Kia Ora from New Zealand!

Finally! After three long years of longing and gut wrenching desire, I have made my way across the globe once again. This time I have landed in Middle Earth, aka New Zealand. 

Ever since my experience living in India, I have had a continuous thirst to immerse myself in new culture and lifestyles. With that said, when I arrived in New Zealand, I was a bit underwhelmed. To the shallow eye, there weren’t many differences from back home that I could easily pin point. Aside from the roads and cars being flip flopped( walking or driving, always keep to your LEFT), the coastlines reminded me of San Diego and the beachy town felt  much like that of Santa Cruz or Huntington Beach.  The people, all English speaking and dressed in familiar attire.

HOWEVER

Four weeks in and I couldn’t have been more pleasantly proven wrong. From the people, vernacular, beauty and overall vibe that is New Zealand, I have found myself in a whole new world and loving every minute. 

Oh and the smell! The air is so clean and fresh -much different from the smog ridden LA air or the ever lingering cow manure scent of Modesto.  Honestly, think of your favorite Disney fairytale land- THAT is the smell of New Zealand.

Okay, now that you have a good “scents” (pun intended) of New Zealand, let me send some sound waves your way. I never knew I could have such a hard time following a conversation in my native language.  Everyone here speaks English, but they speak English rather quickly in accents and unfamiliar slang. The most complicated element of the New Zealand accent is the pronunciation of vowels.  More often than not, “e”s become “i”s, which is confusing when speaking about pit or pet, here or hair, head or hid and so on. They often add “r”s to the end of words, so aww becomes awr and idea becomes idear.  However, the preexisting “r”s  are often forgotten.  Park, shark, and car come out sounding like “pock, shock, and ca”.  

After many weeks of smiling and nodding my way through most Kiwi interactions, I find myself talking the talk and even understanding it (mostly)! Here are some of my favorite words and phrases used.

1)      Kiwi

Most commonly used to refer to a citizen of New Zealand, but also:

-  The flightless bird of New Zealand
- The delicious juicy fruit (This kiwi is always followed by the word ‘fruit’

 ie. “I want to eat some kiwifruit”, never just kiwi. That could take on a whole other meaning)

2)      Heaps & ‘Eh’
Heaps is equivalent to “a lot” or if you’re from NorCal, “hella & hecka”. I am much more fond of using heaps.  

“I’ve got heaps of work to do!”  “I’ve missed you heaps”
“He has heaps of toys”

And ‘eh’, as I am all sure you have heard and or used when imitating Canadians, is used not only in question form but just simply at the end of a statement. 

That’s really funny, eh?  I had a good weekend, eh.

There are heaps of sheep in New Zealand, eh!

In these instances, I realized I usually say “huh”. Again, I prefer the Kiwi way.

3)      Dairy

Surprisingly not referring to the place where milk is harvested, but a small convenience store much like AM PM except with no gas pumps, but still the same overpriced products.  My sister has a corner dairy right up the street from her house where much of our afternoon and/or late night goody cravings are fulfilled.

4)      Sweet as

Awesome, okay, cool

This was by far the most frustrating of phrases.  Sweet as- should I be offended or flattered? Oh you mean you AREN’T referring to my behind in a derogatory yet complimentary manner? Once I figured that out, my frustration only grew because now it is just simply grammatically incorrect.

Sweet as…candy? Sweet as… cake?  Sweet as what?!  Finish the sentence!

Despite my strongest efforts, I may never know exactly what level of sweetness something is being compared to. But, it is a phrase that has grown on me and that I now find to be pretty “sweet as, bro”.

** “As” can also be added at the end of just about any word. I have heard:
                                Cheap as.
                                Sharp as.
                                Brave as.
                And probably my favorite was a sign in a window of a restaurant that was still under           construction. The sign read:
                                                 Grill Meats Beer
                                                Opening Soon As…
I can only interrupt “as” in these circumstances as meaning “really".

5)       Kia Ora
Maori greeting used throughout New Zealand.  The literal translation is “be well/healthy” and is used as “hello”. My nephews use it when they see their friends and I find it to be the most adorable thing ever.

6)      Jandals, Gumboots & Togs
 
“Leave your gumboots at the door” merely means take off your wet, muddy rain boots.  Although I don’t understand where “gum” came from, at least there is the word boots in there which makes sense.  

Perhaps somewhere in a long game of “telephone” the word sandals shifted to jandals, which merely refers to flip flops. Okay, fair enough.

Then there is the word togs. My nephews were going to a swim party in which they needed to bring their togs. Hmm, water shoes perhaps? Goggles maybe? A beach towel for goodness sakes?  It took me far too long to realize it was their swim suits they needed!

And a few other words that became a part of my everyday vocabulary real quick while living with four children ages infant- 7 years old are;

                Mum = Mom
                Toilets = restroom
                Poos & Wees = self-explanatory
                Nappies = Diapers
                Lollies = any type of treat or candy
               

And the most important, most used word I have adopted into my vocabulary is “pardon?” because really you can only get away with the smile and nod for so long.