$2 Gas!

Actually, it's $2.0 per LITER here. You think the fuel prices are high back home? We ran the numbers to see how they compare, and with 3.78 liters per gallon, $2 per liter equates to $7.56 per gallon.

Thankfully, Wellington is a walking city, but we’d better invest in another pair of walking shoes as all price indications for oil are onwards and upwards. Strange that even with the price of oil increasing by five times in just six years, consumer demand hasn’t really dropped much. Goes to show how fundamental oil is to our societies and lifestyles.

Rotary Conference

Jim and I attended Rotary District 9940’s Annual Conference held in Taupo, NZ. We accompanied Hutt City Rotary Club President, Allan Brown and his wife Trish, Ambassadorial Scholar-Jaretta Richey from Texas and Youth Exchange student Max, from France.

The opening ceremony included a tribute to ANZAC Day (26 April). It was quite impressive to see how fully this country embraced its history and remembered its fallen soldiers.

Presentation highlights included a theme of action to assist in ending domestic violence in New Zealand and information on the Shelter Box Project, which, began with the Rotary Club of Helston-Lizard, UK.
Unfortunately too soon after learning about the Shelter Box Project a natural disaster struck Myanmar. Coincidently one of the Rotary members at Hutt City recently visited Myanmar and presented on his experience there. This certainly does bring the disaster closer to home. The Hutt City Rotary Club has already raised funds for two shelter boxes to aid those in Myanmar. Check out the website and donate to an excellent cause: http://www.shelterbox.org/home.ht

And what’s a rotary conference in Taupo without a Mardi Gras party? And what’s a Mardi Gras Rotary Party without men in tights? A hysterical night!

Language Subtleties

You may have noticed that the blog entries have slowed considerably since we settled in Wellington. With three months now under our belts, we’ve sort of settled into more of a “living here” routine, and less of the big adventure traveling the world.

Now moving from America to New Zealand was not a huge culture shock as you might
expect. Both countries being English speaking, Western democracies, it
was difficult to even believe we we're on the opposite side of the
planet. And being predominately of European decent here, we don't even look
like foreigners. There have been times walking along a crowded street of Wellington when we realized, oh yeah, if we're not speaking out loud with our North American
accents, they don't know we're not Kiwis!

However, there are lots of little things everyday that remind us that we are indeed in a foreign land. Take the simple task of buying a cooler:

Chilly Bin
Early in our trip as we we’re going to be living out or our car and traveler’s lodging, we knew we’d want to keep some foods cold between stays. So we went looking for a cooler, thinking a gas station or grocery store would likely have one. We’ll that week, English felt like a second language.  When I asked where I could buy a cooler, I received only blank stares in return. After several attempts, of playing charades with the clerks… “O.K. I’m off to a “Barbie,” I’ve got my lamb shanks and food, and I have my (Blank), which I have put ice in to keep my beer cold…” That was all it took, his eyes lit up and the fill in the blank was a "Chilly Bin!" So we are the proud owners of a chilly bin.

Here’s a few other phrases we’ve noticed.

• There's the easy ones like “g'day” and “Cheers” and “Mate” and “Bloke.” Though we still feel like posers tossing those around.
• A much more subtle difference is that Kiwis use “how ya going?” not "how ya doing?”
• There’s a dairy just down the street from our flat. Any guesses? That’s
  right, the “Dairy” is the corner market or convenience store near our flat(apartment).
• My favorite is “Heaps” to describe a large quantity. Oh, I’ve got heaps more…
• Another favorite is “Sweet As.” There’s never a conclusion that comes after this phrase. I always feel an innate need to finish the thought, but the beauty of “Sweet as” is it’s just left wide open to any positive conclusion (Kevin: “Hey, I went bungee jumping yesterday”. Brad: “Ah, sweet as…”). So you can see how it works. But before we really got the accent down, we thought “sweet as” was a comment that our butts were getting in good shape from all that walking.
• And of course, “Tea.” Tea can have a much broader definition that we'd ever thought. “Come on over for tea” can indeed mean a cup of tea. Or a cup of coffee. Or a glass of wine, or a beer. Or dinner! This one we have far from mastered. We still can't understand how people can respond to an invitation of “tea” as they may have no idea what the invitation might entail.
  

Well it's tea time, got to go...