knowitallgirl

Final NZ Thoughts

We're back, after four plane flights and some serious jet lag. I still have a chronic sense of disassociation, perhaps a refusal to believe that I'm really back, which will likely be cured by my first day of classes tomorrow.

But now that I'm sitting on my own comfortable couch instead of at an Internet cafe with an impatient Deneb waiting for me, I wanted to put to words some of my random observations and experiences before I forget them. First, Kiwis are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. We experienced incredible friendliness and hospitality from almost everyone we met, and I'll forgive the customs workers at the Auckland airport for not being entirely chipper.

I loved the roads in NZ - easy, when there's fewer people in the entire country than in the Bay Area - but especially the fun signs ("Merge like a zip!"), the rotaries (or traffic circles, or whatever they're called), the lack of billboards with the exception of some hokey public service announcements. There was virtually zero trash on the side of any road we traveled on, and nary a pothole anywhere. Even the shingle (gravel) roads were great.

Thanks to tea customs inherited from the Brits, I am now addicted to tea, and came to appreciate the complex tea service that would arrive at your table (teapot, extra hot water, sugar, milk, teacup, saucer, spoon). However, little did I expect that Kiwis generally had no idea what iced tea was, and gave me very strange looks when I'd order tea and ask for a glass filled with ice. I must say, Earl Grey on ice is pretty splendid.

In one month we only had one bad food experience, at an evil cafe in Wanganui where I was scalded by a tea pot and was served a salad (veggie) sandwich of the likes I'd never seen before, with something that appeared to be butter, Vegemite, celery, and several of my other least-favorite vegetables. Otherwise, we ate very well, learning to adjust to the slow, unconcerned NZ restaurant service (where no one ever appears to be in a hurry, a nice change).

Though I loved the fun dual toilet flushers, single faucets with both hot and cold water were a rarity in NZ, as were showers with effective doors - anyplace that was fairly new had these "concept showers" with minimal panes of glass that encouraged water to spray all over the floor. In one month I only saw one bathtub in NZ - apparently, tourists don't take baths. And many places had wee little mini-sinks installed, very cute.

Though many Kiwis claimed NZ was a complete backwater twenty years ago, it was wonderfully modern and very European in flavor. It was great to be in a place where people could afford to have modest homes on the beach and obscene wealth was not omnipresent in every beautiful place we visited. Queenstown and Wanaka were the only places where we saw homes that could be modestly described as upper-middle class. Cars were typically small and SUVs and trucks almost non-existent (the only thing I saw resembling an SUV were a few Toyota Land Cruisers). If people needed more space, they pulled trailers (the same for tourist transport as well - most places used vans and pulled small trailers for luggage). There were very few luxury vehicles anywhere - I saw maybe ten Benzes and BMWs during the entire month. It was great.

Anyway, I can't wait to go back and hike some of the tracks we couldn't make this time, though next trip I'll wait until February or March when the rain is less ever-present, and bring some real rain gear (my boots were sloshing at the end of one torrential day on the Routeburn Track). New Zealand is a stunningly beautiful, refreshingly uncrowded and undeveloped country. I hope the Americans don't take hold of it and start building golf courses and five star resorts.

Coming Home

Sad, but true. We just finished up our second to last day with an absolutely beautiful hike, and tomorrow afternoon we fly out of Queenstown to Auckland, then early the next morning out to Sydney, then LA, then home! Conveniently, we get home (on the calendar) before we even left Auckland, thanks to the international date line. Anyway, more photos will be posted after we get home, and right now I need to run and grab dinner (plus, Deneb gets BORED when I check email), so look for more details later! Aloha!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!, originally uploaded by kingjen.

From wet New Zealand!

One more week!

Alas, the countdown has begun, and the end of our vacation is drawing near. We've been combating both rain and colds as we made our way down the South Island to Queenstown, where we just arrived today. We're only in town for a night, and then we're off again on a 3 day hike along the Routeburn Track (with more rain predicted! Ai!). Sadly, the rain made us alter our plans - we had to call off a backpacking trip and settle for some day hikes in the rain - but it gave us more time to explore the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, which was cool by me. Glaciers are cool. Good to see them before they all melt, thank you global warming. Anyway. Check out the photos, I'll let them do the talking.