Finding My Fix: Chronicles of a Travel Junkie

Finally I have found a Kiwi or at least someone knowledgable about New Zealand, or really this person has found me, who has corrected some of the things that I have gotten wrong. Apparently also, I have a much wider reading audience than I realised. So if I may quote this person who commented on one of my earlier posts

“Creche (the word you were looking for) is daycare, from the French; but in the years I’ve lived here, dinner is dinner and lunch is lunch. Surely zucchinis are zucchinis in New Zealand, too? I don’t recall them being called anything else. A college is a high school, not a school for little people, though some private colleges have a primary (elementary) part. Come to Wellington, where a lot of places do not shut at 5 p.m. Tapu, meanwhile, is usually used for the word curse, rather than sacred. ”
-Jack Yan

Though, in my defense, it was in fact a Kiwi born and raised who told me that they called dinner tea, and I have had full meals at lunch time that have been called “afternoon tea.” Maybe it’s a regional thing. And I do happen to be in Wellington, and have noticed quite a large number of places, restaurants, shops, etc closing at 5pm, though “everything” is definitely an exaggeration on my part. Maybe the vegetable I saw in the grocery store that looked like a zucchini but had a different name was actually a cousin of the zuchinni, or maybe I really have gone insane as is a definite possibility after I tell you this:

This morning I bought my plane ticket back to DC, but first, wait, this is the best part… I will be stopping in Sydney, Bangkok and Honolulu, for at least five days each. I’m going to Thailand!

I’ll also mention that I have been asked three times for directions. I must look like I know what I’m doing! One of the times was two young guys who pulled up in their car as I was pulling out my camera to take a picture of a very nice house. Now in the states when guys of this nature pull up beside you it means they want to harrass you; this was a very nice change!

Tags: 1A. New Zealand

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