Finding My Fix: Chronicles of a Travel Junkie

I am mildly bored which can definately be dangerous when your closest friend is 7000 miles away. So I figure I’ll write some more in order to give me something other than laundry to do. I’m writing from a computer on campus now.

So Levin. We stopped in Levin about 4 minutes before five and were excited to discover that at five, the parking meters became free, but were dissapointed when we soon found out that the reason for this was that in Levin (and in most of New Zealand for that matter), everything closes at 5pm. Restaurants are few and far between, and most don’t opperate the way restaurants in the U.S. opperate. It seems that quite often they are cafes or you seat-yourself style or a combination thereof. We stopped in one souvenier shop that happened to still be open, and I attempted to ask a man where we might find a “restaurant to eat dinner.” The man was definately confused. Until I repeated the word restaurant, and he said in his kiwi accent, “oh, a restaurant, right! There’s one down there a ways, and there’s one right across the street there. It has Chinese food and European food.”

We went to the Chino-Euro restaurant and ordered burgers. Mum’s was a pineapple burger that consisted basically of coleslaw and a grilled slice of pineapple. Mine was a “vegeterian burger” which meant it had pineapple, beet, tomato, and coleslaw. We had our dinner that ended with a heated conversation about the death of pets and how my mother hired a hitman to kill my lizard when I was about 14. We were crying from laughter.

Now, I think I might point out that here in this country, though friendly, the people are very quiet and reserved compared to Americans. I have heard only one person shout in any public space aside from myself of course. And men don’t hassle women, at least not in the areas I have walked, and at least not to the extent to which men in the states do. Men definately look at women, but they don’t make any noise about it. I have gotten one line from a kid who looked to be about high school age. “She’s fine” is the American translation of what he said after I passed. It sounded a good bit more like “she’s foin,” but once you get used to the accent, it starts to make sense.

I have become much more comfortable in the last few days at speaking at an audible tone, the way I speak in the U.S. I have to admit that the first few days I was getting quite tired of people looking at me confused, wondering if I was speaking a different language. Speaking in Spanish was much more comfortable, so in fact, that’s what I was doing, chattering on in Spanish, because that way at least if I made a mistake, it made no difference, and no one could understand me anyway. When two English speakers can’t communicate, it can be quite frustrating. I’ve gotten over the frustration, and am finding it ammusing when I leave people in the dust with my fast-talking New York injected speech.

So anyway, we took our laughter teary faces with us and got back in the car and drove on to I don’t know what town it was, where we stopped at a motel for the night. As is customary in New Zealand hotels, it had no central heating, and had instead, a space heater and electric blankets. I got the lucky blanket that didn’t work, but it turned out all right anway. Talking to the owners of the motel, we found out that they used to get more American travelers back before 9/11. Now most of the North American tourists they see are Canadian. This might explain why a few people have told us they thought we were Canadian; because they don’t know we sound the same. Some Kiwis have also told us that they’ve a few Canadians were insulted when asked if they were Americans. Well humf to you too, Canada.

The owners also told us that they used to fly the flags of South Africa, the US, Canada, the UK and a few other places. The American flag got “pinched” (stolen).

We headed on southward and found our way to a beach on the Tasman Sea that has a Maori name and starts with a P. We parked ourselves in front of a “bowling” field (yet another thing to have to ask about later), and made our way to the beach. So now I’ve put my fingers in the Tasman Sea! And I have eaten Chowder while looking out on the Tasman Sea. And my Mum has asked a Kiwi whether or not your supposed to tip waiters (you’re not), and what exactly is bowling (it’s a game somewhat like bacci ball if that’s how its spelled, where you throw a ball to try and hit other balls). “Ten pin bowling” is what they call the game we think of as bowling.

(As you can see this trip has really turned into more a time for figuring New Zealand out than for any real vacation). And I think I will stop now before I get to the Nature Researve and Wellington (the last 2 places). It makes me sad to leave the computer which is at present the most secure link I have to America. But I have laundry to do so I don’t smell when I finally meet my roommates.

Tags: 1. Australasia, 1A. New Zealand, 1A1. North Island

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