tea pot--I got about 3.5 cups out of it. It was delicious.
This is basically Wally World. So that's cool.
On the way back, which was a lot quicker since I didn't get lost, I snapped some more pics:
See you soon! "Ka kite a tona wa!"
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