January, February, March, April, now it's May. Somehow, months and months have gone by the wayside. The longer things go unsaid, the harder they are to say -- where to begin? Although I have had quite a number of "Oh, I need to write about that" moments, and the opening lines of many many a post have percolated around in my head, there has always been something that has gotten in the way of my sitting down and actually writing the thing. I've got some boring what-the-hell-has-happened-over-the-past-few-months stuff I need to get out in order to move on, but before I do that, I'll try to resurrect a couple/few of the things I should have written about.
1. Kiwi Hospitality. I assume it's because we're living in Wellington, a busy, cosmopolitan-ish, sophisticated, home of the political and all that goes along with that, but after we moved here, we found that we were never really on the receiving end of any of that Kiwi openness and hospitality this country is so famous for. People are nice, for sure, but people we met on buses were not inviting us home for dinner and no one handed us the keys to their bach, or gave us their old bicycles to ride, or told us we had to go and stay with their relatives when we were in Carterton, Whanganui, Waikanae, Motueka, Central Otago, wherever, next weekend. We didn't really think the friendly Kiwi thing was a fiction, but we certainly didn't expect it anywhere, based on our first 6 months here. Then we went to the Coromandel Peninsula for a few days with friends from the U.S. who were visiting. And we had a giant plate of fresh fish handed to us through the window! Finally! The friendly neighbor of the bach where we were staying was a classic guidebook Kiwi. The morning after we arrived he headed over, in his shorts and gumboots, across his yard toward our kitchen window as we were making breakfast. In his hand he carried a plate heaping with beautiful fresh-caught snapper fillets, which he handed us with good cheer. After a nice chat (and many exclamations of thanks on our part), he headed home, only to return later to offer us use of his washing machine should we need to do any laundry during our stay. Wow.
I should add that a couple of days ago, as I was heading out of Zealandia, a fabulous bird sanctuary a short walk from our house, a woman leaving the parking lot in her car slowed down, rolled down her window and asked me if I wanted a ride anywhere. Since I only live a 5 minute walk away, I said no thanks, I just live up the hill, but I was pleasantly surprised to see this type of generous behaviour to strangers happening here in Wellington. Who knows, perhaps it is only extended to tourists (Zealandia is definitely on the tourist circuit)? We are in some weird category between tourist and local. Lots of Wellington people are from somewhere else (in NZ) and are here because of school or work. So there's less of that sense of small-town NZ here.
2. Paper Napkins. Apparently there is a training course that any eating establishment in New Zealand must take before getting licensed for business. There is only one module in the course -- paper napkins. There are two rules for napkins here. One, they must be as small and cheap as possible. Two, they must be rolled around the silverware and "glued" together by moistening the point of the folded napkin in water (or paste?) and sticking it to the roll. This guarantees that you will shred some portion of your napkin into bits as you try to get it unstuck from itself and unrolled from your fork and knife. This rule holds true whatever the class of restaurant. Evan and I were surprised (appalled, actually), to have tiny cheap paper napkins at a meal in a very upscale restaurant where the bill was north of $200. We don't really understand it. I have decided that this training course, and the whole "napkin conspiracy" is funded by Persil, or maybe some consortium of laundry detergent manufacturers. One's clothes are much more at risk of being either used as napkins, due to aforesaid shredding, or being the target of an errant bit of food dropping into the lap, as the napkins are not actually large enough to cover both legs of a seated adult. In a cafe or coffeeshop, there are never containers of napkins sitting about in case you need an extra one. And if you go up to the counter to ask for one, they'll make a big production of finding you one - there is always a big stack of the pre-rolled napkin/silverware rolls, but never any solo napkins. So, we have mostly learned to live with it and had stopped thinking about it so much until we went to Auckland, where Evan read an article in Auckland Magazine about the best restaurants in Auckland. The reviewer was doing some generalizations about the places, both good and bad points, and he made an issue of pointing out that several of these high-end restaurants were still working in this paper napkin scheme. WHAT'S WITH THAT? the review basically scolded. I finally brought it up with a Kiwi friend. She and her husband had just had the same experience we did at the expensive Wellington restaurant and had remarked on it. So it seems that at least some Kiwi diners know that a tiny paper napkin doesn't belong with a $200 dinner. SO WHAT'S WITH IT? I really want to know.
