Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I have always figured that a measure of how well-integrated you are in whatever locale you call “home” was how often you ran into people you knew under unexpected circumstances – the supermarket, the bus, your jail cell, the local Starbucks or the other local Starbucks, etc. Well, it has already started for me – I was walking home this evening from work and, lo and behold, in front of Christchurch Casino (yes, there is only one here – we don’t have any Indian reservations!) I ran into an older couple I have met several times at the synagogue. Assimilation has begun!
So, I guess it is high time I put down some observations I have had over the last two weeks on average Kiwi life, if you can ever call anything around me “average”…

• Dogs don’t seem to be such a big deal here. Maybe it is a function of where I have been (downtown, mostly), but I have seen very few dogs, being walked around, or playing in the park or at the beach or going for jogs, or drinking at the bar (good lord, I miss the White Horse!). There have been a handful of gorgeous goldens about, but not too many other big dogs either. When you figure there are parts of Belltown (and Denver, no doubt!) with more dogs than kids, this is a pretty big change.
• Cost-wise, just about everything is more expensive here. Everyone says that this is because retailers have to ship everything across the big globe to get it down here, but I don’t buy it. It’s a bad excuse, especially when concerning food – either the food is more expensive because it is shipped in from abroad (a lot of manufactured food) or it is more expensive because New Zealand exports all of it abroad (like lamb and cheese, for example). On the flip side, everything financial is simpler here – sales tax might be a stunning 12.5% but it is wrapped up into all prices – the price you see is the price you pay. Everyone pays with EFTPOS, which is essentially just like using your debit card, as much as or more so than cash. And it’s not like the imaginary world of Visa commercials – you actually run into stores that are cash and EFTPOS only – every store has a card reader and a keyboard for your PIN. Car insurance is a simple add-on when you buy your car (no complicated processes to go through!) and you don’t have to bother figuring out a tip when dining out! So nice, it almost makes paying $15 for a Jaeger bomb worthwhile.
• When getting food, at least at fast-food places, I have found the portions to be more expensive (see last point) and smaller too. There is a burrito place next to my building that could be compared to Chipotle or Qdoba, at least in the sense that they are all businesses that give out “food” in exchange for currency. I will go on a rant about the state of Mexican “food” at another time. The burritos are made in the same open assembly manner, with your choice of meat, beans, salsa, toppings, etc. But the burrito comes out maybe 2/3rds the size of a Chipotle burrito, and the accompanying Coke is 325ml. This does seem healthier (although there are definite problems with obesity down here too) and I guess I will get used to it, but I miss that satisfying so-full-I-am-almost-sick feeling I get when I finish a burrito as big as my head.
• New Zealand promotes itself as this über-environmental country, but that is only half-true. Everyone bikes into work here – the city is nice and flat and it is municipal policy that all new roads and intersections must have bike lanes, so riding around is pretty easy. In fact, one of my coworkers was recently promoted to Associate at work, which meant he could get a company car or the equivalent raise. He said the company sometimes has to force cars on people because no one was taking them – everyone bikes instead. It is also really nice to see how cognizant everyone is of carbon-dioxide emissions here – a lot of major companies advertise their carbon-neutral states and it is a stated company policy at work to minimize our carbon footprint – can you imagine my old employer doing that? Only if it impacted the bottom line!
• We watched a movie at work last week called “Snail” – it was 20 minutes of in-depth recap on a coal strip mine on the west side of the country; they were planning an expansion and discovered some rare snails in their way. Under the terms of the mine permit, they had to save this rare snail and actually try to encourage its recovery, so there is this 10-year-plus effort, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, to go through by hand every inch of the mine expansion, collect all snails and their eggs, and relocate them to a preserve with predator control. I wonder what predators snails have? I think the more important question would be: what is not a threat to snails? And I am not limiting that question to animate objects either. Anyway, back to the snails: not only did they relocate all of the snails, they also built a huge, state-of-the-art snail research and reproductive facility with huge refrigeration units and special worm cultivation (these are carnivorous snails; did I mention that?) to attempt to get the snails on the road to species recovery. Somehow, I have trouble seeing Big Oil doing that back in the States.
• On the flip side, I am told they just started recycling in a large scale maybe 5 or 10 years ago. What?!?! I remember recycling in the wilds of New Mexico when I was in middle or high school! And as winter approaches, I am told to expect a cloud of smog to periodically envelope the Canterbury plains from all the wood- and coal-burning heat sources in the city and the surrounding suburbs. More a scene you’d expect to find in a third-world country, or Albuquerque at least. Well, at the very least, New Zealand is well on its way to cleaning up.
• I have been told repeatedly that, as an American with my sexy foreign accent (funny, I thought everyone here had the weird accent), I get some kind of huge advantage with the ladies. Well, gents, I hate to disappoint you, but I have yet to use any of these alleged “dating super-powers” (a Kiwi descriptor, not mine), so I cannot validate this. In fact, I have not yet met any Americans dating Kiwis (or Americans who weren’t tourists or students), so I really have no thoughts on this yet.
• New Zealand has high taxes and universal health care, so it seems like quite the socialist state; you know, a nanny government. Well, this manifests itself in many odd ways. On TV, it seems that a good 10-20% of the commercials are warning against bad behaviour - smoking, not recycling, and the most popular of all - bad driving. Kiwis are not the greatest of drivers, but I imagine they cannot hold a candle to the stellar Miami motorists or the dog-eat-dog world of driving in Midtown Manhattan. But if you watch just 15 minutes of TV here, you'd think there was mass carnage on the roads daily.
• Kiwis seem to have some unnatural infatuation with Jack Johnson, although since I like his music, I cannot object.

Well, that is all I have for now. Sorry, I haven’t made it on to the front page of the local paper, The Press, but I will be sure to let you, my no-doubt adoring fans, know when that happens.