Look both ways...

Many things about New Zealand are nice and familiar with home in Canada. But some things are different - let me tell you about a few that I find particularly interesting, amusing, or even in some cases, annoying.

Driving on the left side of the road. I have yet to attempt this. Mark is pretty comfortable with it, but he has also done it before. However, driving is not even the least of my worries with the whole "wrong" side of the road thing. Being a pedestrian, is in fact much more dangerous. I constantly look the wrong way before stepping off the curb. Also, here in New Zealand pedestrians are not held in very high regard. There are few marked crosswalks where cars have to actually stop for pedestrians. The rest of the time, you run when it's clear. Stop lights also tend to take an abnormally long amount of time before the RED man (yes, that's right. A man, not a hand) turns into a GREEN man.

Buying a cell phone. This is apparently a big deal here. When we purchased our cell phones (or should I say MOBILES) we had to provide passports, visa documentation, previous addresses, etc. before being run through a credit check and then being granted our phones. I guess not just any old person can get a mobile. You might do some dangerous calling.

Wattie's Tomato sauce. This is a poor excuse for ketchup. Enough said.

Milk labels. Milk here is not sorted by Skim, 1%, 2% and so on. Instead, I have noticed the following so far: Trim, Lite, and Standard - I think different brands come up with their own names. The confusing part is you might think that Lite would mean it was Skim or at least 1%. But it was actually 1.5%. Not that Lite. And yes, Lite is spelled the way I'm spelling it.

But despite all these and many more funny things, we are still loving it here. The weather is great, the landscape is breathtaking and we are making new friends. Still no jobs or a house yet, but hopefully soon!