New car and new food

We finally bought a car. A 1992 Subaru Legacy Wagon with 180 kms, no AC, a failing CV joint, and an owners manual and service record in Japanese. You can see pictures of it in the slide show to the right. Many used cars are imported to NZ from Japan (imported AFTER being used in Japan), so a strange notice appears in the ads—“NZ new”. Bob just replaced the fuse for the taillights—good thing Japanese uses the same numbers we do because all the other labels were in Japanese!

We thought we were getting a pretty cheap car until one of the staff here at the university told us that $500 was a cheap car. Apparently, at the start of each term they have a Canterbury 500, where everyone who has purchased a car for $500 or less joins in a pub crawl across the South Island. We will not be able to participate.

Last weekend we took the new car to Akaroa, a town on the Banks Peninsula an hour south of Chch. It was first settled by the French, and is proud of that heritage. Of course, it was only French for one year, and no one lived there during that year! It seems that a French settler liked the area and bought land from the local Maori (rhymes with now-ree) chief. He then left to get some friends and family, intending to return the following year. Unfortunately for him, that was also the same year the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Empire and the Maori in the North Island, ceding rights to most of NZ, including the Banks Peninsula, to the English. I don’t know exactly how this worked when the tribe here didn’t sign that treaty…but it’s their history. The French settlers settled there anyway, and named some streets Rue de Whatever and put some wrought iron over some windows. It’s pretty and we got to watch a fireman’s competition in the local park. We counted it as a work day. We ate at French styled ‘Bistro’, but the overwhelming smell was the Fish and Chips joint next door.

Food here has been interesting. The dairy tastes different, but is cheaper. Our refrigerator has a butter keeper (with a soft, medium, firm button) and a butter dish for a WHOLE pound of butter. Ice cream is everywhere. We tried out the fish and chips. You can get 2 ‘fish’ and a scoop for less than 4 bucks and get enough fried food to last a lifetime. If it can be deep fried, you can get it at a fish and chips takeaway. And then you get a plain paper wrapped bundle to take home. The paper does soak up some of the grease. Spring rolls, hot dogs (blech), ‘meat’ patties (don’t try these either) are all batter dipped and fried golden greasy. The fish and chips are good. Greasy and WAY TOO SALTY but good. Cabbage is good and cheap, as are many other vegetables, including some things we didn’t know we liked, like courgettes (zucchini) and capsicum (bell peppers). And then there’s the horse floats! (Just kidding, horse floats are horse TRAILERS).

We have finally figured out three important lessons about eating out in NZ. First, when you are finished ordering, they will almost always say “Eat-in or takeaway?” It’s nice to not feel so stupid every time we order coffee. The second lesson is that they don’t bring the check to your table. At our first restaurant we waited and waited and waited. Then waited some more. Finally, we asked, and we were told to just go to the counter and tell them our table number or what we ate and pay there. Tips in restaurants are not common. The third lesson is about that coffee. Here you order a long black, a short black or a flat white. I just wanted a cup of coffee!! As they also had cappuccino and latte on the menu, we couldn’t figure out what these items were. Again, we finally asked. A short black is an espresso in a small cup. Straight, as it were. A long black is a watered down espresso in a bigger cup. A flat white, well, we think it’s a café au lait, but I like this one best.