Month: August 2015

Being a tourist in your new town

Alternately titled “Misadventures in Meetup”. Now that I’ve semi settled in to Auckland, I’ve been trying to find ways to keep myself busy in a place where I know no one. I think people like me are the main reason meetup.com is so popular. I may or may not have joined 20 meetup groups in Auckland so far….go big or be bored, right?

First up, a co-ed walking/hiking group, who I was meeting for an evening walk through the Auckland city center, along the coast, past the Prime Minister’s house and the Auckland Museum, and ending at a bar/coffee shop. I met a lovely English girl around my age who had just relocated to Auckland as well. She was living in a backpacker’s hostel and looking for work as a teacher. We chatted over how expensive things were here and how odd it is to be in a new city and not know a soul. But of course, no meetup is complete without obnoxious boys who try to hard at everything. You know how male dolphins will separate a female dolphin and force itself on her? The guys of meetup have tried to employ this very technique, but aren’t as smart as dolphins. The girl and I are trying to see the sites on a walking tour, yet everywhere I look there’s an obnoxious guy in my face wanting to know what I’m up to this weekend. Socially awkward guys of meetup, GET A CLUE. The more you press us, the easier the decision will be for us to block you before you can send 10 unanswered messages.  Anyway…besides the annoying boys, the walking tour was nice

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The only picture I managed to break away from the herd and snap. Hence the terrible quality, I was trying not to be noticed.

Next up was an all-girls outing, yay! Now I’m not normally a fan of the zoo, but I am a fan of making girl friends here. So on a nice sunny day, I ventured 45 minutes across town on a bus to see an elephant that had just arrived at the zoo. I met 11 girls from meetup, and all of them were so fun! We took the obligatory group and “fun” photos on the way in–nothing like meeting a group of strangers and trying to look like we all belong together after having known each other all of 60 seconds!

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Ok, everyone, arms around each other! Let’s look like old friends!
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Oh look, a lion! I know we don’t know each other yet, but we’re going to have to sacrifice one of you so the rest of us can get away. It was nice meeting you!

We had a lot of fun, lots of laughs during the day. We stopped mid-afternoon to have lunch at the zoo cafe, which was really nice. And we saw a Kiwi bird!! I feel like as a proper NZ’er, I should know a lot about Kiwis. But I failed at step 1: identifying a Kiwi. Kiwis are apparently very very shy and nocturnal, so they’re in a dark quiet enclosure inside, and you can’t walk quickly or make any loud noises. And even still, it’s not guaranteed that the Kiwis will be out and about. Someone pointed at a giant chicken-sized bird excitedly, and I thought aww how cute, someone’s never seen a chicken before. But no, as always I am the jerk, because it turns out Kiwis are chicken-sized birds with reeeeeeally long beaks. Who knew! So…I’ve officially seen a Kiwi, NZ might as well give me residency already. Other highlights of the zoo trip were learning that a firefox is a real animal (and a super cute one at that!), seeing a wallaby for the first time, seeing a tasmanian devil and learning that they’re actually just large rodents, and crawling through the tunnels underneath the meerkat enclosure. What’s that you say, they’re made for 8 year olds? I’m not afraid to push an 8yo out of the way to poke my head up into a meerkat colony.

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Seeing if the meerkats will accept me as one of their own
Tasmanian devil, with my feet for size comparison. Looney Tunes, you lie! There's nothing ferocious about this little guy
Tasmanian devil, with my feet for size comparison. Looney Tunes, you lie! There’s nothing ferocious about this little guy
Who doesn't want to grow their veggies in giraffe poo??
Who doesn’t want to grow their veggies in giraffe poo??

The Auckland Zoo is highly recommended–it’s quiet, has really nice landscaping, and you can get a lot closer to the animals than at other larger zoos. It’s not too expensive, at $28/day.

Now to continue my touristy NZ weekend! Besides the beaches in Europe, where can you find men in the shortest shorts possible before being indecent? That’s right, a good old rugby game. I joined yet another meetup group to watch the NZ All Blacks vs Australia’s Wallabys (yes, that is their real name). I never knew that Australia and NZ were so competitive! Everyone in meetup was so excited to explain all the rules and nuances of rugby to me, and to tell me why NZ is the greatest country on the planet, and why Australia is the armpit of the universe compared to NZ. We went to a local pub that was showing the game on the big screen, and people were crammed in to watch. Rugby is actually a really fun sport to watch, as the action almost never stops. Peoples eyes can get gouged out, they can lose a limb, and they’d still be playing. American football, I’m looking at you to learn a lesson about not having downtime! There were NO commercial breaks except at halftime. Can you imagine such a sport??

The All Blacks are famous for their pre-game Haka. Just take a minute and go look at that picture. A whole team of muscly men do a tribal dance to intimidate the other team, complete with yelling, tongues, crazy faces, and throat slitting motions. It’s really fascinating, and it brings all of NZ to a standstill watching. The game was really intense, with NZ losing in the end. The general consensus was that all of NZ would be in a bad mood for the entire next week or so–rugby is so ingrained into people’s lives. Oh, and I noticed that the All Black’s office is next door to mine in the same building, so I’m hoping to get lucky enough for a player sighting sometime soon!

All in all, it was a nice weekend. Sometimes being a tourist can be fun, if you’ve got the right crowd with you to explore! And watching the game definitely made me a fan of rugby–I absolutely have to go see a live game now!

TIL

I feel like I’ve discovered something quirky or just slightly off around every corner here. Something just not quite…right. It’s like when you see someone you think you know, and you’re all OMG HIIIII and waving and making a fool of yourself, and everyone is staring at you because, no…that’s not at all who you thought it was. Anyhoo, just some of the random things that have made me scratch my head or look twice:

  • Everyone loves my American accent. They all want to talk American politics (which you all know I *super* love…), American economy, American beliefs, American EVERYTHING. It’s hard to explain to people that America is made up of a bunch of very different states–in their mind it’s one huge hive mind, and we all thing and talk and behave the same way–just like the movies! Today I got “How do Americans feel about Russians?”, “Who do you *really* think shot JFK?”, “Does every American really own a gun?”, and “Why are all your political figures such cartoonish caricatures?”
  • There are CCTVs *everywhere* here. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were even in the bathrooms. Dash cams aren’t a thing here yet, but not to worry, big brother is watching you just about everywhere else. Each bus has 4 cameras inside, as well as 2 outside. Public parks have one every hundred feet or so. Shops, restaurants, streets, taxis, you name it.
  • Remember when the iPhone 3G came out, and how excited everyone was because it was such a game changer? The world is in your hands! Blazing fast 3G speeds ZOMG!!! Yea, well all laugh about how 2000s that was, but NZ literally just got 4G in 2014. I asked about LTE at the major carrier and just got a blank stare. I haven’t had the pleasure of buying home internet yet, but I do know that there is a data cap. Yep, you read that right–a data cap on your home connection. The apartment I’m moving into currently has ADSL, but the roommates are open to installing fibre (with the proper British spelling, of course), so at least there’s that.
  • So not only is the internet slow and spotty, but it is *expensive*. Just like everything else here! I’ve already commented on the extreme sticker shock I’ve experienced so far, but every day I see a price on something that just blows my mind. Today it was an $8 box of cereal. Nothing special, just plain ol’ boring breakfast cereal.
  • Sushi can be stupidly cheap here though! Needless to say I’ve survived mostly on a fast food sushi chain that does a $5 special every day. I also supplement that with Korean pancakes that are $4 and oh-so-tasty. I’ve got to hunt out the cheap food in the area I just moved to though–it’s one of the pricier suburbs around. But my new coworkers gave me the heads up on a place that does cheap-ish sushi on Mondays/Fridays for lunch, so looking forward to that!
  • Everyone here is just SO. DANG. FRIENDLY. I can’t count the number of times people have seen me look confused/lost and offered to help. And people offer rides all the time, which saves me so much time! A 10-15 minute car trip can be upwards of 45-60 on the bus, so friendly people with cars are lifesavers. Another thing that still constantly surprises me is that each and every person says “thank you” to the bus driver as they get on, and again as they get off. It’s the little things that just make you think–ok, maybe people aren’t so bad after all.
  • Speaking of the buses…that is a learning curve in and of itself. How did people ever get anywhere without smartphones? Even when google is telling me exactly when and where to get on the bus, I’ve still managed to be standing at the wrong stop. And buses aren’t an exact science–if there’s no one signaling for a ride at a particular stop, the driver doesn’t stop. Which means the bus could skip several stops and be several minutes ahead. Or a pack of tourists could hold up a bus at a single stop for 5 minutes trying to buy tickets. So it’s honestly like a crapshoot every time I wait for a bus. But I can load up a card with money instead of having to have exact change, which is really really handy.
  • You also have to plan your day a little bit more when you’re using public transportation. I’ve had to learn the hard way twice now not to buy more than I can comfortably carry for an hour at worst. I made the mistake of grocery shopping downtown, then walking home because it was faster than the bus. At minute 30, I was hating the apples in my bag that felt like lead balloons. I was even hating the bread, even though it weighed almost nothing. I took the train out to a suburb to shop for a duvet and some pillows because stuff is cheaper outside of the city. Well the train wasn’t running very often by the time I was finished, so I had to take the bus back. I was carrying a shoulder bag, a giant bag with 2 pillows in it, a large sack with a duvet, and 2 small carrier bags. I just prayed the whole time that no one tried to sit by me!
  • I thought about Ubering the other day to an early morning appointment, because I didn’t want to get up the extra 45 min ahead of time to ensure I’d make it even if the buses were running behind. It was also a rainy dreary day, so I didn’t want to stand at the bus stop and get drenched. Turns out, most of the city had that same idea, because Uber was in 2x primetime. Talking with a few others, Uber goes into prime time every time it starts raining, which is *often* this time of year.
  • Oh, and the weather. Texas may have all 4 seasons in 1 week, but Auckland has all 4 seasons in 1 day. Just this morning I left the apartment, singing a song because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky! The sunshine was marvelous! I had the whole day ahead of me! And then I felt a cold wind…which I’ve learned now is nature whispering in your ear…”I hope you brought an umbrella”. I had just barely gotten mine open, when it started to hail! Of course it stopped the minute I got under a covered awning, and there was Mr. Sunshine back in full force!
  • It’s the tail end of winter here, which means it’s around 48-54 degrees at any given minute on any day. Which doesn’t seem *that* cold…until you realize that there is no central heating here. Trying to sleep in a 50 degree room is not something I particularly enjoy doing! So I invested in one of those old time hot water bottles that I had never seen in real life before. You’ve seen them in old movies/cartoons–you fill them up with super hot water, and put them under the covers with you to stay warm! Or put them on your head/stomach/whatever hurts. So that’s my primary source of heat these days…

All in all, it’s hard to say that some of these things are Auckland-specific. I would have had the same problems adjusting to riding the bus or an increased cost of living if I had moved to NYC. But at least Kiwis are extremely good natured and friendly, so none of these things have been huge issues!