Kiwi Love

Having been thoroughly disappointed to find out that there is no Zealand (it is almost as sad as when I discovered baby carrots are not really baby carrots but rather regular old carrots cut into bit size peices), I was determined to find fun attributes to redeem this country of 4 million people and 8 million possums [Ali - I ran over a possum and not a bunny goddammit!!].

1. I love that everything is a city to these people. It's a classic paradigm really. So long as a road sign exists claiming municipal jurisdiction, then you are a city even if your population consists of 1 kiwi (person), 10 kiwi (bird), 25 domesticated deer, 5o cows, 100 sheep and 125 roadkill. We went to Mt. Cook Villlage and assumed we'd find at least a Main St. equivalent but Mt. Cook Village consists of a visitor center and a hotel that frightening resembles the one in The Shining.

2a. They measure everything in kilometers except creeks. For some reason creeks are given names in miles. We drove by Four Mile Creek, Twenty Four Mile Creek, Six Mile Creek, etc. [Matt - And beaches! Aren't we going to 90-mile beach?] While this has nothing to do with New Zealand, I was thrilled to learn that I weigh less in kilograms than in pounds! We had to put our weight down for sky diving (for all the figure conscious girls out there, this really isn't the time to underestimate), and Ali told me the conversion is 2.2x. I assumed it's my weight in lbs multiplied by 2.2 and so I wrote down... let's just say I wrote down a high number. The sky diving woman came running into the room (btw fatties, there's a weigh limit of 220 lbs for sky diving) with a panicked look on her face and asked for "Connie". Let's just say she looked extremely relieved to see me.

2b. So long as H20 exists in it, the Kiwi's name it. There's even a name for every culvert [Ali - I know! I know! That's a man-made, under road, water diversion], which in the US is just a fancy name for overspill. I know the Kiwi's are fortunate to have the English language and the Maori language at their disposal for naming things but seriously, where do they find the time?

3. The Kiwi's are fabulously expressive and cheeky in their public service signs. The best ones I've seen so far are regarding sleeping at the wheel (something I'm sure they're prone to since you can literally drive 100 miles and see nothing but roadkill). When entering the town of Milton there's one that reads "Don't sleep at the wheel" followed by a very official Milton city sign that says "Milton - No hospitals, no doctors, one cemetary". Take that you non-caffeine drinking a-holes!

4. I've honestly never seen a country more uniquely beautiful and unharmed by tourism than New Zealand. Mt. Cook makes all the surrounding mountains look lazy and Lake Pukaki twilight seems like the place where everyone buries their most intimate secrets.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Adieu,

Connie