The Other Side

I assume many of my friends and family, whom I imagine to be the only people reading this, are interested to hear how I've taken to driving on the other side of the road. In truth it's really not that different because the roads and the rules are very similar here. For the first day or so I had constant anxiety much like I did when I was first learning to drive back home.

I learned to drive in Ballard, a neighborhood of Seattle that has very narrow streets.  Actually, they aren't that narrow inherently but they always have cars parked on both sides which makes them extremely narrow. As a novice driver I was constantly nervous that I would side swipe the cars parked on the right because I didn't have a good sense of how far away that side of the car was.  Then I was afraid that I would overcompensate and hit the cars on my left.

Here, in New Zealand, that anxiety came back for the first day or so of driving (only reversed because now I'm sitting on the right side of the car and driving on the left side of the road).  I'm mostly used to it now and I'm extremely glad I decided to drive myself because on a bus or a train I might be too consumed by motion sickness to really enjoy the scenery.  Yesterday, I took a bus from Rotorua to Hobbiton because there was drinking involved in the Hobbiton tour and I wanted to be able to partake. The motion sickness was almost too much on the way there. Interestingly, on the return trip it was not as bad which seems to imply that the beer I had actually helped to decrease my nausea which seems counter-intuitive.

Today I made my way from Rotorua to Taupo (on my way eventually to Wellington and then back up to Auckland again). On the drive from Rotorua to Taupo I found that the roads and the road rules are not the only things similar to home. The scenery I drove through this morning was just like home (and beautiful, of course, like everything here).  Some of the trees and plants aren't the same as what we have but for the most part the similarities were uncanny.  This area has mostly dairy farming and timber as its industries so it was just like driving through the Snoqualmie river valley, or the Skagit valley, or over Highway 2, or along the Trans Canada Highway from Vancouver to Kelowna. I felt right at home.

I've been very focused on the similarities but there are some minor differences that I find very interesting as well. For example, I had a migraine the other day which put a damper on my travels...actually it mostly put a damper on my writing as that evening I was holed up in a hotel room in Rotorua finishing a script that's been tugging at my imagination for a while now. I was only able to see about half the computer screen though due to the aforementioned migraine.  I ventured to a pharmacy looking for something to take for it.  Actually, first I ventured to the supermarket (all of which have pharmacies in them back home), but that was fruitless so I then sought out a pharmacy.

At home I'd probably take Aleve Cold and Sinus for a migraine because it has 120 mg of time released pseudoephedrine in it and that is the best and strongest vaso-constrictor that I've ever encountered. Here, however, you can't get pseudoephedrine (even the 30 mg) without a prescription. I asked what else they would recommend for a migraine and they gave me something with codeine in it. I did have to give them my name and address to buy it, like I would back home if I wanted pseudoephedrine, but back home you can't get codeine without a prescription. It's odd little differences like this that I notice.

One of the other differences that struck me is that the electrical outlets all have on/off switches on them here. That seems extremely convenient for saving power, you can just turn off the entire outlet, but I definitely have trouble remembering that I need to turn them on (or off for that matter).

The on/off switches on the outlets also got me wondering where the electricity comes from over here. I very rarely think about my carbon footprint when using electricity at home because where I live almost all of the electricity comes from hydro. Since I'm here primarily to see a play about climate change though I've been thinking about energy sources and carbon footprints a lot since arriving. I wondered what sort of energy sources New Zealand is using. They certainly have a lot of geothermal activity so that could be an energy source, they could also use hydro (there are a lot of rivers).

I looked it up, of course, and according to the Google and Wikipedia about 75% of New Zealand's energy is generated through renewable sources (hydro, geothermal, and wind primarily). That's pretty comparable to Washington state (where I am from) so on that front I feel pretty okay about my energy consumption here.

The car I'm driving is another story. I miss my Prius C. Again, I feel compelled to say that I receive no compensation from Toyota, though I'd happily accept if they wanted to compensate me.  I love my Prius C, I couldn't love it more...unless it were a fully electric, like a Tesla S, or a Leaf, or if it were a plug in hybrid like a Prius Plug-In, but as I've got no where to plug in a car at home so I can't go the full electric or plug in route.  The Prius C is the next best thing, it gets 53 mpg (average).

I had to take whatever car they gave me at the rental agency here though and, in addition to missing small modern conveniences (like bluetooth syncing and decent suspension), this car is a gas guzzler.  Also, it has to warm up. It took some getting used to, when I first got my Prius, to look for the ready light rather than listening for the engine noise, but now that I am used to it when the car I'm driving roars to life and then has a little green light on until it warms up it's a little disconcerting. Also, I'm a very bad parallel parker, and trying to do it from the other side of the car, on the other side of the road, in a car that's significantly longer than my Prius C is no fun. Luckily, I've only had to parallel park a few times so far.

All in all, on the other side of the world, and the other side of the road, on the other side of the car, I feel remarkably at home.

Food of the Gods

I probably should have jumped right into exploring the art, and culture, and parks of this wonderful city, but I like to settle in to a place so instead, yesterday afternoon, I explored the supermarket.

New Zealand purportedly has the best dairy products in the world. Having been to Switzerland I am dubious but definitely excited to try so I went to the supermarket in search of yogurt and I found a wonderland of delicious and facinating items.

For starters there are unsurprisingly a number of similarities to British supermarkets. Most notably the Kiwis seem to share the Brits (and my) love of rhubarb. I don't think rhubarb yogurt was an option in Switzerland, but I'll try to be objective about the yogurt quality and not focus on the rhubarb.

The multitude of varieties of cheese definitely speaks to a national appreciation of dairy as well and, along with the inexpensive and plentiful paté options makes me want to spend my entire trip picnicking in parks and on beaches (both of which also abound around here).

My brother would certainly be pleased with the variety of smoked tiny fishes available (not just sardines and oysters for this lot), and with the variety of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese foods available.

I suppose I'll have to bring home some smoked fishes for him. I'll also for sure be bringing back some Manuka honey which is another point of great culinary pride here.

One of my favorite things is the coffee bags. Like tea bags, they're individual serving bags of ground coffee that enable you to brew a single cup of coffee without need of any special equipment. Having been born in 1978 in the greater Seattle area, and having lived there my whole life, and having worked for an organic coffee company briefly, and being a huge Alton Brown fan, I'm aware of drop in quality that comes with not grinding your coffee beans immediately prior to brewing, but I love the convenience. And the quality of the coffee's doesn't suffer to badly.

The cream situation is a bit confusing I'll admit. There is double cream and single cream both of which seem thicker than the half and half I'd normally put in coffee (if I normally drank coffee). I went with single cream which is pretty good in the coffee but definitely too thick for tea. I suppose they must do milk in there teas here (like the Brits again), but it seems odd to me to need two separate things. Also, I couldn't find milk in a small enough bottle for only using it in my tea so I'm sticking with cream for both.

I definitely need to address the pickle situation. When I asked one of my hosts what I could bring from home she said, "dill pickles", because you can't get them here. When I came through customs and had to declare any food items I was carrying the customs agents all gave a nod as if to say, "of course" when I said I had pickles. It must be a common request.

The supermarket I went to had gherkins in a myriad of sizes, but no dill pickles.  I find it odd that they don't have them. My only guess would be that there's no dill here because they are so particular about not bringing in non-native plants. Maybe they just aren't allowed to grow dill. If that's true I'll be interested to see how they prepare salmon because that they have a lot of.

As I've been writing this I've been eating breakfast (I know, I don't usually do that,  but my internal clock is still 5 hours ahead...or 19 hours behind I guess). My breakfast included coffee with cream, bagel and cream cheese, and yogurt. I have to say New Zealand definitely gives Switzerland a run for its money in the dairy department. I suppose a side by side blind taste test is impossible, since the transporting of dairy products from New Zealand to Switzerland (or vice versa) would impact on their quality, but it's definitely too close to call without one.

My last stop at the supermarket was the bakery section and while I didn't buy anything there I was extremely tempted by the carrot cake. It didn't have raisins. None of it. Not a single raisin in any of the carrot cakes.

If it seems from the title (or the contents) of this post like I'm getting attached to New Zealand and might not want to return home...well, that would not be inaccurate. Although, if you didn't catch the Almighty Johnsons reference in the title you really should run, not walk, to your nearest Netflix streaming device and start watching immediately.