kiwi lingo

getting into the lingo.  tonight mia started calling me "mummy" instead of the usual "mama"-which got the rest of us into the whole how do the kiwi talk different thinking.  we had to explain to paul what a dipthong was, and how the NZ folks use them in their words.  the vowels are stretched out in fun interesting ways-"yes" becomes " yayes"  the cart at the grocery is a "trundler" and surprisingly you park your car in the "car park".   Yesterday we had a co-worker of paul's over for sunday roast and he brought his NZ roommate joanne who was quite lovely and helpful.  she called mia the "wee little one" which we love to say but probably not around mia!   paul's helpful banker cathy called the earthquakes "a wee bit of a shake"-thank goodness that is all we have felt so far, and we are told we live on good solid ground-the beach area is much quakier.  joanne explained that for most kiwi's, their impression of americans is that we all live like we live on  jersey shore...really regretting not keeping up with my orange spray tan to disappoint...and are involved in drive-by shootings and our towns are run like the show COPS.  oh dear-i had already been feeling that we are not the typical americans by not shopping at walmart and eating at mcdonalds, and now this!

 mia is our tv watcher at home, and the lack of any real programming aimed at her demographic killed her for the first couple of days, but today marked the first day here she did not even ask about it, and we are psyched.  kogen is loving the little bit of tramping/hiking we have done up in the port hills and we are exploring the many parks around our house with playgrounds and lovely fields for running and watching cricket.  tomorrow we have a meeting at a primary/intermediate school for kogen and mia, and talked to the secondary school for alex today-they will head back to school early feb.  also getting our library cards tomorrow-we are all missing that bi weekly fix!  there are many local library branches closed due to the quake damage, and i can't imagine all the other ways the locals have been displaced or inconvenienced.  we are in a bit of a limbo here, not quite tourists, not quite residents, so trying to make a blend of both with adventures and finding the familiar.  it is the little things-like watching the tub drain counterclockwise-that hit home we are really somewhere else!

tried to upload pics but achingly slow-sorry will post to fbook instead...maybe there are two of the windy beach and our beloved hokey pokey ice cream!