Welcome to New Zealand...My Precious

I’ve finally made it to New Zealand.  "Middle Earth." 

A place where people are as obsessed with “The Hobbit” as Americans are with, guns, not paying for anything and wanting the service of everything, and the "Freedom of Obesity".

Given that this was the first flight I've ever had of longer than 7 hrs (sad, I know), I wasn’t fully prepared for that which is the misery of a window seat in the meadows of airline claustrophobia.  Add to that the guy next to me who was mouth-breathing into my ear while he slept, and it gives you a lot of time to NOT rest and think.  

Between the flight and the 6+ hours spent in the car (on the other side of the road) en route to Queesnstown for New Years, a few things came to mind...

1)   I was 1 of 2 black people on a 400+ person flight.  Turns out the other black guy was a kid from Mizzou who was taking a college trip with his class. Who knows though; I guess we’ve got better places to visit like Washington D.C. … or Atlanta.

2)   I have NO idea what people are saying around here:   

   Every time I hear “mate” I have to unthink of Animal Planet  

   "Edgen nethin ells” translates to: “Would you like anything else” 

     One guy mentioned that he worked as a “Shiff”, and it wasn’t but after another 20 minutes of hearing him phonetically re-pronounce other words in ways I’ve never heard, did I realize that he had actually said, “Chef”  

3)   California is beautiful, but New Zealand is incredible--Then again, it could just be novelty.  But I don't really care...it's sick!

They should call this Lake Listerine.

4)   I’m upset with my American education since, although they TRIED to teach us the metric system in school, the rest of American society has done nothing to incorporate it into American life. 

"Your bag cannot be over 23 kilograms”
 “As we make final descent into Auckland, it’s about 18 degrees Celsius on the ground”
"Queenstown is about 500 kilometers away”

My WTF face

I mean, I get it. It’s my fault for being an arrogant American and not taking it upon myself to learn this stuff, but no one retains information that they don’t need to use everyday.  (See figure: Calculus and Chemistry)

Anyway, we’ve another 2 weeks and today we're kicking it off with some wine tasting.  I’ve gotta tell you though, New Zealanders are a kind yet shy people.  Also, it’s abundantly obvious that while there are plenty of Polynesians around here, the Black American is something that they’ve only seen on television. 

Oh! And I need to learn the rules to Cricket.