One thing about me is I love to eat. I guess you could call me a foodie. It has been quite jarring to go to the grocery store and see mostly unfamiliar brands. I was able to track down some mini packs of Goldfish at Woolworth’s the other day and nearly cried (my favorite snack at home). When I was asked to do a big snack order for the team at work one day, I was completely lost. However, asking a coworker for help sparked a fun, lively conversation about the best NZ snack brands and got us talking about more of the differences between here and (my) home.

For one, they all say my “accent” makes me sound like a movie character. This is interesting in many ways because I never thought of myself as having an accent, but now I find myself constantly surrounded by people who all sound different than me and I am the one with the accent. And, I sound like I’m in a movie because most of their media is American. (Side note: speaking of movies, the other night my roommate, Jackson, and I watched Lord of the Rings which was a super cool experience knowing that the entire franchise was filmed in New Zealand. Scenes in the Shire were filmed not even two hours south of us which is insane to think about! Those movies are so nostalgic for me and I can remember watching them all in one day with my dad when I was probably about 13, so it was an awesome experience to watch it here).

Being with Kiwis all day at work has caused me to pick up on a lot of their slang. They add “aye” into almost every sentence. A term for the afternoon is “arvo,” and I had never heard this one before so I thought my one coworker was speaking gibberish the first time he said it to me. Instead of “how are you doing” it’s “how are you going.” They call flip flops “jandals.” Instead of pronouncing the letter Z as “zee,” they say “zed,” which really throws me off sometimes. The place I work is “N Zed ME,” when I had been pronouncing it “N Zee M E” this whole time. My one coworker always says “ceebs,” which she explained to me is short for “can’t be bothered” (CBB), and this is one that I’m definitely going to take home with me. They’ll also end a sentence with “funny as” or “cool as,” and at first I was like “cool as WHAT?” But, they’ve explained a lot of their slang is just them being lazy so they shorten everything. A lot of these differences are the same in Australia but I was mostly around my American friends so I never was fully immersed in it until now.

Their use of British English spelling gotten me into trouble with the work I’ve been doing at times too. The first week, I had to fill out travel itineraries for some clients and the hotel they were staying at was on Viaduct Harbour. However, I spelled it the American way (no “u”) and had to go back and fix every single one. Recently, I’ve been writing up case studies to go on our website and have had to change a lot of the spellings since they use an “s” a lot of the places we would use a “z,” for example the word “maximizing” would be “maximising.” These minute language details are not really something you think about since they still speak English here, but it has been cool to learn the differences along the way.

Something else we’ve talked about a lot at work is fast food places. Everyone here seems to go straight to In-and-Out when this topic is brought up, which I have not yet tried, but it’s interesting to think about what that says about their concept of the US. That chain is only really on the west coast and would take a decently long flight for even me to get to, but they still think of that as THE American fast food chain. I told them all about my go-to orders from Jersey Mikes, Chipotle, and Chick-fil-A, and they said they’ve only seen them in Tiktok mukbang videos. They still have McDonalds, Taco Bell, KFC, and a few other American chains here, but I’ve noticed the food tastes way different of what I’ve tried. Talking about my favorite fast food items made me miss home a lot, and I’m already plotting where I’m gonna go first when I get back in a little over a month.

Onto the snacks

Probably the best chips I’ve ever had are from the brand SnackaChangi, which I found very interesting to learn is owned by a journalist who worked for the NZ Herald on the floor below me. The pun-filled packaging is reminiscent of Trader Joe’s, and the kettle-cooked chips are unbelievably crispy. I tried the sour cream & chive & onion ones and cannot get over how delicious the flavoring is. Another Kiwi favorite is Shapes crackers. They come in a bunch of flavors and it’s debated which is the best. I’ve tried the pizza, cheese & bacon, and chicken crimpy (chicken salt is a strangely common flavoring both here and in Australia), and my favorite is definitely the chicken ones. Possibly the best thing to come out of my time here is Whittaker’s chocolate, a New Zealand staple. The chocolate is so delicious, almost airy but still rich and comes in so many flavors. I’m already planning to export heaps of it with me for my friends and family (and myself) at home. All my friends in Sydney were all about Tim Tams but Whittaker’s is my Tim Tam.

I don’t really have any relevant photos for this week’s blog topic but here are a few pics from my day today. I was under the weather and in bed all day yesterday so it felt like the biggest blessing to be able to go outside. I had a pretty creepy experience with someone on the bus so I got off a few stops early on my way to the beach which ended up adding about a 40 minute walk, but the scenery was beautiful and made it all worth it!