Aerogers' Guestbook

Hiya Joe
Hi Joe, don't worry, we took no offense to either of your comments. There is a lot of truth behind your observations. I think the fair thing to say is that there are "ugly" travelers of all nationalities, and it's unfair to label someone a certain way just because of where they're from. As far as how things are done in NZ...well, it could be summed up as a question of efficiency. It's not that Americans or anyone else are "better" - it's just frustrating to know first-hand that there are more efficient ways of doing things that would make life easier for everybody, and yet your opinion is immediately discounted as being elitist and patriotic when you're merely trying to make a suggestion that has nothing to do with "how we do it back home" or such. The attitude there seems to be, "This is how we do it, we don't care if there's a different/more efficient/more cost-effective way of doing it, and if you don't like it, that's too bad." Coming from a society that is constantly looking at new ways to do things, that type of thinking is very narrow and frustrating. Not bad. Not worse. Just frustrating. Hopefully nothing we said in our blogs came across as too offensive, because that wasn't our intention. When you travel (and especially live) somewhere abroad, you can't help but comment on what you like and what you don't like about a place. I think that's only fair. Anyway, enough rambling. Cheers to you, too!!