Our time in New Zealand has now come to an end. It has been characterized by many different experiences, tastes, and sounds. Here is a selection of them:

• Something I knew but had completely forgotten about is that the sun moves in the other direction. I was a bit sad when arriving in Christchurch after the long flight when I realised that I wouldn’t have the sun shining on the lovely deck of the cottage I had hired, where I had planned to nap off my jetlag. Until it did, because the sun moves in the other direction! I have gotten used to it, putting my towel in the right place on the beach so that the shade will hit / or not hit.
• The sun is not the only thing moving in the ‘wrong’ direction, traffic also does. I’ve gotten so used to this now that, when I see a film where they drive on the right side of the road, I’m thinking ‘hey, that’s weird, they are driving on the wrong side of the road!
• The tides are also much more pronounced here than where we live in Denmark. There is usually about 3 meters difference between high and low tide, so there is quite the difference at the beaches. At low tide, you can walk quite far along the coast, underneath the cliffs, but you have to keep an eye at the tides because two teenagers got stuck on some cliffs when evening fell and the tide came in. They had to be rescued by the coast guard (and no, they were not our teenagers!!).
  
• In terms of sounds, one of the first things that we noticed was the kiwi accent, where they bend the ‘e’ into an ‘i’ so that it sounds like they are saying ‘twinty’ or ‘shit’ when they mean ‘twenty’ and ‘shed’. Especially when they talk fast, we also have some difficulty understanding what is being said.
  
• What is also very special in New Zealand is the beautiful nature and many trees and birds that only exist here. We saw a 1200 year old kauri tree, there are palm trees everywhere (including in front of our veranda) and I simply love the many pōhutukawa we see around Devonport and in the north. They are also called the Christmas tree here because they flower bright red in December. The way they bend their branches and cling to the cliffs is really amazing. They are also still green – it has become autumn now with some autumn colours here and there. There are also many special birds here, though I find them hard to spot and identify. We do have a Tūī in the garden next-door, and they make such funny and special sounds! These sounds will certainly remind me of New Zealand. And I’ve also been very happy to finally see a Monarch butterfly in their real habitat – they are just floating around here!!
• In terms of tastes, we had the opportunity to taste many cuisines in Auckland, which is a very multicultural city. With a Thai, Indian and fish & chips restaurant just around the corner, we were already well situated for take-away meals. Fish and chips is the most popular takeaway in New Zealand, with many options: hoki/terakihi/snapper and battered/crumbed/grilled. We also spotted many facades that proclaimed they offered ‘Chinese and European takeaway’ but never really tried those… We also explored many restaurants in Devonport, Takapuna and Auckland itself – French, Italian, Mediterranean, Lebanese, Dutch, Belgian, Brazilian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, U.S. American, Mexican and Argentinian streetfood… It was also interesting to see the Japanese restaurants here – in Denmark, you mainly get sushi restaurants (at least outside of Copenhagen), but here we got to try a donburi. We were also quite happy to find a really nice crêperie in Takapuna and a French lunch café we could walk to, and when an Italian espresso bar opened around the corner as well, Søren was especially happy. There are also a lot of breakfast and lunch places that close their doors around 3pm or so. Great places to have delicious Eggs Benedict or an Avocado smash on toast or sourdough.
  
• We also enjoyed going through various supermarkets (especially the New World) to see what is on offer. One thing that we benefited from is their many one person pies, which you can get freshly made in the deli or the bakery, packed as one-person takeaway meal (Dad’s Pies) in the supermarket, or as a bigger version to share from the freezer. We’ve eaten a lot of those, either as lunch from the bakery around the corner, where they also had a monthly changing vegetarian version, or from the supermarket on our way back from a weekend trip with the kids. We were also impressed by the incredible number of hummus variations in the supermarket. There is also a LOT of meat in the New Zealand supermarkets – but we were not impressed with the hot dogs we bought in one of the first weeks. And another acquired taste is the tap water, which contains chloride, so we boil it before we drink it, which helps. On the positive side, it’s not very hard like in Denmark!
• We also managed to taste the infamous ‘vegemite’, this black substance Kiwis and Aussies put on their bread, and that apparently you only love when you grew up with it. The kids were very skeptical about this (aka refused outright to try it), so I had arranged some interesting candy as reward (frozen strawberries with a chocolate cover) and the moment came when their mum was visiting and expressed an interest to taste it. And there you go, social pressure + a reward does the trick, and we all had a go. And what do you know, the kids actually didn’t dislike it – I did tell them they might actually be okay with it if they only took very little (that was the trick to it, I had heard from someone earlier – just spread it incredibly thinly on some toast with butter first, and then it’s nice). Linus was the most positive about it, which was probably because he really only took a few molecules :D.
• Funnily enough, I also discovered it is easier to get Dutch goodies here in NZ than in Denmark, I guess due to the many Dutchies here and that they can’t easily import stuff themselves. In the shopping mall about 15 minutes from here there is a shop called Amsterdam – Dutch owners – where you can get lots of Dutch cheese (including the Gouda goat cheese which I love), hagelslag, cookies, drop and chocolate peanuts. And pretty much every supermarket has stroopwafels and actually also often kano’s, for some reason (I love them too!). There is also a Dutch restaurant in the other suburb, where I couldn’t resist to get a frikandel speciaal (definitely not as good as in the Netherlands). The Double Dutch fries I got a food truck event in Narrow Neck also were not very special (though they did have the right Zaanse mayonnaise!). So I’m looking forward to my next trip to the Netherlands!