Day 29: Odds and Ends

---

---

I am spending today by the fire in the lounge at Te Anau. At 4 p.m. or so, I'll be heading out, walking the four blocks back to Kiwi Country, dragging my luggage behind me. I doubt I'll have any help from the locals this time, but I'll be a lot less tired, which is bound to help. If all goes well, I'll get into Queenstown at 7:45.

Since there's not much to say about sitting by the fire in the lounge, except that it's a great fire and especially nice on a cold, windy, rainy day like this one, I'm going to devote today's entry to mentioning some of the differences I've noticed in daily life in New Zealand.

First of all, amazingly enough, New Zealanders don't seem to have invented the pot holder. Admittedly, I didn't think to look while I was in the house of the lady who invited me to tea, so perhaps it is just hostels that don't have pot holders, but not a single hostel so far has had one. You're expected to take hold of hot surfaces with dish towels, doubly and trebly folded. I've only burned myself twice. I wonder what little New Zealand kids do for summertime craft projects?

Secondly, each outlet in New Zealand has its own little switch. Not just each pair of outlets, either; each individual outlet. So when you plug anything in, you have to check to make sure that your outlet is turned on. Most of the switches glow with tiny orange LEDs when they're on.

Thirdly, commodes in New Zealand work on a dual-flush system, like those in Japan. There's one button to press for a "half flush", and another for a "full flush." The only problem is that the "half flush" simply doesn't work for women. It will not flush paper properly. And entirely too many of my fellow hostellers have been failing to realize this.

Fourthly, all the conventional ovens I've seen so far have worked on a timer, like microwaves. To use them, you set the temperature (in C) on one dial and then set a timer to turn the oven on for a set length of time. The oven in Tekapo also had five different cooking options, described by incomprehensible graphics; once I chose the wrong one and my food didn't cook. After that someone helped me set it correctly.

Fifthly, the New Zealand accent, or at least the Fiordland/Clutha accent, is a curious one. People substitute long e for short e and short i for schwa. ("O, Little Town of BEETH-lih-heem.") Of course, I'm sure I sound just as strange to them.

---