Speaking of accents?

We're one month in now, and can almost listen to a Telecom commercial about "teext meesages" without giggling. We do still feel compelled to repeat the new pronunciations in unison, as if we were in a language classroom. i.e,

TV voice: "Up neext on TV One, ..."
Us: "Neext, hehehe."

The kiwi accent does weird things with the letter E. For example, the number "twenty seven" becomes "tweenty seeveen." (just heard them say that on t.v. just now actually.) And get this, our surname is no longer 'Edmondson,' it's now "EEdmondson." Pretty much any place where an American or British person would say "eh," the Kiwis say "ee."

The letter I is different too. It's a little mushy, more like a U. The classic example you hear a lot around here is "fush 'n' chups." It's a throaty U, formed in the back of the mouth. It's quite hard to mimic. We've tried.

We've been a little surprised to hear that there's a Bostonian thing going on here too. We had heard the host of The Amazing Race (a kiwi!) tell contestants that they'd won a trip to the "spar." We thought it might just be him. But it turns out that Kiwis say "pahk the cah" just like someone from Boston. Hard to make sense of that one.

There is also a tendency to swing up at the end of a sentence, even if it's not a question. So statements come out like questions? Even when they're not questions? We're not really sure why they do this? But it could possibly be catching?

Taylor's Mistake

There are so many trails to explore here, we are spoiled for choice! Today we walked from Sumner Head to Taylor's Mistake, a beach in a bay. We thought this would be a nice, easy coastal walk for a leisurely Sunday afternoon, but instead it was riddled with switchbacks.

We ran into a donkey.

That beach down there is our destination, Taylor's Mistake.The rocks were covered in mussels (we think they were mussels...) close up of the suspected mussels: Still loving it here...

A winter walk in the hills

Today we took a day off from our job search to go for a walk in the Port Hills. We started in Victoria Park. This is the site of the 1954 murder of Honora Rieper, which was later made into a movie called Heavenly Creatures, directed by Peter Jackson. It's a crazy story: Pauline and Juliet are teenage girls in a very close friendship. The parents think they're too close, and decide to send Juliet to South Africa to split them up. The girls are angry and blame Pauline's mother, so they plot to kill her. They take her to Victoria Park and hit her over the head with a brick. This really happened.

So that's not why we went there, but while we were there we remembered the film and thought we'd tell you about it.

Here are some photos from the walk. We started on the East Side Bush track by the Victoria Park visitor's center, then went up Bowenvale trail, up up up to the summit road. Coming back down was much nicer... we came down Cedrics track to the Latters Spur track which took us back to Victoria Park and our car. The walk was a little over 8km and took about 2 hours. We saw a nice creek, some sheep, and a really cool mountain bike stunt course.

holy shit, they swear on tv here

Three weeks in, and we're pretty accustomed now to hearing uncensored songs on the radio. And we were pleased to watch Gordon Ramsay's show, "The F Word," without all of the beeping. (With Ramsay, it's a constant stream of beeps, isn't it?) It doesn't seem like they have strict standards for daytime versus nighttime broadcasting - we're hearing the F word on the radio at all times. And then we saw this the other night on "Close Up." Close Up is a news magazine program that airs at 7pm on channel 1. The other day, a young man had accidentally gotten his head and shoulders stuck in a tumble dryer. He was looking for underwear. It can happen. The fire brigade had to come and get him out. You should take a few minutes and watch this hilarious interview with the man -



That's right, he said, "Oh shit, I'm fucking stuck." This aired live without any editing. As far as we know, no one was fined by a broadcasting authority, no one wrote to the show to complain. Everyone just laughed at this crazy Australian man who got drunk and got his head stuck in the dryer while looking for his underwear.

Big Wednesday

It's Big Wednesday! That's New Zealand's Wednesday lottery drawing. Tonight's jackpot is $35million in cash and luxury prizes ("win the ultimate lifestyle"). Tonight's drawing is also a 'must win' drawing, meaning (we think) that if no one picks all six numbers, the prize will be divided among those who picked five of six.

There are only 4 million people in New Zealand, and tonight's drawing has caused such a frenzy that nearly 4 million tickets have been sold! There were lines out the doors of the convenience stores where the tickets are sold.

Not to be left out, we are holding our very own Big Wednesday ticket. As it's a must-win drawing, our chances of winning must be at least one in four million, right? That's not too shabby...

UPDATE: We matched 4 out of 6 numbers, which is good for $19 - yay!

We have the ugliest curtains in NZ

One thing that really sucks about renting is that we're stuck with the landlord's bad taste. We are pretty sure that we have the ugliest curtains in New Zealand, possibly in the whole southern hemisphere. Behold:

These beauties combine a modern and stylish color palette in a fruitbowl motif. Each fruitbowl sits on a lovely ionic column. Just admire the interplay of red, orange, green, and blue:

Need a closer look?

We have these curtains hanging in the dining room AND the living room - they're everywhere we look! We can't escape them! If we had bought this place, these curtains would have been out with the bubble wrap and UHaul boxes. But as renters, do we really want to invest in two sets of curtains that may or may not fit our next place? ...Not really. The property manager has acknowledged that the curtains must go, and has promised to "speak to the owner" about it, but we have no assurance that new curtains are forthcoming. We are in curtain purgatory.

Ka ora' Ka ora'

Last night we went to a pub to watch the All Blacks' test match against the French with some new friends. While those from rugby-playing nations are well familiar with the Haka already, as an American, this was brand new information to me when I first saw it a couple years ago. I am still thrilled to trembles whenever I see it. Here's a video of the Haka from last week's test match against France (I didn't think last week's performance was as good as yesterday's, but I can't find a video of last night's on YouTube...)


It's all in Maori. I was wondering what they are saying, so I consulted Wikipedia. This is what I found:

Leader:
Ringa pakia! (Slap the hands against the thighs!)
Uma tiraha! (Puff out the chest!)
Turi whatia! (Bend the knees!)
Hope whai ake! (Let the hip follow!)
Waewae takahia kia kino! (Stamp the feet as hard as you can!)

Team:
Ka mate, ka mate ('I die, I die,)
Ka ora' Ka ora' ('I live, 'I live,)

Leader:
Ka mate, ka mate ('I die, 'I die)

Team:
Ka ora Ka ora " ('I live, 'I live,)

All:
Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru (This is the hairy man)
Nāna i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā (...Who caused the sun to shine again for me)
Upane... Upane (Up the ladder, Up the ladder)
Upane Kaupane" (Up to the top)
Whiti te rā,! (The sun shines!)
Hī! (Rise!)

I don't know who this hairy man is that they're talking about.

We're really excited for next week's test match against Italy because it's being played in Christchurch. Although we're generally trying to live on a budget right now, we couldn't resist getting tickets to this match - call it part of our cultural immersion process. They weren't too expensive - $40 each for seats right next to the pitch. I'm super excited to see the Haka up close and in person. We should try to find out more about this hairy man and his ladder.

Puppies in knitwear

This is from a story in the paper today - local ladies knit sweaters for homeless puppies. It looks like they're fighting for the nice pastel one.

a frosty June morning in the park

We are just a 10 minute jog from Hagley Park - a huge city park with paved walkways, dirt trails, a gigantic duck pond, thousands of rugby pitches, and a golf course. Okay, maybe there are not quite thousands of rugby pitches, but there are LOTS. This is going to be the site for all or most of our morning runs, as it was this morning. It was -2C this morning - brrrr. There was frost all over the grass, but the sun was shining bright. It was the classic "crisp" morning.

According to the city council website, the park is 407 acres (compare to NYC's central park = 843 acres). When we first arrived, someone told us that Hagley park is one of the largest municipal parks in the world. We're not sure if this is true. Phoenix's South Mountain Park was 16,000 acres. We're just saying.

We've seen tons of people out running and biking and walking at the park. It's great to have a place so close by with so many active people around. Many of the runners seem to be hauling ass like professionals, which makes us feel a little inadequate, but we're mostly okay with that.

New kiwis have landed!

As kiwis are flightless birds, the title does not technically make sense, but you get the drift. We're here! And so is all of our stuff! Some of that stuff had to be hauled up over a balcony, but it's all in here now.

Now that we're settled in, we'll be spending most of our time looking for jobs. But when we're not looking for jobs, we will be doing other things we enjoy, including exploring our new surroundings and posting photos when the mood is right.

It's really good to be here.