Resurrection and Harry Potter

Oh hello there!
So, I know it's been a while. This blog was supposed to be for my travels so when I was home I just didn't have the willpower to write another update, but I've missed it! So I think I'll try to resurrect this blog... after all, I'm starting college in a month and I'm sure I'll have some interesting things to talk about.
But before that, let's talk Harry Potter! I'm talking, of course, about the movie Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which came out almost 2 weeks ago. I've seen it three times now (no judging) and had some thoughts so I wanted to write them down. Just a warning, not only is it spoiler-filled, it probably won't even make a whit of sense if you haven't seen the movie. I don't like explaining myself.
First of all, my feelings in general. I have to admit that the first time I saw it I didn't love it. I think this is in part because it was the wee hours of the morning, and I just had to get over how different it was from the book. I had just finished rereading HBP so I noticed everything that was different or missing-- I didn't necessarily go "It's supposed to be like that!"-- I would just recognize that they had changed it. That always takes a bit of getting used to. I also felt it was very different from the previous two Potter movies, which went bang-bang-bang, action-important plot point-explosion-more action. This film was definitely slower, with an emphasis on character development rather than action. I definitely love that, but again, it took some getting used to.
After the next two viewings, I decided I really loved the movie. After thinking about it, I can understand how a lot of the changes in plot make for a better movie (not all, mind. I still would have loved to have The Other Minister in there). I know they left out a lot of the memories, which are obviously important to the book plot, but I don't really mind-- I'm sure they'll make it work somehow, and the memories do tend to break up the plot quite a lot. On my first viewing I thought some of the transitions between scenes were pretty random-- for example, the placing of Spinner's End in between a scene in the Burrow and one in Diagon Alley-- but the later viewings allowed to me see the story arc much more clearly. Scenes actually seemed to flow together quite well, even if they were in a different sequence than in the book-- for example the Burrow and Spinner's End scenes mentioned above were loosely linked by a photo of Draco in the paper at the Burrow.
And now, for some random, unlinked and unchronological thoughts:

• There was a ten minute portion of the movie that every time gave me major flashbacks to A Very Potter Musical. (If you haven't seen it, you must click). Draco says he doesn't want to go back to Hogwarts next year and then Ron shovels food into his mouth while Hermione is all worried about Harry... I just saw so clearly where they got all their jokes from.
• I'm not opposed to the scene in the diner at the beginning, but it was just kinda weird with Dumbledore randomly showing up and being all "Oh, btw, you're not going back home blah blah blah." Also, Gambon kept tilting his head and gazing into the distance for no reason. Stop.
• On the subject of Dumbledore, his lines which differed from the book were sometimes spot-on and sometimes totally off the mark. For example, I really liked the recurring theme in his speeches about a boy who had been at Hogwarts and made all the wrong choices (ok, this might be in the book)... the students are Voldemort's greatest weapon, etc. (Especially how they showed Draco not listening at that point. LOVED it.) But then there was the out-of-nowhere questioning Harry on his love-life. I felt like that was just Kloves backtracking on all the Harry/Hermione shipping in the previous movies... he had to have Harry so clearly that she was JUST A FRIEND, especially before that scene on the staircase where he's all comforting. Also Dumbledore tells Harry that he needs a shave right at the end... I mean, what?? Is that supposed to show that they're best buds and Harry will be totes sad when Dumbles dies? Cause it just made me feel awkward.
• On the subject of the scene on the staircase... at first I was thinking to myself "But wait, they don't spill out their feelings to each other! They are British! They keep it locked inside and communicate solely through sly glances!" But then I realized that yes, this is a movie. In the book we "hear" Harry thinking that he is so totally in love with Ginny, and he thinks Hermione knows cause of the looks she is giving him... in the movie we needed that conversation to make it all clear.
  
• And on that subject of book-to-movie translation, I feel I have to comment on the Dumbledore death scene. A lot of people have said that Harry would never have just stood there, it's stupid he wasn't frozen. In part, I agree. But the other part of me recognizes that (as shown in the train scene), a character under Petrificus Totalus is totally boring to watch (not even any facial acting!) and also, it would have been very hard to explain the whole silent-spell-Harry-is-frozen-now thing. The way they did it wasn't perfect, but movie-Harry I think has more trust in Dumbledore than book-Harry. Book-Harry distrusted Snape and wouldn't have followed Dumbledore's orders to stay still, whereas movie-Harry voices that distrust of Snape far less frequently. It's not a change I necessarily like, but it's one I respect.
• Tom Felton and Alan Rickman. Enough said, both were absolutely perfect.
  
• I was so glad Maggie Smith got a bit more to do in this movie, and I think she did wonderfully, as always. She had the (perfect) funny scene with Harry and Ron in the hallway, and then what I thought was a very nice moment at the end in Dumbledore's office. I really liked that McGonagall played a slightly bigger role, as she is pretty important throughout the books.
• Right after the cave scene there is a flash to Draco on his bed, presumably in the Slytherin dorm. All I could think the third time I saw this was... why do Slytherins get some lame beds?? It was an iron bedstead with a tiny mattress... the Gryffindors get awesome four-posters and the Slytherins get those gross beds? I do not think Draco would have put up with that, is all I'm saying.
• The birds, oh, the birds. I liked how they were used for the whole showing-Draco-fixing-the-Vanishing-Cabinet thing, especially how Harry opened the Cabinet near the end to see a bird fly out, thus showing the viewer that Draco had succeeded. But I just can't help but laugh that once again, birds (and their deaths) are the artistic focus of a Harry Potter movie. Do you think Alfonso Cuaron was consulted?
• And finally, ewwww Tonks and Lupin. I never liked the couple in the book and in the movie they just reminded me that a) I don't like either of the actors for those characters and b) Ewwww. They're so mismatched and awkward and I don't like it. Sorry, I feel like I have to be nice because they die. But WHATEVER

And that is it. I'm not going to apologize for it being rambly and long because by now I hope you're used to that on this blog. Good night!

Goodbye, New Zealand!

So I thought I had another South Island post in me, but I really don't. After Queenstown we drove to Christchurch, which is a pretty long way to drive in a day, though there was some really nice scenery. Then the next morning we went on to Kaikoura, known for its whale watching-- unfortunately, there were no whales about so I didn't do much there, and the next day it was back to Picton to get the ferry back to Wellington.
And now I'm leaving Wellington (finally)! I fly tomorrow to Sydney where I have 2 1/2 days to pack up all the stuff I left there (and hopefully look around the city one more time), and then a few days in San Francisco, and then I'm back home on May 6th. In total I'll have been out of America for 237 days, or almost 8 months. I think that's pretty good going.
I've spent the last few days trying to do all the "Kiwi" things I can think of (and of course eating all the Kiwi food I love). The food included classic Kiwi dip, which is just a packet of dried onion soup mixed with reduced cream, with a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar added. It's a bit weird, but suprisingly good. I've also been enjoying Tim Tam slams, for which you use a Tim Tam (delicious chocolate biscuit) as a straw to drink hot chocolate. Yum.
Yesterday I finally went to the zoo so that I could finally see a real Kiwi! (The animal this time, not the people.) They were every bit as adorable as I expected... here's a (slightly blurry/dark) picture. Kiwis are nocturnal so we couldn't use flash.
The kiwi is the little blurry thing eating out of the keeper's hand, in case you can't tell. This kiwi actually lost one of its legs-- watching it hop around on only one leg is very amusing!
Though this isn't really New Zealand-related, the second best part of the zoo were the giraffes. We happened to wander by them right as it was feeding time, so got to help feed them, which was pretty cool.
Oh, and I also was finally made to try a butter chicken pie. Though good, it basically felt like eating a heart attack. I was thankful to go to the gym afterwards.

Today we had lunch at my favourite Wellington cafe (Fidel's on Cuba st), and now I'm just finishing up packing! I'll be sorry to say goodbye to Wellington and New Zealand and general, but I'm looking forward to the next few days, and espeically to finally being home again.
Hopefully I'll see you soon!

Ice and Rain

Right, so at the end of my last post, we had gotten to... the middle of nowhere, New Zealand. We were gonna stay there for a little while. After a night in Barrytown (seriously. Nowhere.) we headed down to Franz Josef, a town that exists almost entirely to support tourism for the stunning Franz Josef glacier. Named after the emperor (maybe) of the Austrian (possibly) who "discovered" it, the Franz Josef glacier is... big, and moves... fast. Obviously the very knowledgeable guide who took us up the glacier was wasted on me-- this is what I get for not taking notes!
Basically we had a full day off in Franz Josef to do whatever we wanted... some people from the bus did a helihike, which is essentially like heliskiing-- you take a helicopter quite far up the glacier and then get to explore around for a few hours. The helicopter lets you get to a part of the glacier that is almost impossible to get to on foot, because in the middle the crevasses get really deep etc. But I opted for the slightly tamer full-day hike. After a 45 minute walk (through rain forest! Very unusual to have a glacier next to rain forest. Something to do with the mountains and coast) to the beginning of the glacier we strapped on our crampons and began to climb up. Guides had gotten there before us to start carving steps into the glacier to make climbing easier-- every day they have to re-carve the steps because the glacier is moving and changing so quickly!
Anyway, it was a pretty cool day that is pretty impossible to describe with words, so here are some pictures:

Glacier from afar
Crevasse-y!
Me with an ice pick that, ok, I didn't really use.
So that was a great day, and after a good night's sleep we headed off the next morning to Makarora another... place in the middle of nowhere. Sense a theme?
But the next day was EXCITING. We woke up and it was pouring rain, which didn't put anyone in the best mood, but as we started to drive the rain stopped and the sun started coming out. We got to Wanaka, where we had an hour-long stop, and there were finally some fall colours! I guess there are more trees that change colours down in that part of the country... it was really nice to see some of the reds and oranges that we Northern Hemispherans associate with Autumn. By the time we headed back off the sun was out in force and we started passing through some gorgeous scenery-- lots of mountains, lakes, and hills that made the phrase "It's just like Lord of the Rings!" become slightly over-used. We were also going through orchard country which meant a stop for some fruit-buying as well as delicious ice cream.
THEN we got to A.J. Hacket bungee, which is the first commercial bungee site ever. They jump from an old bridge over a canyon... watching person after person fly gracefully off (and survive) from the sidelines almost made it seem tempting, but actually going up ON the bridge to watch was absolutely terrifying. I decided I was definitely not the extreme sports type.
And then we got to Queenstown.
Now, a word on Queenstown. Among backpackers, Queenstown is one of the most-talked-about destinations. Perhaps because of its proximity to the first bungee, or maybe because of its location on a lake surrounded by mountains, it is the capital of extreme sports in a country in which just about every town offers a skydive or bungee jump. For this reason, I guess I was expecting a pretty big, touristy town. I was very pleasantly surprised.
To start with, we got there in the evening and by the time we were all checked into the hostel and settled down, it was dark. We did have a very good dinner at Fergburger (my first real burger in what felt like forever and wow, was it good!), but I didn't really look around Queenstown until the next day. And the next day it was raining. Not a light drizzle, not a warm rain. It was freezing. It was pouring. I should have hated Queenstown. I should have looked outside, and then done what a few other people did-- spend the day reading or catching up online.
But I only had a day there, and I wanted to look around. So I headed out into the rain. And, against all odds, I was completely charmed by Queenstown. True, clouds obscured most of the (surely beautiful) mountains around the lake. And yes, there was no point in doing what I had planned (riding the gondola up a mountain to get panoramic views) because the top of the gondola was sitting firmly in clouds. But after getting used to feeling colder (and wetter) than I had in a long time, I really liked the place. Maybe I liked the fall colours or the many outdoorsy shops that reminded me of a small-scale US ski town, but Queenstown was one place I decided I definitely wanted to return to-- but next time in ski season, to take advantage of those mountains!
The best view I could get:I considered staying a couple nights longer, but then I remembered that no matter how charming a place is, doesn't mean I wouldn't have gotten bored after a day... and besides, maybe seeing it in sunshine would have ruined it!

Down the West Coast (The Second Best Coast in the Southern Hemisphere)

Wow, so I haven't even really gotten into my trip on here, have I?
Let's remedy that.
So that first day, after leaving Picton, we drove to the Abel Tasman National Park. This is New Zealand's smallest national park (for a small country, it sure has a lot of them!), but it is very popular-- it has a 3-day walking trail to go right through it, as well as lots of other walking and kayaking opportunities. We had lots of options for the next day, which was a non-driving day to spend exploring the Park, and 19 of us from the bus got together to take a trip on a catamaran around it. Of course, whereas the day before had been gorgeous, sunny, and hot, the next day was quite cold and cloudy. Nevertheless we went out on the boat and had a good, if chilly, time looking at the beautiful scenery of the Abel Tasman. Unfortunately my greatest desire-- to see a penguin in the wild-- was not realized, but we did see some seals. Here's Split Apple rock, which one of the people on the boat swam out to just to get a picture standing in the middle-- you couldn't have paid me to get in that water!
The next day we left bright and early to start our drive down the West Coast. We were now entering one of the most sparsely populated areas in the world. Sparsely populated by people, that is. Having spent most of my time in New Zealand in Wellington, I hadn't quite believed up till now that there are somewhere in the area of 40 million sheep in this country. I started to believe it on that drive. We passed pasture after pasture after pasture filled with sheep-- and we all enjoyed when our driver honked at them so we could classify the sheep as "sprinters" or "long distance runners."
But it was hard to become bored with sitting on a bus when a 45-minute walking stop yielded this kind of view (those are the Southern Alps coming into view in the background):
It was also on this drive that we began to experience two phenomena: The "Engineering Marvels" and the Second Bests.
First, the Engineering Marvels. As most of the roads are in New Zealand, we were driving predominately on single carriageways, winding through mountains and over rivers. The Engineering Marvels were usually bridges... one memorable one was a one-way bridge with a railway crossing right in front of it. In order to see if someone was coming the other way and it was safe to cross the bridge, you had to drive ONTO the railway crossing. Only in an area with as little traffic as this could such a bridge exist (traffic was so scarce that, like in the Northern Territory in Australia, almost every passing driver exchanged a wave and smile with our driver).

The example I most clearly remember of the Second Bests was also, in fact, a one way bridge. We were just winding around a corner when Mambo (our driver) turned on the microphone. "You guys don't want to miss this! We're just coming up to the second longest one-way bridge... in the Southern Hemisphere!" Soon after driving over that wondrous monument I realized that this was not a one-off thing... we soon started to pass lots of things that were the "second best," "second tallest," or "second biggest," of whatever it was... but only in the Southern Hemisphere. Mambo would frequently start describing something as the "second most," and after an optimistic pause someone would prompt him to add resignedly "in the Southern Hemisphere." Apparently this running joke had started on the trip in the North Island... on a slow day with a lack of landmarks Mambo had tried to get people psyched up about the Second Best Peat Bog in the Southern Hemisphere, but a passenger had called his bluff. Sure, maybe some of the accolades he gave to landmarks were real-- these things are surprisingly difficult to google, I know because I just tried-- but some of them were surely made up by bored tour guides driving the same road for the umpteenth time.
But, upon reflection, I've found the Second Best phenomenon to be as good as any to explain Tall Poppy Syndrome, which I briefly mentioned in a previous post and was asked for clarification on. The OED defines Tall Poppy Syndrome as "orig. and chiefly Austral. a perceived tendency to disparage prominent or successful people."* Basically, Kiwis don't talk themselves up. They don't brag, they don't laud their own accomplishments, and if they do become successful they can bet that there will be plenty of people around them to tear them down. As it was just explained to me, if you're the tallest poppy that's great, because you're obviously good at what you do-- but it's also very easy for someone to come around with shears and lop your head off.
While I usually say things like this through observation, Tall Poppy Syndrome is something I've been told about more than I've actually observed-- I guess it takes a keener reporter than I am to observe the lack of bragging. But this Second Best thing made me realize that it really is true. I mean, if these facts were being made up, why weren't they the longest bridges and the best peat bogs? Or maybe the second best in the world instead of just the Southern Hemisphere. New Zealanders won't say that their country is the best at anything, the most beautiful.** Sure, they're proud of it, but they draw the line at bragging. Wellingtonians love their city, and they'll tear apart Auckland (their main rival) any day of the week. But they're only praising themselves through criticizing others... rarely will you hear someone talk about how much they love Wellington, how beautiful the harbour is and how great the cafes are-- you'll just hear about City X's severe deficiency in cafes.
So I guess it was just too much to ask to cross the longest one-way bridge in the Southern Hemisphere. After all, what if someone tried to one-up it? Much safer to be in second place.

At the end of our trip, by the way, we all chipped in to get Mambo the Second Best t-shirt in the Southern Hemsiphere proclaiming him the Second Best Stray Driver in the Southern Hemisphere. Wouldn't want the other drivers to lop off his head, after all.

*The Australian bit of this definition drew anger from Tams and the response that New Zealanders are even better at being un-self-confident than Australians.
** Except perhaps rugby. And they will readily admit that they're better than the Australians at everything.

Getting on the Bus (Backpacker Culture)

Ok, so. Let’s begin near the beginning. I spent the night of March 29th in Picton, a very small town (as most of the towns for the next few days were going to be) that basically serves as a connection between the North and South Islands. This is where the big Interislander ferry from Wellington docks, but nothing much else happens there.

(The Interislander ferry, by the way, was amazing. Having never been on a cruise ship or other luxurious boat before, I was kind of in awe. I felt like I was in moving mansion.)

So I didn’t do much in Picton. But the next morning I boarded my bus. Now I think a word of explanation is needed. I did my 11-day tour on a Stray bus, which is just one of a number of hop-on hop-off bus services that are very popular in New Zealand and Australia. Both countries have a lot of backpackers that want to see a lot of the country (or, in the case of Australian backpackers, a lot of beaches and bars). These buses are really good because they bring you to landmarks/sites that are hard to get to otherwise—you really need either a bus or a car to get around Down Under. In Australia the Greyhound buses are also popular—a lot of Australian backpackers just do the East Coast route down from Cairns to Sydney, and on that route the Greyhound buses cover pretty much the same ground as backpacker buses, at half the cost. (For this reason, a lot of people on round the world tickets going home through America tell me they’re going to take the Greyhound across the country. I find it prudent to warn them that they might be a little surprised by the differences between American and Aussie Greyhounds.) So anyway, yes, these backpacker buses are really useful. They also, of course, have their downsides, like the many, many photo/walk/activity stops that can make getting anywhere extremely laborious/expensive (especially if you’re at all tempted by extreme sports and going around New Zealand). But what I consider the main downside to these buses is that as much as the tour guides try, you’re not getting Kiwi culture on them. You’re getting a good, hearty dose of backpacker culture. Which is a kind of strange beast.

So. I got on the bus in Picton. About two-thirds of the bus (including the driver/tour guide, whose Stray nickname was Mambo) had gone round the North Island together and were a pretty firm group, but there were a few newbies like me. To help us all get to know each other, Mambo got us to do what he called “speed dating,” which meant we all had to go sit with someone new, introduce ourselves and start talking to them, and then a few minutes later go find another new person. As I talked to what seemed like a hundred people (all from England or Ireland, or so it seemed), a pattern quickly emerged. First would be the exchange of names—unusual in backpacker culture, in which the first question is almost always “Where are you from?” prompting a conversation that often takes ten minutes to get around to the exchange of names. But right after the names was that golden first question, which tells a backpacker so much. Where are you from? Now, I’ve gotten this answer down to a tee, which I think is a lot more than most can say. I say “New York.” I find this specific enough that it won’t need immediate clarification (as “America” would), but suitably vague so if someone is interested they can ask “New York, New York, or just New York?” It drives me absolutely crazy that every single English person, with the exception of a few Londoners, says “England.” YOU ARE ALL FROM ENGLAND, please specify a LITTLE! Anyway, so the first question is important. And I realized quite quickly after getting to Australia that my answer was pretty unusual. But the reactions on this bus were astounding. Most people just gasped, in a tone of extreme shock, “New York!” A few said something in an awed voice such as “New York citaaaaay.” Some started reminiscing about five days they spent there five years ago, while others mentioned their long-unrealized desire to go to New York. One girl, after talking about herself for a minute, said “but New York, what’s THAT like!?” To which I oh-so-eloquently responded, “it’s like… home.”

At first I thought I got this reaction just because it was New York, seen so often in books, movies, and TV shows that people hardly think it’s real. But I soon realized that the shock wasn’t just about New York—it was in meeting an American. 300 million of us, and yet I seemed to be many people’s “second American”—in the 2-4 months they had been travelling, I was the second American they had met. Mambo told me that he can do 3-4 loops of both the North and South Island before he gets an American on his bus. I think that’s all a bit of an exaggeration, but then whenever I hear an American accent I pounce and ask where the speaker is from—to someone not constantly listening out for the accent, we are rare enough that meeting one of us is cause for surprise. (I’m sorry to say, by the way, that about half of the “American” accents I hear turn out to be Canadians. There are way more Canadians around these parts than Americans, and as a result I’ve gotten way better at identifying the Canadian accent.)

So that’s the first question out of the way. We’ve established that I am from America, that exotic land across the sea, and I have been able to dig out of the person next to me that he or she is from Bristol, or Liverpool, or Kent and yes, I do know where that is. So we arrive at the next question! “How long are you in New Zealand?” or perhaps, “how long have you been travelling?” And here, backpacker culture strikes again. There were two people on my bus on a three-week holiday. One was going around just New Zealand with his girlfriend, who was on a 3-month round-the-world trip with a group of friends. The other was just someone who (shock-of-shocks) actually has a full-time job and could only take 3 weeks off. Everyone else had epic tales to tell. They had spent a month in Australia and now had 3 weeks in New Zealand before a week in Thailand, four days in Singapore and a couple nights in Hong Kong. But no! Instead of Hong Kong, this person was going to Malaysia. And over there, they were going to have a vacation from their vacation in Fiji. Instead of going home through Asia, some were going back through the US—and had a carefully planned itinerary including four nights in Vegas (NOT over a weekend), and then a road trip through Texas to New Orleans, Florida and then up to New York. When I got round to telling my travel story, I often got confused looks. I had been in New Zealand for three months? I tried to explain the whole living-in-Wellington, not-finding-work
thing, but it took a few tries to get it right.

This is when I started to discover that pitfall of backpacker culture—a lot of backpackers just aren’t interested in staying in one place for a long time, getting to know the people, the cafes and the culture. They may have three, six, or eight months, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually going to get to know the countries they’re zooming through. They’re just getting to know a lot of people from England, Ireland, and oh yeah, Germany. Ask someone who’s taken a backpacker bus around both Australia and New Zealand for a total of two months a difference between Australians and New Zealanders and they’ll look at you blankly. Sure, they know what the two countries look like, they know that New Zealand is cheaper unless skydiving tempts you, and they know that the weather is better in Australia. But the people? Not so much. Take it as you will—backpacker culture.

I'm back!

Phew. I'm back from my two week adventure round the South Island of New Zealand, and... I don't even know where to start! I'm going to do a chronological series of blogs about all the cool things I did/places I went, but for now I'm just going to share some of my favourite pictures that I took. I ended up taking over 300, but looking through them all they start to merge into one big mountain/lake/sea vista.
So here we go:
A view of Cockle Cove in the Marlborough Sounds, my first stop. (The water is coming right up to the shore, it's just amazingly clear.)
















We got off the bus while driving from Abel Tasman national park to Barrytown for a beautiful coastal walk. Suddenly there were horses up on a ridge right abve the sea!







The sun was setting by the time we got to Pancake rocks, some awesome rock formations on the West coast.







We did a walk through some rainforest on our way to Franz Josef glacier-- here's the sun coming through a punga (New Zealand fern tree).





Our guides cutting steps on the terminal face of the Franz Josef glacier as we begin our hike up it.
















Water running through some of the blue ice of the glacier. Sometimes we walked by water that really sounded like an underground drain because it was echoing so loudly.














Me walking through a crevasse on the glacier.









We crossed the 45th parallel, which is apparently officially "Down Under." The sun had just come out when we made this stop, meaning a short photo break turned into a competition involving jumping off the marker.









Finally some fall colours on the way to Queenstown!










One of our group takes the leap at the world's first commercial bungee jump site.













Some fresh snow on the mountains behind Kaikoura on our last day!










And that's it for now! More soon.

More Food Related Wonderings

I wrote this post a while ago and am just now posting it cause it's not great, but I'm going away tomorrow for two weeks (to the South Island), so I wanted to leave something. Enjoy!

What I always find really interesting when I’m travelling is how tastes in one country got to be the way they are, and why they’re so different from tastes in another country. This is exemplified to me by the fast food options in Australia and New Zealand. (Can I say before I go any further that this isn’t exactly a well-researched blog post, though I did Google a few key facts and took the top search result to be accurate. Because if I can’t trust Google, who can I trust?)

Now, one could say, Australia and New Zealand weren’t formed all that differently from the United States. Especially Australia… colonized by the British, settlers then pushed back and murdered the native people, brought in their own lot (who happened to be convicts), and decided to form a new country. Except they never quite got there, and so their head of state is still technically the Queen. Ouch. And, ok, Australia did all of this founding business quite a few years after America and, yes, they never had a falling out with the mother country in the form of a bloody war, but still. Australia is THOUSANDS OF MILES further away from the UK than America is. I feel like the tastes of the two countries should be ENTIRELY different. And so I get back to the topic of fast food.

So let’s start off with pizza, because hopefully you’ve already read the epic pizza-related post below. Now, I know why pizza’s good in New York. We have a lot of Italian immigrants, or people of Italian descent. This is not a big secret. I’m not going to speculate on why Italians didn’t go to Australia in the 1800s or whenever they came over (see, well researched. Quality journalism.) because, well, Australia is really far away. So ok, I know that intellectually it makes sense to have better pizza in America. But that doesn’t excuse the excuse for pizza they serve here.

Now don’t even get me started on fast deli sandwiches or bagels. Just… don’t. I might cry. Deli sandwiches, as in sandwiches made to order, don’t seem to exist, and bagels are… I can’t even explain. I cry inside when I think of a New Zealand bagel. Why don't they have delis and bagels here? I guess some of it could have to do with a lack of Jewish immigrants, but it's weird. So let’s move on to the positives!

And here is where I get confused. Because one of the biggest fast food options in Australia and New Zealand is Indian food, or, basically, curries. You can go into a shop and order a curry with naan and rice for about ten NZ dollars (US$5. This place is cheap), and have it to take away in about ten minutes. This I enjoy, because I love Indian food and can never get enough of it at home. The thing is, though, that Indian curries are also very popular in England. I know why that is, once again… lots of Indian immigrants in the UK! So, the question is… did the tastes of the UK move Down Under and bring with it a love of curry, or did people from India also immigrate over this way and bring the curry with them, thus developing SEPERATELY a desire for fast and delicious Indian food. I could probably find this out with a little googling, but as I said… it’s a research-light day. Basically I can’t explain why, but I can tell you that there is a wide availability of delicious curry in Australia and New Zealand, and this is a good thing (and possibly makes up for the pizza).

The second delicious fast food phenomenon in this here region is that of PIES. Now mentioning a pie over here does not imply delicious fruit filling, it means MEAT. Lots and lots of meaty filling. There are tiny shops all over New Zealand which seem to deal exclusively in pre-made meat pies, all ready in a warming device/oven type thing to take out and consume with your hands and possibly some tomato sauce (not ketchup. See earlier post). Some of them have the addition of cheese. Apparently there is a “butter chicken pie” (butter chicken is a type of curry) that combines these two fast food phenomena, but as much as I like the two separately, the idea of a combination is revolting to me (and my arteries). I know steak pies are big in English pubs, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen little shops like they have here full of pies over in the UK. I could be wrong, but there you go. Perhaps this one just evolved on its own in this little corner of the world. Good onya, mate!

Now I shouldn’t finish my post without saying that, yes, the garangutan American fast food chains are of course present here as well. It’s not all curries and pies. They of course of McDonalds and KFC and Burger King. (Interestingly, though, in Australia BK is called Hungry Jack’s: same logo, different name. In NZ it’s Burger King.) Alas, it seems nowhere is safe from the desire for burgers, fries, and deep frying things, and I don’t think I have to ponder how that trend made it over the seas.