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?