(And yes I am a total geo nerd and had to put something down for size...in this case a Tui bottle cap).Holey moley that's a ton of food! And it cost four dollars (keep in mind that the exchange rate is still around half). Yes, four dollar fish and chips make me happy. So do the little New Zealand-isms that are starting to work their way into my routine. For example, fish and chips shops are everywhere. Literally on every street corner. Eating fish and chips could be considered a religion. And fish and chips is really pronounced fush and chups...
And Kiwi's call everything __-as. As in, class was boring-as, I was sleepy-as and couldn't stay awake, bro. I think she went through heaps of notes, she's crazy-as, eh. I just want to get drunk-as bro. And everyone is bro, and lots is heaps, and everything is repeated at least three times and "eh" is as common as our "like" (sometimes it doesn't make sense when they say it, eh?..it sort of blends in with the last wordeh...like that.). Man, I love it.
But my absolute favorite Kiwi saying is, "I just can't [couldn't] be bothered". They say it instead of "I just don't care to do..." but I think it's so much more articulate and gets the point across. My roommate Grady, for instance, "just can't be bothered" to go to Bio class now because our new lecturer is boring-as. It just makes so much more sense! It's way better than saying, "bio is stupid and I'm not going." I don't know...I just love it.
Other Kiwi-isms: rat tails and mullets. No joke. Absolutely no joke is it ok to have a rat tail or a mullet. And I don't mean one of those fashion mullets, I mean full on "buisness in the front party in the back" mullets. And oh man, rat tails of all shapes and sizes. You have your dreaded, your bleached, your short, your long, you have the kids with shaved heads EXCEPT for the rat tail, the kids with kind of mussy hair AND rat tails...the list goes on and on.
Stubbies are another fashion that will never, EVER be ok back home. Stubbies are basically short shorts for men:
L&P is a drink that tastes exactly like Sprite, but don't tell that to a Kiwi....I just found that video while searching for pictures of stubbies...I love that they mention the mullet!
So yeah...Kiwi-as...I'm sure I'll think of more things as I stay here longer. But I pretty much say "as" after everything now. Haha.
And the absolute BEST thing about New Zealand right now...three week mid-semester breaks!! HECK YES!! A three week break is absolutely unheard of back home, except for between semesters. So my (very) tentative plan is this.
Friday afternoon we (Carston, Tommy, Ryan and I) drive up to the tip of the South Island in their van and take the ferry across the Cook Straight to Wellington.
We head right up the west coast and check out Egmont National Park, home of one of New Zealand's coolest volcanoes. After a couple days there, we head east to Lake Taupo and Tongariro National Park which is "home to to geothermal wonders", along with other sweet-as stuff. Then we head back down to Wellington and spend a day there, and catch a ferry back across the Straight on the 9th.
Once we're back on the South Island, we're going to drive down the west coast and stop in the Fiordlands National Park...the must see of New Zealand. We'll go over to Queenstown, where the boys want to jump off of high things. I'm taking a pass on that and will probably call it a spa day..after all, we'll have been camping/climbing/hiking for over a week. After Queenstown we're going to check out the Southern Alps, then it will be time for me to return to Christchurch for my geology field trip the last week.
Oh man! I just can't wait. And it's only two days away! Hooray! Hopefully I'll be able to update a bit while I'm gone, but if I can't, I'll definitly have lots to say when I get back. Oh, and I got a camera, so there will be tons of pictures also!
Much love!
Oh PS: I met I guy in my bio lab a few weeks ago, and we're just kind of those people who nod at each other on the street but chat a bit in lab. ANYWAY today we did a lot of chatting (because the lab was so pointless) and it turns out that he wants to be a marine biologist. He's already tagged great white sharks and stuff! So I asked him if he's ever seen the show The Deadliest Catch and it turns out it's filmed in his town and he's been fishing with the guys heaps and stuff! How cool is that? So then I started talking about how much I missed eating sea food (fush and chups don't count) and he said that he can get loads of sea food for free because that's what everyone in his town does. So he's going to bring me salmon fillets and stuff after break....well, that's if he remembers our conversation. I really hope he does. All in all, a good day!
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