People drink a lot of coffee here but I hardly every see anyone hurrying around carrying a paper Starbucks-esque cup. Seattleites, you know how at Green Lake on a Sunday afternoon there are all these women walking around the lake with their kids in strollers, and everyone has a Starbucks cup? And how a Starbucks-or-similar cup is just sort of an accessory for some people? Not here. I didn’t realize how different that was until I went to get a chai latte before work yesterday (“trim,” meaning non-fat, and “for takeaway,” meaning to go) and noticed a couple of other people walking in with their cups too.
No central heating in any house, anywhere, so I’ve been really damn cold a lot. Everyone has space heaters in their rooms instead. Also, refrigerators are about half the size of American refrigerators. If you ever came to visit me in my old apartment in Lake City, which of course you didn’t because I never had anyone over, remember the size of the fridge there? That’s what five housemates in a flat will share.
Ooh, speaking of refrigerators, guess what the Kiwis don’t put in them? EGGS. They don’t refrigerate their eggs. Various people who know have told me that we’re not all going to die from salmonella as a result…I touched on this subject in email pretty much my second day in New Zealand. The first time I went into a grocery store I walked by just, like, a shelf of eggs, right next to the soymilk, and actually did a double take because I couldn’t believe that they were just right there, emphatically not in the refrigerated section. Orange juice, also, is not in the refrigerated section, as I learned the hard way when I was sick and wandering forlornly around the aisles New World looking for a vitamin C delivery system and wondering if it was possible that an entire grocery store could just…not have orange juice.
The light switches are backwards from American ones, so you flip the lights on by pushing down instead of up. Also, all the outlets (or “powerpoints”) have little switches on them that you have to toggle to actually let the electricity flow, as I also learned the hard way when I was really confused about why my iPod hadn’t charged up overnight.
At the library you are charged not only to put a book on your library hold list but also to return a book at a different branch if you just happen to be in a different neighborhood with your almost-overdue library book.
People say “cheers!” for “thanks!” The Brits at the Maple Lodge say it sort of like “chairs” and the Kiwis say it more like “cheeeeers.” I don’t say it at all because I feel ridiculous doing so…what exactly are we toasting, over here?.. just like I don’t say “sorry” instead of “excuse me” when I need to get by someone. I’m not sorry, you know? I just want to get over to the shelf right there to get a thing of eggs. I don’t feel I should have to apologize for that. Oh, also, like, if you’re at the store buying some socks or something, people won’t usually say “have a nice day” or anything at the end of the transaction, but they will say “see you later,” as if you’re all buddies that might meet up later for a walk along the waterfront. I kind of like that. Ooh, also, people say “how ya goin’?” instead of “how ya doin’” which always makes me want to say that I just walked over from Mt. Vic but I might grab the bus back.
Hardly anyone calls anyone on their cell phones, it’s all texting. This may actually be just an artifact of my non-with-it-ness in terms of technology, actually, instead of a sublte cultural difference, I don’t know. I do know that I am still not very good at texting and that it takes me a really long time. This is possibly because I insist on grammar, punctuation, and capital letters.
A paperback novel costs thirty dollars but steak is like two dollars a pound.
Maori culture is much more prevalent in the New Zealand mainstream, from what I can tell, than Native cultures are in the American mainstream. In all the social services research I’m doing I keep seeing references to whanau, and when I went to my first staff meeting here at work to introduce myself I got an official welcome in Maori. Some signs are bilingual, like at the museum or at the hospital, and I guess everyone learns some of the language in school if they don’t speak it at home; some of the girls I went out with from work on Friday said they’d been taught to count and say the alphabet in school and that kids now learn even more. Can you imagine that, in the States, if we were all learning Skykomish or Cherokee or Navajo in school? It’s a really great language, from the little I’ve heard, sort of pronounced deep in the throat and lovely and flowy. I’d like to learn more.
Everyone keeps saying the pace of life is more laid back than in the States, and I guess I can see that in some ways, like stores closing at five every day and stuff like that. Life has gotten a little more complicated, (delightfully so, it turns out) since last I wrote but I think I am starting to feel a sense of…not slowness, really, but something else, something deep and wide and soft, welling up in me and taking me through my very slightly different days.
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17 responses to “Very Slightly Different”
Ok, not refrigerating the eggs I understand, but the orange juice I just don’t get. Is it just totally loaded with preservatives to keep it from spoiling or what?
Renee – Yup, the orange juice is loaded with preservatives. We also have non-preservative orange juice that IS kept in the fridges. :)
Think of it, how can eggs spoil? They sit in the chicken coop for a while after they’re made!
As for texting, it is just an awful load cheaper! And you can do it all the time, without talking so the whole world can hear. Was great to read another entry…I love hearing what you say about NZ!
When I came back from my three weeks there, I told people that, except for Auckland, the whole country made me think of what the U.S. must have been like 30, 40, even 50 years ago. I mean, at some point “7-11” actually meant “the store is open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.” and this, at some point, was something that differentiated 7-11 from all the other stores out there.
Now, of course, most grocery stores, even in the smallest of towns, are open at least that long if not 24 hours a day, and 7-11 never closes at all, anywhere. But in New Zealand, it’s still main street towns where most of the commerce ends at the end of business hours and we had to remember to adjust our lives to that a little bit. No rolling into town in the early evening, finding a hostel, and *then* stocking up on groceries!
Wait, I got the preservative OJ? Aw, man.
my roommate is from NZ and it is like he speaks a different language. yup, he says “sorry” but has not commented that we refrigerate eggs. btw, i will admit to wondering why we do that here. so many reasons to shake our heads at americans…
The light switches are backwards from American ones, so you flip the lights on by pushing down instead of up.
That’s because you’re in the Southern Hemisphere and the electricity works backwards down there. It’s simple physics.
Hey Chiara, we don’t refrigerate eggs in Australian supermarkets either! You can, however, get both chilled and non-chilled OJ.
I wonder if you will ever be able to put your finger on or “diagnose” this welling up feeling you’re having in Wellington or if it will always be one of those elusive experiences that will make you squint your eyes and become wistful when you try to describe it, and cause you to say to others, “Can’t quite put my finger on it, or diagnose it, so to speak. Guess you’ll just have to find it out for yourself, mate.”
Oops. I didn’t mean to say Wellington above. My sister lives in Wellington. Only she’s in Zambia now. Durrr. Anyway. Auckland. yeah!
Sounds a lot like here in England. Except our grocery shops do open until about 11pm.. but can only open for six hours on Sunday.
I recently read (somewhere, I can’t remember where) that in the UK, they don’t refrigerate their eggs because they (the egg industry) don’t wash them. Apparently, washing them removes a protective coating from the porous shell, so they subsequently need to be refrigerated. The article I read said that we Merikans should always refridge our eggs for this reason.
ah, some info from that Cook’s Illustrated guy: http://blog.startcooking.com/42/
The whole “sorry” or “excuse me” thing if you’re passing by is somewhat common in Canada as well – or at least,I do it. Maybe it’s an intangible sort of “being in the Commonwealth” kind of thing?
hmmmm… I think a lot of the strange things must be a remnent of British colonialsm. In Ghana, the light switches are backwards, there are switches on the plugs and everyone says sorry instead of excuse me (something about there not being an appropriate translation for the Twi word for “sorry” so they use sorry for everything).
Unfortunatly coffee is only Nescaf and tea is lipton yellow lable, so you are better off with Milo (hot chocolate). We also don’t refrigerate eggs or OJ (or milk or cheese or actually anything for that matter). The 40 of us Californians in my dorm share one slighly smaller than standard frig, but I only keep a little butter in it. I’ve even seen cut meat just sitting out on a table in a rode-side stand (or folks holding out some bushmeat still with the fur for sale).
The eggs might not be refrigerated in supermarkets, but I certainly know of people here who do put them in the fridge when they get them home. Likewise with the orange juice.
You’d probably find a lot more shops in Auckland that stay open late(ish), than in Wellington. Everywhere I’ve lived in Auckland was within a short drive of a 24-hour supermarket, but down here it’s a different story. I even rang the bank the other day to ask if they had any local branches open on a Saturday and received quite a surprised “In WELLINGTON?!?! No.” :o)
Oops, I guess you did buy the preservative one! I’m not sure actually…I think all the ones that aren’t refridgerated need to be refridgerated once opened…but I know some are always kept in the fridge, normally by the cheese I think. Also, we refridgerate our eggs in our home fridge, but apparently they’re better for cooking if you let them change to room temperature first. Am full of helpful information!
I’ve read a bit about orange juice, and I believe what you found is not loaded with preservatives, but rather pasteurized normally (as opposed to the usual U.S. flash pasteurized for in a carton, but probably the same as the frozen concentrate in the U.S.).