Since I had never left the United States before coming to New Zealand, I was in for a real surprise on how cultures can be different! Even though many things are similar here to life in the United States there are enough things that are different that it makes life interesting. For example, Hadley went to a friend's house earlier this morning and his friend's mom said for Hadley to bring his togs with him. Suddenly, in my mind, I was thinking "okay, I know what togs are...oh yeah, swimming trunks". Sometimes the different words are funny and sometimes make for awkward situations. One of the first times I went to a public toilet was at a marae which is sort of like a community center in the Maori culture. The choices written above the doors were "tane" and "wahine". Luckily I had seen this written somewhere and all I could remember was that the women's side started with "w" in Maori too. Otherwise, that could have been really bad! Almost all the houses here in Whangarei have fences around the whole property or at least the front yard as opposed to only the back yard (if that) of houses in Tennessee. Food is different here too. The food here is not necessarily better or worse tasting than American food...just different. We still try to make the foods at home that we are used to and sometimes it tastes the same and sometimes not. Lori and I have decided that the pizza in New Zealand is definitely not the same as in America. In fact, we have already said that when we return home, pizza is one of the first things we want to eat. We've also been exposed to some Samoan foods as many of our Nazarene churches in New Zealand are made up mostly of Samoans who have migrated here. The Samoan food is much more different than the Kiwi food but all that we have tried so far is delicious! Lori made a Samoan chop suey a few nights ago and it was great. Here are some pictures of things that are different from what we were used to.
Views like these are great and often remind me of Tennessee.
Watching the NFL's Sunday games on Monday since we are about fifteen hours ahead. I'm just glad one channel here shows the games!
You can't go a week without seeing a rainbow here. I've seen as many as five in one day!
Driving on the left side of the road has taken some getting used to! However, I really like the roundabouts...we should totally use them in America! By the way, if you look really closely at this picture, you can see the Whangarei Harbour in the distance.
Schools here are designed with much more outdoor, open spaces. This is the center courtyard at Dargaville High School where I teach. FYI: every time I drive to work I cross the country from the east coast to the west coast in 55 minutes!
Seeing speed limit signs of 100 is still kind of funny to me. For those that not good with their metric conversions, that is about 63 mph.
Some things here are familiar even though they might not be exactly the same. For example, here are a few pictures of fast food places that are incredibly popular here in New Zealand as well as a few other things most of you will recognize:
Some things have been really difficult here. For example, just being away from family and friends is really tough at times. We miss the food but can still eat. We miss some of the television shows of America but can still watch TV here. Even though we are making lots of new friends here, the closest we can come to our family is using Skype to video chat. I really hate that I am missing my nephew Dalton's senior year of playing football. I have been able to listen to one of his games on the radio and followed along with the others on Twitter but it's not the same. He has taken over the quarterback role this year for the first time ever after the team's starting quarterback had a season-ending injury and Dalton is doing great at it! I hope he knows that I wish I could be there and that I am really proud of how he has stepped up in this new role on the team. He's also a straight A student in his classes and receiving honors for his academic work. Way to go Dalton!
Dalton playing quarterback. (Picture from The Star Press, Muncie, Indiana)
Finally, let me leave you with some pictures from our kids club we have on Sunday nights for kids in school years 1 - 6 (grades K-5) and our revive youth group for kids in school years 7-13 (grades 6-12). God is working in these kids' lives and we are trying to help guide them in the right direction. Please pray for our outreach to these young people in our community. Oh yeah, a few pictures from our visit to the park the other day as well. ;o)
