favorite things, pt. 2

The cafe culture is probably one of my most favorite things about New Zealand. It is almost impossible to find a cafe that serves filtered coffee. They all serve espresso drinks. At first I wasn't so sure about this because I actually like my filtered coffee. I must confess though, I have been won over. The Flat White is my favorite coffee drink now and I'm not sure how I'm going to cope when we get back to the States and I can't find a Flat White anywhere. One strange thing about New Zealand is that whenever you go out for coffee it's really good espresso coffee but most Kiwis just have nasty instant coffee in their homes. The only thing I can figure is that they're torturing themselves at home so that they will appreciate what they're getting at the cafe so much more

Roundabouts aren't native to New Zealand but they are all over the place. There are a few of these in the States but we need more! Roundabouts work so much better than four-way stops. I hate pulling up to four-way stops. People go when they are not supposed to and don't go when they are supposed to. Roundabouts keep traffic flowing much more smoothly and you only need to yield (give way) at a roundabout so if no one is to your right you don't even need to stop. Another nice feature is that if you're unsure of the direction you need to go you can just go around the circle a few more times until you figure it out.


Okay you may be wondering why I have a picture of a toilet here but the fact is I really like the toilets here. It's not that they are more comfortable, or self-cleaning, or anything like that. The thing I like about the toilets here is that they are so sensible. Our American toilets waste huge amounts of water which is pretty unexcusable. We waste tons of water with our toilets while many people in the world don't even have safe water to drink or cook with. The toilets in New Zealand only have a bit of water in the bottom. It's enough to make sure everything goes down alright but not a wasteful amount. But wait, there's more...


There are two different buttons; one for a flush and one for a half-flush. You can probably figure out for yourself when you need to use which button. This makes so much sense and allows you to use less water when... ya know... you don't need to get much to go down.


From the bathroom to the great blue yonder. Another thing I love about New Zealand is how big the sky seems almost everywhere you go. The Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa which means, "Land of the Long White Cloud." This is a very appropriate name since the huge sky is almost always filled with spectacular clouds. If you've been paying to attention to the pictures in my blog posts you may have figured out that I'm a big fan of clouds. Anyway, that's enough rambling for now. I'll do one more favorites post in a few days.