New Zedland Fun Facts

Since I'm busy with chores today, I won't actually do my first NZ post just yet as I had promised in the previous post. However, Eric and Jill, our friends that we traveled with, put together a few fun "facts" about NZ for their family while they were away, that I thought I'd share with you to tide you over until tomorrow......

Thanks for the guest post Eric! :)

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A few things about NZ:

• Restaurants all have very strict hours, so if you miss the window you can't get any food at all (3PM - 5PM = no food!) Editor's Note: This totally sucked since we were always ready for lunch right about 3pm ;-)
• Restaurants don't know what "over medium" means when cooking eggs (you end up with fully cooked yolks) Editor's Note: I don't think *I* even know what an over medium egg is either! ;-)
  
• Their Indian food rocks -- seriously, it is really good. Editor's Note: Because of this, we ended up eating Indian about 3 times on the trip I think. And, the boys had "bum burning" Chicken Tikka Masala every single fucking time. *sigh*
  
• Sausages are called "bangers"
• When you get water at restaurants they give you a big bottle (think wine bottle) with water and a bunch of SMALL cups, every restaurant has done this. Editor's Note: Eric also learned on this trip that "still" water is actually bottled water, not tap. hehehehe
• It's not expected to tip
• Portions are reasonably sized, so everyone can order their own "main"
• "entrees" are like appetizers, and "mains" are your main meal
• A "bowl" of Mochacinno is huge
• Bell Peppers = Capsicum
• Yogurt = Yoghurt
• Kumara = Sweet Potato
• Pizza with olives comes with whole green olives w/ pementos
• They have 4 different "mites" - Vegemite, Marmite, Justmite, and some other one we forget
• The "International" section of the grocery store has Dr. Pepper, and it's $1.60 per can
• Every hotel has a fridge and a small electric kettle
• Their toilets have dual flush buttons.. #1 and #2 :)
• Almost all of their bridges are single lane, so one direction yields to the other
• There are a ton of roundabouts.
• There are baby sheep everywhere
• Their top 2 exports are beef and dairy, yet I can't find a good steak house! Editor's Note: Eric finally found his perfect steak (I think) on our last night in Queenstown at Botswana Butchery.
• Oh, and Internet isn't expensive to the end user ($30-40/mo like us), but they get away with charging $1-3+/15 mins at every town we've gone to. There are no "free" wifi spots anywhere.

And finally, I'll add one more. Kiwis (New Zealanders) pronounce the letter "Z" as "Zed". So for the rest of the trip, Eric referred to the country as "New Zedland".

Crazy Americans.