Before I get into that, though, I feel I should at least touch on my job at the hotel. Right now it involves a little over two hours of work a day, cleaning the public areas and doing "spring cleaning." Public areas include five bathrooms (two male, two female, and one staff), the mirrors in the elevators, vacuuming the lobby, and emptying a few trash bins. Spring cleaning varies. Yesterday I learned all about the joy of "wall skirtings," which are little ledges at the bottom of walls. From what I can tell, they were engineered for the sole purpose of gathering dust, and they do their job quite well. Today I had the pleasure of polishing the elevator. The cleaner I used was some foul-smelling stuff in an aerosol can that said, "USE ONLY IN WELL VENTILATED AREAS." I don't know about you guys, but I can't think of any area more ventilated than a cramped elevator, so that's great!
Fortunately, I haven't encountered any poop-smeared walls or hooker bodies. Phew. But I was treated to a rather gross look at hotel sanitation. The same sponges and towels are used for the following: toilet rims, toilet lids, toilet handles, sinks, faucets, and door handles. Yeeeepppp. If that's not horrifyingly disgusting, I don't know what is. I also went out and bought my own latex gloves today, since my supervisor was kind enough to inform me that they don't have any.
Anyway, on to the feature presentation:
All About New Zealand, Part 1
The Kiwi Accent: At a first listen, the New Zealand accent is similar to a British or Australian accent. As it was once described to be, "It's a cross between British and Australian, but more awesome than both." According to the Kiwis I work with at my various jobs, the main difference is in the way they say their vowels. Bed sounds like bid, when sounds like win, what sounds like wot, etcetera. What's even better are the words that sound the same. Hair, hear, and here all sound the same, as do bear, bare, and beer, and sore and saw. The last thing I've noticed is they say some of their numbers and letters differently than we do, and some of them sound the same. The number eight, and the letters A and E sound incredibly similar, which is awesome when I'm trying to take Domino's orders over the phone. Here's an example:
Phone Person: So that's thirty-ay Wairapapa Street.
Me: Thirty eight?
Phone Person: No, Thirty-ay.
Me: Oh. Thirty A, like the letter A.
Phone Person: No, not the letter ay. The letter ay.
Me: E?
Phone Person: No, ay!
Because whether they're saying E or A, it sounds like "ay." Once that's sorted, I have to tackle the spellings of crazy Maori street names.
Food: Ah, food. Maybe it's because I've never really lived in a city before, but to me the variety of food available is incredible. By my estimation, there's approximately 87 million Asian takeaway restaurants in Wellington alone. Thai, Indian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these... um, yeah. They've got it all is what I'm trying to say. Fish and chips takeaways are also fairly popular. And, of course, American fastfood restaurants are everywhere. Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's are by far the most widespread, but there's a smattering of KFCs and Burger Kings as well. Their menus don't vary too much from what we see stateside. Subway offers a range of "Kiwi favorites," such as lamb and pork riblet, and McDonald's has family-sized meal deals, something I've never seen in the states, and "The Big Kiwi Breakfast." Also, the McDonald's here are almost always accompanied by a McCafe, a seperate counter featuring upscale hot beverages and baked goods. That's a feature I saw a lot in Europe, but--oh damn, I just wasted four sentences on McDonald's. Moving on.
New Zealand-exclusive chains include Burger Fuel (they make the best fastfood burgers I've ever tasted, with crazy toppings such as avocado, beet root, and mango), Wholly Bagel (opened by a New Yorker disappointed in Wellington's lack of a good bagel shop), and Mr. Bun (a bakery with a twist--they also serve country fried chicken. Actually, the combination of baked goods/coffee and country fried chicken is fairly common at other cafes as well. No idea why).
As a former British colony, New Zealand is fortunate to have the same healthy snacks as Ireland and the UK. And by "healthy snacks," I mean more sugary, delicious types of Cadbury bars than any reasonable person could possibly ask for. Crunchie, Caramello, Picnic, Pinkies, and THREE VARIETIES OF MORO BARS!!! Yes, it's awesome. While we're on the topic of things that rot your teeth and make you fat, let's talk about soda. Coke is easily 75-80% more prevalant than Pepsi. In fact, I haven't even seen a Pepsi product, apart from a Mountain Dew commercial at the movie theater. There's also the New Zealand-exclusive Lemon and Paeroa, more commonly called L&P. It started off in a town called Paeroa. They took water from a natural spring, carbonated it, and added sweetened lemon juice. Now, however, it's owned and distrubuted by Coca Cola. It's still delicious, though, and New Zealand is the only place in the world to buy it (apart from a few Kiwi groceries in Australia).
There are two types of cereal I've gotten into: Weet-Bix (same thing as Ireland's Weet-A-Bix) and muesli. Muesli is composed of rolled oats, raisins, delicious dried fruits, and sometimes weird stick things that look like rabbit food. Weet-Bix is made out of the papery stuff wasps use to make their nests and gets stuck between your teeth worse than you can possibly imagine. If you don't believe me, check out this stunning x-ray image of a wasp nest and some Weet-Bix side by side. Can you tell which is which?
I could probably go on a lot longer about food, but I'll end it here for now. And don't worry, beer is not food and will get its own category later.
Let's see, uh...
Transportation:
Wellington apparently has the best public transportation in New Zealand thanks to an elaborate system of buses and trams. Most of the buses/trams are powered by overhead electric lines, and the buses that run on gas are hybrids! New Zealand's great care for the natural environment will also have its own category later on.
The buses are great, apart from two things: they're expensive. A monthly pass is $99, and without the pass an average rider would probably spend over $150 a month. The other problem is the frequent striking. In the month we've been here, bus services have been disrupted five or six times due to union meetings or strikes. I guess it's a complicated issue. I understand the bus drivers wanting fair wages (currently the starting rate is only a little over minimum wage) and benefits, but going on strike is an asshole way to go about it. They're hurting the customer, the thousands of Wellingtonians that rely on the bus service to commute to and from work each day. What they should do is drive around giving out free bus rides. That'd get the message across to their employer without inconveniencing the passengers. See? I'm a genius!
That's a wrap for this edition of All About New Zealand. If I didn't answer your questions (because so many of you responded to my last post, har har), I'll get to them later.
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