At last it has occurred. I’ve made that devastating slip that, in my mind, will forever establish me as a foreigner in New Zealand.

It was a simple enough encounter. I had just dropped off an abhorrent number of movies at two separate movie rental stores, and felt a hankering for food, specifically something cheap, relatively unhealthy, and fast. Since I have yet to see Super Size Me, I walked all five yards to the nearest McDonald’s without hesitation. Stepping in, I glanced over the menu, and with a nod to Pulp Fiction, I ordered the Chicken Royale combo, large.

“Eat here or takeaway?” asked the cashier. “Takeaway,” I immediately replied, with a slight jauntiness in my tone. Heh, I thought. Can’t trip me up with that question anymore, you wily Kiwis.

My celebration, it turned out, was premature. Although I didn’t yet know it, the wily Kiwi had an ace up his sleeve, an ace which would prove to be my bane, my very downfall.

“Coke?” he asked. Still mentally celebrating, I gave a perfunctory “Yeah,” and continued to perform the mini-dance inside my head.

Alas, my grievous sin was thus committed. The cashier walked away as I scanned the menu, looking for my beverage of choice. Or should I say, my coke (lowercase here) of choice. You see, in Texas, by and large we don’t say “pop,” we don’t say “soda,” we don’t say “beverage;” it all fits nicely under the single term, “coke.” (It should be noted here that some deep East Texans prefer the expression “fizzy drink” or some odd variation on this term. I don’t count them here, because these individuals tend to be very rare, and very weird.) Doesn’t need to be Coca-Cola, or even manufactured by the company; if it’s carbonated and non-alcoholic, it’s coke, no debate about it.

Now waiting expectantly on the cashier, having decided on Sprite, I was a little taken aback when he plunked down in front of me, of all things, a large Coca-Cola fizzy drink. He hadn’t even asked what I wanted! I assumed he was new at the job, and decided to let it slide.

Two minutes later, walking back to the flat, I stopped dead, realizing my blunder, and spent a quiet moment chuckling to myself. The moment was short-lived, though, because I quickly realized that I had stopped dead in the middle of the street, which would likely soon be more hazardous to my health than the Chicken Royale I held clutched in my hand.

You win this round, Kiwis. You win this time. But one glorious day, your linguistic barriers shall fall, and I will even the score.


This is a picture of Florence Hill lookout, taken on a trip to the Catlins, a conservation reserve on the southern tip of the South Island. The story of my trip to the Catlins will be told in pictures rather than words, as the photos seem to bear testimonial far better than I can. I went along with Dan, a couple of the Arcadia kids, Mandi and Alice, and one of Mandi’s flatmates, Alex.




Our first stop in the Catlins was here, at Purakaunui (sound it out) Falls. Nothing to report that you can’t already see.


If you turned to the other side of the landing from the main falls, you could catch a glimpse of these tiny, tiny falls, in which the biggest rocks you see are about the size of your fist. More of the Catlins to come!