Post Script
Well, here we are at the final-ish post. Settling in to our day-to-day lives has proven to be harder than we anticipated. The tedium of work and the usual daily chores is something everyone has to get used to after a spell away from it and we've done that several times, but the time shift has been harder for us to get used to. It is said it takes a day to re-adjust for each time zone shift and that would suggest we should be back on track on Thursday, but if Wednesday morning was any indication, we still have a few days to go.
Our apartment was almost exactly as we had left it, except suspiciously cleaner. We had arranged for Debbie's sister Diane to look in and water the plants, but I think there may have been some unauthorized cleaning going on. We had left a sign on our 2 1/2 foot cactus instructing Diane not to water it, as we didn't want it to get over-watered, and we thought it could easily last a month without. Turns out we were wrong. The sad thing is now a serious crispy critter, and a good soaking on Saturday doesn't seem to have sparked it to life. R.I.P cactus. We'll miss your toxic spines.
It's Thursday now, the fridge is re-stocked, the alarms seem to be working as expected, and we've had a couple of days to settle in. We both miss NZ already, although it's hard to separate the longing for the NZ life we became accustomed to living, from being accustomed to not have to get up to go to work. It's a hard call, but I'm still leaning towards NZ.
On Saturday we dropped by one of our favourite haunts, Archibald's on Yonge Street at the south end of Richmond Hill (one of the finest pub kitchens we've found - the soups are excellent!). They have a central fireplace to warm the bones of folks recently arrived from southern climes, and I thought this would be a good final "cafe" photo.
Here is a list Debbie and I made over the last few days of our trip that illustrates a few of the more and less obvious differences between what we in Canada find common in everyday life and what we observed that those living in New Zealand experience (that may not have been mentioned before).
Coffee (Debbie's life blood at times) is a peculiar mix of common and different. While you can't get a "large double double" like you might order at a Tim Horton's, and in general there are almost no instances of what we would call standard black coffee available, there are a whole lot of espresso machines in NZ. Debbie's first experience (I don't drink the stuff, just so's ya know) with the coffee culture of NZ was at the airport the first day we arrived. She ordered a large coffee with cream and received what they call a flat white: a latte with extra foamed milk on top.
The penetration of espresso machines in NZ is phenomenal. Every Mom and Pop diner will have a multi-thousand dollar, multi-head espresso machine with multiple heads for foaming the milk. The McDonald's in Taupo had it's own cafe section with a couple of espresso machines going full tilt. It's really hard to convey strongly enough how pervasive the espresso machine has invaded NZ. Just take my word for it. If you think waiting in line at the Tim's is painful, try it when every coffee has to be individually dribbled out of an espresso machine. That'll teach those coffee addicts some patience I'll tell ya!
Debbie noticed and I concur (People wear shoes? Who knew?) that the people of NZ have unusually resiliant flesh between their big toe and the second toe. This must be the case, because an abnormal number of people wear those flip flop sandals that have the piece that goes between those two toes, and we never noticed an abnormal number of people hobbling down the street which is what would happen if the same number of Canadians started wearing those things.
The average NZ home is roofed with metal. We saw very few (if any) asphalt shingle roofs. I can't really say why this is, but it makes perfect sense to me. I realize that Debbie and I just spent two summers roofing our Dome with asphalt shingles, but on a normal sloped roof, why isn't everyone using metal?
The government in NZ has embarked on a program to reduce number of traffic fatalities and since it's cheaper than lowering the speed limit or straightening out the roads, they have decided to put up a whole whack of signs pointing out the folly of driving tired/fast/drunk/confidently/etc. As an outsider, some of them seem pretty obvious, but some of them are real head scratchers. Debbie caught a few of them on pixels.
You may have to click on the pictures to get a bigger image to properly read the signs if either your monitor or eyesight are found wanting.
I did a little research after I returned and determined that NZ has a fatality rate of around 1.2 per 100,000 versus Canada's at around 1.0 It's not that different, to my thinking, but then perhaps we make up for the agressive driving and horrible winding roads with whiteouts and black ice. Who knows?
New Zealand seems to be very well connected, internet-wise. They also have a high-ish suicide rate. We heard a news article commenting on the very high percentage of New Zealanders who are internet connected, followed immediately by another piece in which some government official was lamenting how pitifully slow most people's broadband access was. The high suicide rate all of a sudden made perfect sense since there's nothing more aggravating than waiting as your web page loads one painfully slow line at a time.
The sell what they call "Party Pills" in liquor stores and many other retail outlets, including convenience stores. In all honesty, we never figured out what they were, but it sounds vaguely dangerous. I must be middle aged. (Durn KIDS!)
Keeping in mind that we are grossly underserved in Ontario vis-a-vis Liquor Stores, I found that most small towns in NZ were overserved. We wandered around Taupo looking for beer one night, and although we were forced to go to the Woolworth's to get it, if we had been out before 9:00 pm we could have gone to one of the 5 liquor stores we passed. It's a little tourist town the size of Collingwood (population 1 liquor store). Just saying.
The people of New Zealand really love their restaurants and cafe's. No matter where we went, whether there was scenery or not, there would be a restaurant or two, each of which would have an outdoor component to the seating available. In addition, I would like to congratulate the people of NZ for making their waterfront locations available and attractive to the public at large. Just about every waterfront town has a long stretch of street dedicated to waterfront or water view cafe's with streetside tables.
I realize that the 12 months of semi-decent weather they have makes this more attractive from a retail standpoint, but there is also a huge urban planning component to this which has been completely lost in Ontario. In Toronto in particular, public access to Lake Ontario is severly restricted, with the vast majority of the waterfront occupied by private residences (condominiums, mostly). I am not exaggerating when I say that I can count on two hands the number of lakefront restaurants and cafe's there are, and very very few of those are reasonably priced such that an average person could drop by for a drink and a bite. It's pitiful for those of us that like that sort of thing.
In a similar vein, in NZ when the menu says Entree they mean appetizer. What we call Entree's they call Mains.
Although they have licences that say they can stay open until a certain hour (1:00 am or 2:00 am unless there is something special going on) most establishments close up early if there doesn't seem to be enough business. This goes along with the early closing of the kitchens but it is certainly not how things are done in Canada. If you advertise you're open 'til 1:00, you stay open.
In the popular tourist spots, including the Auckland Viaduct Harbour district, they have signs posted that warn that wandering about the area with open alcoholic beverages can result in a stiff fine. I really wish I had taken a picture, but I'm pretty certain that the maximum fine for this offense was NZ$20,000. I'm pretty sure I could get caught perpetrating much more serious crimes and get away with a much less onerous fine. The seem pretty serious about this public drinking thing, but it would imply that it was acceptable behaviour outside of the prohibited areas, and to be honest Debbie and I were the only people I ever saw with a drink in a public place (just on the beach ... I swear!).
As a bunch of brief observations:
- The $1 and $2 coins are reasonably sized, but the 50 and 20 cent coins are pretty heavy. The coins are changing very soon, but we didn't get to see the new ones.
- All of the hotel/motel rooms we visited had a bar fridge. This is a very civilized practice and I would encourage it in Canada.
- Most payphones only take plastic, either phone cards or credit cards - very few take coins.
- Most restaurants have very limited condiments available - no soya sauce, (actual) ketchup, hot sauce, vinegar
- What we call ketchup, they call tomato sauce, and it comes in little hard plastic packets and it usually costs extra. It doesn't taste like Heinz at all.
- The men in NZ are very considerate, and don't pee all over the toilet seats in public restrooms. I was actually not creeped out to use public toilets.
That's it for this trip report.
I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read about our little adventure (whether you offered comments or not). It took a bit of time to produce, but the feedback has been gratifying and much appreciated and has made the effort well worth it. I would especially like to thank all those who have been so complementary regarding the quality of the prose. It has been much appreciated and a great encouragement to one so new to the craft. Thank you.
Until our next trip ...
Don and Debbie
ps. If you found any of the pictures particularly interesting, we are willing to send out a small quantity of the original digital images. Each picture in the blog was reduced in size to make it a reasonable size to download. The original digital images are quite a bit more detailed. These images should not be used for commercial purposes without prior written consent.
If you want a particular image, please contact us via e-mail specifying the date that the picture appeared and either the picture name or a description. We can be reached at baylakedome(at)yahoo(dot)ca where (at) and (dot) should be replaced with an @ sign and a period respectively. We will be checking that address for a couple of months so if you contact us there we will get back to you.
Our apartment was almost exactly as we had left it, except suspiciously cleaner. We had arranged for Debbie's sister Diane to look in and water the plants, but I think there may have been some unauthorized cleaning going on. We had left a sign on our 2 1/2 foot cactus instructing Diane not to water it, as we didn't want it to get over-watered, and we thought it could easily last a month without. Turns out we were wrong. The sad thing is now a serious crispy critter, and a good soaking on Saturday doesn't seem to have sparked it to life. R.I.P cactus. We'll miss your toxic spines.
It's Thursday now, the fridge is re-stocked, the alarms seem to be working as expected, and we've had a couple of days to settle in. We both miss NZ already, although it's hard to separate the longing for the NZ life we became accustomed to living, from being accustomed to not have to get up to go to work. It's a hard call, but I'm still leaning towards NZ.
On Saturday we dropped by one of our favourite haunts, Archibald's on Yonge Street at the south end of Richmond Hill (one of the finest pub kitchens we've found - the soups are excellent!). They have a central fireplace to warm the bones of folks recently arrived from southern climes, and I thought this would be a good final "cafe" photo.
Here is a list Debbie and I made over the last few days of our trip that illustrates a few of the more and less obvious differences between what we in Canada find common in everyday life and what we observed that those living in New Zealand experience (that may not have been mentioned before).
Coffee (Debbie's life blood at times) is a peculiar mix of common and different. While you can't get a "large double double" like you might order at a Tim Horton's, and in general there are almost no instances of what we would call standard black coffee available, there are a whole lot of espresso machines in NZ. Debbie's first experience (I don't drink the stuff, just so's ya know) with the coffee culture of NZ was at the airport the first day we arrived. She ordered a large coffee with cream and received what they call a flat white: a latte with extra foamed milk on top.
The penetration of espresso machines in NZ is phenomenal. Every Mom and Pop diner will have a multi-thousand dollar, multi-head espresso machine with multiple heads for foaming the milk. The McDonald's in Taupo had it's own cafe section with a couple of espresso machines going full tilt. It's really hard to convey strongly enough how pervasive the espresso machine has invaded NZ. Just take my word for it. If you think waiting in line at the Tim's is painful, try it when every coffee has to be individually dribbled out of an espresso machine. That'll teach those coffee addicts some patience I'll tell ya!
Debbie noticed and I concur (People wear shoes? Who knew?) that the people of NZ have unusually resiliant flesh between their big toe and the second toe. This must be the case, because an abnormal number of people wear those flip flop sandals that have the piece that goes between those two toes, and we never noticed an abnormal number of people hobbling down the street which is what would happen if the same number of Canadians started wearing those things.
The average NZ home is roofed with metal. We saw very few (if any) asphalt shingle roofs. I can't really say why this is, but it makes perfect sense to me. I realize that Debbie and I just spent two summers roofing our Dome with asphalt shingles, but on a normal sloped roof, why isn't everyone using metal?
The government in NZ has embarked on a program to reduce number of traffic fatalities and since it's cheaper than lowering the speed limit or straightening out the roads, they have decided to put up a whole whack of signs pointing out the folly of driving tired/fast/drunk/confidently/etc. As an outsider, some of them seem pretty obvious, but some of them are real head scratchers. Debbie caught a few of them on pixels.
You may have to click on the pictures to get a bigger image to properly read the signs if either your monitor or eyesight are found wanting.
I did a little research after I returned and determined that NZ has a fatality rate of around 1.2 per 100,000 versus Canada's at around 1.0 It's not that different, to my thinking, but then perhaps we make up for the agressive driving and horrible winding roads with whiteouts and black ice. Who knows?
New Zealand seems to be very well connected, internet-wise. They also have a high-ish suicide rate. We heard a news article commenting on the very high percentage of New Zealanders who are internet connected, followed immediately by another piece in which some government official was lamenting how pitifully slow most people's broadband access was. The high suicide rate all of a sudden made perfect sense since there's nothing more aggravating than waiting as your web page loads one painfully slow line at a time.
The sell what they call "Party Pills" in liquor stores and many other retail outlets, including convenience stores. In all honesty, we never figured out what they were, but it sounds vaguely dangerous. I must be middle aged. (Durn KIDS!)
Keeping in mind that we are grossly underserved in Ontario vis-a-vis Liquor Stores, I found that most small towns in NZ were overserved. We wandered around Taupo looking for beer one night, and although we were forced to go to the Woolworth's to get it, if we had been out before 9:00 pm we could have gone to one of the 5 liquor stores we passed. It's a little tourist town the size of Collingwood (population 1 liquor store). Just saying.
The people of New Zealand really love their restaurants and cafe's. No matter where we went, whether there was scenery or not, there would be a restaurant or two, each of which would have an outdoor component to the seating available. In addition, I would like to congratulate the people of NZ for making their waterfront locations available and attractive to the public at large. Just about every waterfront town has a long stretch of street dedicated to waterfront or water view cafe's with streetside tables.
I realize that the 12 months of semi-decent weather they have makes this more attractive from a retail standpoint, but there is also a huge urban planning component to this which has been completely lost in Ontario. In Toronto in particular, public access to Lake Ontario is severly restricted, with the vast majority of the waterfront occupied by private residences (condominiums, mostly). I am not exaggerating when I say that I can count on two hands the number of lakefront restaurants and cafe's there are, and very very few of those are reasonably priced such that an average person could drop by for a drink and a bite. It's pitiful for those of us that like that sort of thing.
In a similar vein, in NZ when the menu says Entree they mean appetizer. What we call Entree's they call Mains.
Although they have licences that say they can stay open until a certain hour (1:00 am or 2:00 am unless there is something special going on) most establishments close up early if there doesn't seem to be enough business. This goes along with the early closing of the kitchens but it is certainly not how things are done in Canada. If you advertise you're open 'til 1:00, you stay open.
In the popular tourist spots, including the Auckland Viaduct Harbour district, they have signs posted that warn that wandering about the area with open alcoholic beverages can result in a stiff fine. I really wish I had taken a picture, but I'm pretty certain that the maximum fine for this offense was NZ$20,000. I'm pretty sure I could get caught perpetrating much more serious crimes and get away with a much less onerous fine. The seem pretty serious about this public drinking thing, but it would imply that it was acceptable behaviour outside of the prohibited areas, and to be honest Debbie and I were the only people I ever saw with a drink in a public place (just on the beach ... I swear!).
As a bunch of brief observations:
- The $1 and $2 coins are reasonably sized, but the 50 and 20 cent coins are pretty heavy. The coins are changing very soon, but we didn't get to see the new ones.
- All of the hotel/motel rooms we visited had a bar fridge. This is a very civilized practice and I would encourage it in Canada.
- Most payphones only take plastic, either phone cards or credit cards - very few take coins.
- Most restaurants have very limited condiments available - no soya sauce, (actual) ketchup, hot sauce, vinegar
- What we call ketchup, they call tomato sauce, and it comes in little hard plastic packets and it usually costs extra. It doesn't taste like Heinz at all.
- The men in NZ are very considerate, and don't pee all over the toilet seats in public restrooms. I was actually not creeped out to use public toilets.
That's it for this trip report.
I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read about our little adventure (whether you offered comments or not). It took a bit of time to produce, but the feedback has been gratifying and much appreciated and has made the effort well worth it. I would especially like to thank all those who have been so complementary regarding the quality of the prose. It has been much appreciated and a great encouragement to one so new to the craft. Thank you.
Until our next trip ...
Don and Debbie
ps. If you found any of the pictures particularly interesting, we are willing to send out a small quantity of the original digital images. Each picture in the blog was reduced in size to make it a reasonable size to download. The original digital images are quite a bit more detailed. These images should not be used for commercial purposes without prior written consent.
If you want a particular image, please contact us via e-mail specifying the date that the picture appeared and either the picture name or a description. We can be reached at baylakedome(at)yahoo(dot)ca where (at) and (dot) should be replaced with an @ sign and a period respectively. We will be checking that address for a couple of months so if you contact us there we will get back to you.
posted by Don at
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