Expat Life in New Zealand #19-Peewee Rugby

It’s been a while since I’ve done an Expat life in NZ post so I wanted to get back in the saddle with a post on peewee rugby. If baseball or football is THE AMERICAN national sport, then rugby is THE NEW ZEALAND equivalent. A good percentage of Kiwi’s I know bleed black for the All Blacks. When I was doing research for my dissertation I delved a lot into NZ national identity in my interviews and the people I talked to saw NZ as a Rugby nation. New Zealanders seemed to get a lot of their national pride from how well the country does in sports. The national rugby team, the All Blacks are the current World Cup holders.

Here are some gratuitous pictures of hot All Blacks, including one of the team in their undies. Ooh la la! Just as an FYI, if you happen to like the All Blacks’ Jockey campaign, then you might want to google ‘Gods of the Stadium’. The French Rugby Team does a nude calendar every year! You can thank me later for the heads up:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So in a round about way this all brings me to my little sproglet and peewee Rugby. My son is a very rough and tumble, sporty kid. I don’t event think I’m being bias when I say this either. He crawled at 4 months and walked at 10. The kid’s a bruiser. Given this, my husband and I thought it would be a brilliant idea to enroll him in peewee rugby when he came of age. Like any good Kiwi or Kiwi convert, we were thinking maybe he’d end up an All Black one day. His dad’s a network engineer and I’m an ex-anthropologist turned writer, but hey, you never know.

My husband and I were all excited when the first night of rugby rolled around. It started at 5 pm, so my husband came home early from work and during the car ride over we were talking it up to Zac like it’s the best thing. We truly believed he was going to have a ball. We pictured an adorable mob of little person chaos where Zac was going to thrive.

From my set up you can probably guess what happened next. Zac wasn’t having a bar of it. The first shot is of his jersey, which he refused to put on and threw on the ground instead. The next shot was right after I asked if we wanted to throw the ball around. I got a very vehement “NO.” Every other kid but one was running around having a grand old time but something about it just freaked Zac out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zac never took the field that first week. The second week of practice I forgot to take him and then we had a bit of a breakthrough in the third week. Zac agreed to put the jersey on and run around for a bit! He still asked to go home after 20 minutes and has done so each week since. At least I got my shot of him in a uniform holding a ball. I have a feeling this may be the only shot I get of him playing rugby. We’ll see. Maybe next year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll end this post with a youtube clip of the All Blacks doing the haka! Why am I doing this you might ask? Well, first off I think it’s pretty cool (they do it before every game) and second off, I close with the haka as a lamentation. Alas, I no longer envision my son standing on the rugby field as a young muscled lad with a career of fame and rugby fortune ahead of him. I guess he’s going to have to study hard in school like the rest of us!

Expat Life in New Zealand #17-The Feijoa

In my ‘Expat Life in New Zealand’ series I’ve delved a little bit into the culinary differences between the US and NZ, mainly with my posts about Christmas feasts and the Kiwi Burger. Today I thought I’d get a little bit fruity! Last week, I lamented the lack of fall foliage in NZ (the native trees are evergreen) but there is one wonderful thing autumn in NZ brings and that’s Feijoa, heaps and heaps of my very favorite fruit.

What is a feijoa you say? I didn’t know either until I visited NZ in May. They look like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And grow on trees like this:

 

 

 

 

 

Feijoa are native to the highlands of South America but strangely enough NZ is where they are widely cultivated. I’ve got no clue on how that came to be. Feijoa are also know at guavasteen and pineapple guava and are oh so delicious. In my opinion, they taste like a fruit version of Sour Patch Kids, only, you know, healthy.

At this point you might be wondering why something so yummy isn’t imported to your neck of the woods. The answer is that the growing season is quite short (March to June) and the fruit is quite perishable. The trees/shrubs are also quite finicky. In order to fruit they need (according to Wikipedia) 50 hours of winter chilling to fruit and don’t like summer temperatures over 90 degrees. If you want to get Feijoa in the States, California is your best bet although you better get out your check book. They won’t come cheap.

Although Feijoa are quite perishable they can be made into many delicious products and some even have decently long shelf lives. Products include:

Feijoa infused vodka (NZ has jumped on the vodka production bandwagon with 42 Below)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soft drinks

 

 

 

 

 

Smoothies

 

 

 

 

 

Tea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Yoghurt

 

 

 

 

 

I can personally vouch for all the products except for the Vodka. Yum.

So if you’re ever in NZ and run across feijoa, perhaps you’ll remember this post and how I said it tasted like candy, only healthy, and you’ll give the strange little green fruit a try. You won’t regret it!

Expat Life in New Zealand #16-Autumn or the lack there of

 

 

 

 

 

For as long as I can remember, autumn has been my favorite season. I love the changing leaves, the crisp air, and the smell of wood smoke that often hangs in the air. Other than my family and friends, autumn is what I probably miss most about not living in the States. New Zealand you see, tends to skip right from summer into winter. Last week it was summer and this week winter is here. No, it’s not snowing, that happens only every five years or so, but the weather has definitely slipped into winter coat territory. My son is particularly crushed that he now needs to wear shoes so his toes don’t freeze off on the cold concrete.

Sitting warm and comfy in the house, I wouldn’t necessarily know that winter was here. As NZ native trees are evergreen, my view is pretty much the same year around. Green, green and more green. It’s lovely but…

This is the view from our backyard. It never changes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I’ve always found leafless trees a tad on the depressing side unless they’re covered in snow, I’d gladly accept a little winter barrenness in exchange for some autumn color. I really and truly miss the leaves changing. Everything always felt so vibrant as the trees had one last burst of mirth before retiring for a long slumber. The horses I rode were always full of beans, I always felt comfortable from a temperature standpoint (I hate being hot), and all my favorite foods made their seasonal appearances-pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin pie, Starbucks pumpkin spiced whatevers.

It’s funny what you miss when it’s gone!

Expat Life in New Zealand #15-Easter Traditions

Whether or not you celebrate Easter, I hope you had a lovely break this past weekend. In light of the holiday, I thought it might be fun to look at the differences in Easter traditions in the US and NZ.

So I’m just going to hop right in!

1. The first thing I’ve noticed about Easter in New Zealand is the absence of the traditional US Easter basket. My mom always did up the most beautiful Easter baskets for me but that’s not a thing in NZ. I searched high and low for baskets last year and found none. This year, there were a few around, but not many.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. If you’re like me, you might have grown up getting the whispy plastic-like green Easter grass in your baskets. Yeah, that don’t have that here. Although it reminds me of my childhood, I imagine its absence is a good thing. That stuff can’t be good for the environment.

 

 

 

 

 

3. Oh My God, the chocolate! NZers may not be into Easter baskets but they do seem to be into BIG ASS CHOCOLATE EGGS AND BUNNIES. I’m talking big people. Like give your child juvenile diabetes in a day, BIG. Kids over here aren’t getting the piddly palm sized chocolates like you get in the States. No sir. Some of the stuff out there is literally 1/2 the size of my 3.5 year old. The eggs are way bigger than footballs, for example. As much as I’ve tried to understand this trend, I just can’t wrap my head around it. You can’t eat something like that in a sitting. Are you suppose to eat it as a group? Wrap what your kid can’t finish in plastic wrap to keep it fresh?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. I’ll be the first to admit that both Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny freaked me out as a kid. I was always afraid Santa would think I’d been bad and…well…the Easter Bunny often looked vicious. It’s those damn front teeth that look like they’re going to gnaw your face off. From my guesstimation, about half the Easter Bunnies in the States look freakishly scary while, from what I’ve seen (albeit my scope is limited), the Easter Bunnies in NZ are of the friendly, not likely to scar your child sort.

US Easter Bunnies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NZ Easter Bunny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Easter Dinner…I asked my husband what he wanted to do for Easter dinner this year and he looked at me like I had three heads. “What do you mean?” he asked. “I mean what kind of special dinner do you want to fix to celebrate since your parents are visiting?”
He cocks his head to the side. “Honey, Easter dinner’s not a thing here.”

At first, I thought my husband was just being lazy and didn’t want to do anything but when I asked around, it turns out Easter dinner is indeed “not a thing here.”

Easter dinner in the US

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter dinner in NZ

 

 

 

 

 

No joke, we had a BBQ with sausages at a friends house!

6. And the final big difference that I’ve noticed…dun, dun, dun…Kiwi’s don’t go in for egg dyeing or shrink wrapping. They hide chocolate eggs wrapped in colorful foil. This tradition makes me a bit sad because I really loved dyeing the eggs with my mom. That said, the eggs over here are brown and maybe dyeing them wouldn’t really work. I’ll have to experiment next year and see.

US Easter Eggs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NZ Easter Eggs

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those living abroad, what holiday traditions do you miss most?

Expat Life in New Zealand #14-World Cup Cricket

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s something I never thought I’d say…let’s talk Cricket today. So Cricket fever has well and truly hit New Zealand, in part because NZ and Australia are sharing hosting duties for the Cricket World Cup and because NZ is actually good this year and might win. If they did, that would mean NZ held the World Cup in both Cricket and Rugby. For a country of 4 million people, that’s pretty damn good.

If you are like me prior to my Cricket education, you may be thinking that Cricket is kinda like baseball only played with a funny bat in Britain and British Commonwealth countries. Well you’d be kinda right and kinda wrong. Back when I studied abroad in Australia, I had a conversation where I learned all I’d ever need/wanted to know about Cricket. It was with a cute Australian guy that wandered over to me while some friends and I were at a bar (this was back when I actually went to bars.)  So I thought I’d share my conversation with you, so you too can become enlightened about Cricket. I can’t remember the guys name so we’ll call him Stevo since Aussie’s like to tack O’s onto the ends of names for some reason…

Pre-Cricket Conversation-some flirting and discussion of courses we were taking at school. Then…

Me: What do you do for fun?

Stevo: Play Cricket.

Me: That’s kinda like baseball right?

Stevo: (Eye roll) No, not really. (The conversation had been going good up until now but the eye roll…never a good sign)

Me: But there’s a pitcher and catcher, right?

Stevo: They’re called a bowler and wicket-keeper.

Me: What’s a wicket?

Stevo: The three stumps and two bails at the end of a pitch.

Me: The what, what?

Stevo grabs a soggy napkin off the bar and a pen from when someone was closing out their tab and draws something similar to the image below, although less good because of the soggy napkin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me: And what do you do with that? And what’s a pitch? Is that like a bowl?

Stevo grabs another napkin…

 

 

 

 

Stevo: The pitch is the central strip on the field between the wickets. If you’re the bowler, you try to knock out the bails with your ball either by hitting them directly or hitting the stumps. If you’re the batsman, you’re trying to keep the bowler from hitting the bails by hitting the ball away from it.

Me: What does the batsman do when they hit the ball? Run the bases?

Stevo’s losing interest in me pretty fast now, but I’ve grown intrigued by Cricket. I studied abroad to learn right? Now, I must understand Cricket or die trying.

Stevo: No. He runs back and forth on the pitch as many times as he can to score runs.

Me: They score runs in baseball.

Stevo: That’s nice.

Stevo looks around for an escape.

Me: How long does a game usually last?

Stevo: Depends on what kind of match it is. Anywhere from five days for a Test match to three hours for a Twenty20 match.

Me: Five days! Why would anyone want to watch a game that long? Or play for that matter?

Stevo: Playing’s fun and…well…watching…that’s for the beer.

At this point, Stevo said he needed to hit the loo and he vanished out of my life forever. The one that got away.

Intrigued by Cricket yet?  I’ll admit that my fascination waned once my blood alcohol level dropped. I’ve watched 1/2 a game on TV and then promptly put it with baseball as a game that I’d happily go see in person but wouldn’t watch on the tube. There’s something to be said for the ambience of a live sporting event. My viewing of sports on TV is pretty much reserved for all the girly stuff like women’s figure skating and gymnastics and for the odd year when the University of Kansas men’s basketball team makes it to the national finals.

Want to learn more about Cricket? Check out this homemade Cricket for Dummies video, replete with James Bond music.

I’ll close out this post by imparting this fun Cricket factoid…the longest Cricket match on record was 9 days and it ended in a draw. It happened in 1939 with England playing South Africa in Durban and it ended in a draw because the English players needed to catch their boat back home.

Expat Life in New Zealand #13-The Kiwi Burger

Are you into culinary adventures and trying food from around the world? If so, look no further than this post. In an intriguing twist on an American favorite, I’ll be introducing you, my intrepid reader, to the Kiwi burger today. I’m not a connoisseur of much when it comes to cuisine (I’m pretty low brow), but I am a connoisseur when it comes to the cheeseburger. Cheeseburgers have been one of my favorite things to eat since I was a kid. I had them whenever I went out to eat. Didn’t matter where I went. Five star restaurant to celebrate something…cheeseburger. Diner…cheeseburger. Fried chicken specialty restaurant…cheeseburger. I liked my cheeseburgers vegetable free with ketchup. No mustard. No mayo. Just ketchup, cheese and meat. I very clearly remember have a conniption fit and a really good pout when taken to a chinese restaurant that could not make me a cheeseburger. I’ve since grown up some in regards to my eating repertoire. I will now order something other than a cheeseburger when I’m out to eat and I eventually did learn to eat salad (although not until I was 30), but I still enjoy a good burger and New Zealand does them up…rather interestingly!

So at this point you’re probably asking what makes a Kiwi burger different? Well, there are three things actually. The first two have to do with burger accoutrements. Kiwi’s like there burgers with…dun, dun, dun…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, that’s right. Kiwi’s love to throw a good beet on their burgers. I remember biting into my first cheeseburger in New Zealand and the ‘what the hell’ moment that followed when something crunched. I quickly peeled back the bun and there a slice of beet was in all its resplendent glory. I’m not sure where or when the beet trend started. Was there an excess of beets one year and people were trying to find ways to use them all? When I think of beets, pairing them with a burger certainly doesn’t spring to mind right off the bat. But turns out beets are decent-ish on a burger.

While I’m still a little iffy on the whole beet thing, the next accoutrement that Kiwi’s like to add to burgers, I can totally get on board with. And it is…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turns out slapping a fried egg on a burger equals yummy goodness!

Now on to the third thing that makes a NZ burger a bit different. It has to do with feeling ethically okay about what you’re eating. While I love meat, I also love animals and I want them to be treated well, even the ones that end up on my plate. NZ cows are happy cows until their dying day. Unlike feedlot cows, they roam freely in the NZ hill country, living a good cow life in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, here is a photo of your classic Kiwi Burger. Available at McDonalds, of course!

Expat Life in New Zealand #12-Christchurch and the Earthquake Recovery

This past weekend I happened to be visiting Christchurch on the four year anniversary of the earthquake that demolished much of the city. My husband and I were living in Christchurch for both the big September and February quakes in 2010 and 2011. I was pregnant with my son for the second one and we lived there for a year and a half after the February quake before moving to Wellington. If you don’t live in an earthquake prone area you may not know this, and I certainly didn’t know it until the Christchurch quakes but aftershocks can go on for eons after a major quake. Eons as in several years and thousands of aftershocks. I didn’t realize how on edge the aftershocks made me until we moved to Wellington and they stopped. My son is a total daredevil/adrenaline junky and part of me thinks it’s because of all the shots of adrenaline he got while in the womb!

It was strange seeing Christchurch so changed since my last visit two years ago. I recognized so much but half the time I couldn’t place where I was because the buildings I’d once known were gone, vacant lots in their place. I spent a sizable chunk of time trying to remember what once stood in all the empty places. In many ways, Christchurch is right out of one of the dystopian novels I like to read. On a sunny, hot day you can almost ignore all the cranes, half demolished buildings, and road cones but when the gray clouds roll in and the rain starts, things go downhill fast.

A few rubble necking pictures from my visit. Keep in mind that it has been 4 years since the quake and things still look pretty bad.

A lot of shipping containers are used to prop up buildings.

One of the bright spots of the visit and what really drove home the strength and resilience of the human spirit was all the art that was popping up around the city on the sides of broken buildings and in newly vacant lots. To see such beauty amongst such despair was quite heartening.

Also heartening are all the clever little things that have sprung up because of the quakes such as the Re:START container mall (it’s just as it sounds, a mall made entirely of shipping container shops). The yellow orb-like benchey things outside the mall are made from earthquake rubble.

And the community garden in the middle of a vacant lot…

And the flowers put in the road cones in remembrance of the February quake…

And finally, the humor amongst all the crap–a mini cooper now attached to the side of building!

 

Expat Life in New Zealand #11-The Birds

 

As an avid photographer and traveler, one of the things that really contributes to a sense of place for me whenever I visit a new country is the animals unique to the area. New Zealand’s an interesting case in that it is relatively devoid of indigenous mammals. Except for a few of the bats, most all the mammals in New Zealand were introduced by either the Maori or the Pakeha (white New Zealanders). Instead, New Zealand is a land of birds. And what cool birds they are. Between the unique looking birds and the crazy, gorgeous landscape, New Zealand has an otherworldly feel to it.

Some cool facts about New Zealand birds:

1. The Kiwi bird, the namesake of Kiwi people, is the only bird to have nostrils at the end of its bill. It uses its sense of smell to sniff out invertebrates in the dirt.

2. Kiwi birds have one of the largest egg to body weight ratios of any birds. This x-ray picture is crazy right? I mean where are the poor things organs?

3. Kiwi birds live for a long time. Between 25 and 50 years if not killed by introduced mammals.

4. The largest eagle known to have existed is from New Zealand. The Haast eagle had a wingspan of 8.5 feet and weighed between 22 and 33 lbs. It became extinct when its food source, the Moa, disappeared. The biggest eagle living today is 40% smaller than the Haast.

5. In addition to being home to the world’s largest eagle, New Zealand was home to one of the world’s largest birds – The Moa. There were nine species of Moa and the largest was 12 ft tall and weighed 510 pounds. Now, that’s one big ass bird! The Moa were hunted to extinction by the Maori. Being large, flightless and not use to humans, they made for easy prey.

The picture below is a depiction of a Haast eagle hunting a Moa.

6. New Zealand is also home to several unique parrot species. Two of the most interesting are the alpine dwelling kea which is arguably the world’s smartest parrot (see video below) and the nocturnal, ground dwelling kākāpō. I’ve yet to see a kākāpō but I have seen several Kea. They love to steal trinkets off hiker’s backpacks and dismantle cars. Stripping windshield wipers of their rubber is a favorite kea past time.

For your amusement, here is a video of a poor wildlife photographer being shagged by a kākāpō. Talk about taking one for the team!

Since we’re talking birds, I will close this post by sharing the following advertisement that played on Kiwi TV several years ago. The ad features Pukekos or Swamp Hens. These birds are found all over NZ in the marshy areas. They aren’t unique to NZ, but they are damn cute. Especially the babies! I think it’s the giant feet on the tiny bodies:)

 

Expat Life in New Zealand #10-The lingo

 

I’ve lived in New Zealand for seven years now and I’ve noticed a very recent surge in my use of Kiwi lingo. Half the time I don’t even know I’m doing it until I stop and think, and sometimes I can’t even recall which is the American way of saying something and which is the Kiwi. I blame my son and his poor sleeping habits for robbing me of my faculties. It’s actually become a bit of an issue in my writing as I’m almost always writing about Americans, so they shouldn’t be sounding like Kiwis. I’ve found myself, on more than one occasion, just staring at my computer screen, trying to remember what turn of phrase is said where. It’s not a pretty sight and sometimes there’s groaning and hair pulling involved.

Some of the words and sayings I’ve adopted:

1. Nappies instead of diapers. You know you’re a mom when…

2. Wee instead of pee. Yep, that whole mom thing…

3. Push chairs instead of strollers. I refuse to say pram, however. That just sounds too weird and kinda prissy.

4. Car park instead of parking lot. This one often confuses me when I write.

5. No worries. I never add ‘mate’ onto the end of it, though. That would be taking things too far.

6. I couldn’t be bothered. I actually found Kiwi’s use of this saying fairly offensive when I first moved here. I thought it sounded terribly rude. But now, for the life of me, I can’t understand why. It’s just what you say.

7. Knackered or shattered instead of tired. I don’t say ‘stuffed’, however, which also means tired. Whenever someone says that, I still think their stomach is full of food.

8. Dairy instead of convenience store.

9. ‘Good on you’ instead of well done. This one also confuses me when I write.

10. Adding ‘ish’ onto the end of any adjective. Big-ish, Blue-ish, pretty-ish.

11. Grog instead of beer. Whenever I say this, it makes me smile for some reason. It sounds so old timey.

12. ‘Sweet as’ instead of great. I also tend to add ‘as’ onto a lot of adjectives. For example, weird as, pretty as, tired as etc.

13. Bush instead of forest.

14. Tramp instead of hike.

15. Ute instead of SUV.

16. Takeaway instead of takeout.

17. Section instead of plot of land.

18. Sunnies instead of sunglasses.

19. Bloody hell instead of holy crap. For some reason I love saying this one. It has so much more oomph than the American versions.

20. Munted instead of broken. This one became particular popular to say after the Christchurch earthquakes. Christchurch was munted.

 

Although I’ve adopted a fair amount there are some words I can’t get use to such as petrol (gas), chilly bin (cooler), judderbar (speed bump), herb with a non-silent H, and rubbish (trash). I will literally pause before trying to say herb the Kiwi way, yet more than half the time it still comes out as ‘erb’.

And then there are the things I say that make Kiwi’s laugh like fanny (that’s a vagina in NZ).

 

Expat Life in New Zealand #9-Kiwis and their cats

Thought I’d start things off with a couple gratuitous pictures of Ian Somerhalder with his cats. Yeah, I know he’s not a New Zealander, but he is Ian Somerhalder so I figured it’s okay.

One thing that struck me soon after moving to New Zealand was that Kiwis are big cat people. I’m a cat person so of course I thought this was great. And even greater still is that Kiwi men really love cats. In the States it seemed a rarity for a single man to have a cat. I know I’m generalizing but when I was out there in the dating world, if a single guy had a pet it was a dog. When I came to NZ the story was totally different. Every guy I met had a cat. And for me, cat ownership shoots a guy right up the sexy scale. It’s no wonder I married a New Zealander. The only thing better than hot guys with cats is hot guys with babies and…well…that’s not something I was exactly looking for in a date.

Here’s another gratuitous picture. My husband showed me this one and asked if it made my ovaries pang. And the answer to that question was most definitely yes!

Wondering if Kiwi’s apparent love of cats was just in my imagination, I did a little research and found that New Zealanders are the world’s biggest cat owners (the article is here if you’re interested). We have four cats (Simon, Annie, Emmett and Sheamus) and on our last street before we moved, there were 13 houses and no fewer than 20 cats, probably more. If my old street is anything to go buy that means our neighborhood, which sits in an area of a couple square miles, has 700 or more cats. Yikes. Here are three of my writing buddies (Sheamus-all black/Emmett-black and white/Annie-the ladylike torty).

Despite Kiwis being a cat loving people, cat ownership is actually a contentious issue in New Zealand. Why? Because are huggable furry friends are killers at heart and New Zealand is a country with a very unique and endangered bird population. In recent years there has been a lot of political talk about banning cat ownership. Headlines include “Kill all the Kittens” and “Killing people’s pets”, so you can imagine things have been heated.

I’m not sure what the answer is. The environmentalist in me thinks maybe cats should be banned or perhaps phased out with all existing cats required to be desexed and feral cats killed. Then the other part of me loves having cats and sees them as an engrained part of Kiwi culture. Cats certainly aren’t the only danger to the NZ bird population. The stoats and possums introduced by early Kiwi settlers do as much damage if not more to the wild bird population than do cats.

What are your thoughts on the situation?