May 2007

Fact: A kiwi fruit is actually a Chinese Gooseberry, just renamed after a successful marketing campaign during the Cold War era.

After stumbling across a recent New Zealand Herald article online about our accents lately, I thought it was about time I discussed the issues I’ve had with being a New Zealander and my accent while abroad. Firstly, there has only ever been one time in the year I’ve been away that someone has asked if I was a New Zealander, and that was by a Swiss woman selling necklaces in a market in Bern. Everyone else has thought I was American. This hasn’t really worried me in the least, as I can understand how difficult it would be to non native English speakers to pick up on our different accents (I could never tell an Austrian from a German). But the really astonishing thing is, that within seconds of finding out I’m actually a New Zealander peoples attitude towards me instantly changes, and I suddenly reach an exotic status. Never in my life, have I ever been referred to as exotic, and it’s a title I’m going to be sad to give up in a few weeks time (can you believe there’s actually a New Zealanders club in Vancouver!).

Over the last year there has been a lot of discussion about my accent, from it was too heavy and difficult to understand, to I didn’t have one at all, I’d changed and now sounded American, to I sounded German, or that I sounded like someone learning English for the first time. When I first arrived, Max (the oldest boy) and the old Au Pair Crystal had no problems understanding me, but poor Mike hadn’t a clue what I was on about. I got constantly teased by Frank, and still do – and Nicole had to ask me to repeat my self quite a bit. Nicole said her main problem in understanding me was that I didn’t separate my words enough, and they all blurred together. I had to learn to slow right down when talking, because I’ve since found out New Zealand is one of the fastest English speaking countries.

Over time, Mike got used to me, I slowed down and things were fine. Then Lisa, an old High School friend stayed for a week, my mother showed up and later on so did my sister, and once again my accent was put under the spotlight, and everyone in the house decided I was the most difficult to understand of all New Zealanders. This must’ve gotten to me a bit, because shortly after that friends back home started commenting that I sounded really bizarre on the phone, like I’d either had a stroke, or was learning English for the first time. It was a few months later that my sister said I sounded like an out right American, with a distinct twang and rolling my ‘r’s. Of course I don’t notice it at all, apart from that I never realised how much random Maori (native language of NZ) I spoke. Saying the greetings ‘kia ora’ and ‘ka kete’ were quite difficult to stop, and other words would pop up unexpectedly, like ‘puku’ for your stomach. I now have Max counting to ten in Maori, as he loves soaking in as much knowledge as possible.

Anyway back to the article I read, it said the New Zealand accent is getting a lot stronger and more distinct from the Australian accent, and that there's even a bit of Cockney creeping in too, as people are not fully pronouncing the "t" sound in words like "what" and "but". Another random thing that I’d never thought about, was the word ‘Kiwi’. I recently chose the username ‘kiwigirl84’ on a website, and the amount of mail I got asking what was my obsession with ‘Kiwis’? I replied saying it was simply because I was a New Zealander, and their reply was ‘huh’? So I asked around a bit, and an alarming amount of people had no idea New Zealanders were called Kiwi’s, or that if they had they didn’t know it was because of the bird - wait there's a kiwi bird?? Then I got others saying I was ‘over stating New Zealand’s impact on the world’, alrighty then. The general consensus was that the term ‘Kiwi’ is really only known in the Commonwealth, New Zealand is a mystical, beautiful country where we all live in shacks, its on the list of places to go, but they’ll probably never get there because its too far away, and alarmingly a hell of a lot of people have no idea where our country is, what language we speak or what we look like. Random huh? Anyways thought that might interest you folks back home.

Ka kete anö

Well it’s that time of year again, when I have to go through a major life transition and my time left here is slipping through my fingers at an alarming pace, and there is nothing I can do to slow it down. Why do I continually do this to myself? Rip myself away from the comfortable and familiar? I think the answer is quite simple really, because I have to. I’m not saying just because my Visa runs out soon, and I’ll get kicked out if I don’t, I mean I have to keep travelling, period. I don’t consider myself an intrepid traveller by any stretch of the imagination, nor am I on some great quest for the Holy Grail or to discover the unknown, just a girl who’s got to spread her wings and breathe for a while.

Escaping the afternoon sun, underneath the Hazelnut trees in the Sicilian countryside

In the last few weeks, I’ve had severally people say that I must be ‘brave’ to be able to travel across the earth, to a country you’ve never been to, where you don’t know another person, you have no friends, you have no job and you’ve got nowhere to live, and start your life over again. I don’t think it’s brave at all, yes I think it’s exciting and exhilarating, if not slightly daunting, but it’s not as if I am moving to the Congo. All countries have their faults, no where is perfect and no matter where you are, you’ve still got to do mundane things like go to the supermarket and wash your clothes.

Caught in a summer rain shower in Rudesheim, Germany

I read a quote the other day that I’ve since stolen for my life’s motto, and that is that “life is a book, and those that do not travel only read the first page.” I am not saying travelling answers all your questions, and heals all your wounds, but boy does it give you a better prospective on yourself, people and life in general. Even if travelling internationally doesn’t interest you, or is just plainly out of reach for you, then please at least travel out of your comfort zone, in your very own town. Do things you other wise wouldn’t dream of doing or that you’ve wanted to do for a long time but never got around to it. Just do something that is not familiar to you, variety as they say is the spice of life. And for now, if you’re just content reading about other people’s adventures, that’s ok too, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, just hopefully giving you the push you need.

Ok so what’s new that I’ve done in the last few days? Last week, I met up with René, a guy living in New Zealand, who grew up in the city across the river from my town here in Germany and he’d come back home for the summer, to see the family and show his Kiwi girlfriend around. I was invited to Torben’s (one of René’s friends) birthday party out in a small village in the country, and even though I didn’t know any of the other guests, I dragged myself along and had a fantastic time meeting a whole lot of new people, using my random German knowledge and being able to discuss New Zealand things with Amelia, René’s girlfriend. Only downer was one particular guest, who became a little obsessed with yours truly and would follow me from room to room, and was incapable of reading body language - I'm sure you've met the type before.

Rene, Amelia and Torben

I stayed the night, so I didn’t have to drive all the way back, and in the morning while everyone was still sleeping I got up and walked all around the small village. Every single person that passed me, most likely on their way to church, stopped and said hello. Even the two cars that drove past stopped to talk, ok one was to ask directions to the church, and the other was someone who’d been at the party the night before, but it was like entering a weird little happy bubble, and makes a nice change from the city life.

A couple of days later I joined up with René and his group of friends, and went to a soccer game. Now those of you out there who actually know me, will know I detest sport, and would rather pluck every single hair out of my body with pliers, than watch sport, but as I promised my self not to turn down new opportunities, I accepted René’s invite and watched my first ever European Soccer match, in a stadium with 50,500 others. It was an end of the season match between Frankfurt and Berlin, the atmosphere was pretty impressive, and it was worth going just to be able to watch people’s theatrics! Some random stuff I was surprised by was that the big screens didn’t show any of the game being played, like they do back in NZ at the Rugby.

When the goalie got kicked in the face after two minutes, they didn’t replay it on the screen to show what happened in close up, and when I asked why not, they said that the crowd would get too violent. This is when I noticed that all the Berlin supporters were kept in a separate caged off area, with loads of security around to apparently protect them, from the crazy Frankfurter supporters. The only thing they did show on the big screen was when a goal was scored in other games that were happening at the same time in other parts of the country. I have to admit I spent most of the time talking to Torben, who is training to be a Priest, and I’m not one to miss a chance for some religious debate, thankfully he was as interested in the game as I was. Any who, Berlin won 2 to 1 and the supporters had to be escorted out by police to protect them from any troublemakers in the Frankfurt squad, all a bit over the top if you ask me, still a good day out.

The Birthday Boy

Today Mike had his Sponge Bob themed birthday party, which didn’t go to badly really. As it was fantastic weather wise, we just loaded the kids up with sunscreen, sponges and water guns and let them go crazy for four hours. No major dramas, apart from trying to keep all the kiddies out of the house, and yours truly got absolutely drenched in a sponge war. One thing I’ve learnt from all this birthday nonsense is that kids are happy with the basics; it’s the parents that are fueling the booming birthday party supplies machine. Kids don’t need licensed napkins, cups and plates – they barely notice and it’s not worth the money. Give the kids a few balloons, a few games and give them time to play together and they’ll be fine.

Kenji and Laurenz

All this talk of fun in the sun, reminds me I haven’t really said anything about going swimming in Germany yet have I? Ok well for one thing, swimming pools are few and far between, there is really not the space or the climate to justify the expense of a pool in most areas, so the public pools are bursting at the seams. The pool that I go to is always busy and instead of separating the pool into lanes, it’s a free for all and people go all over the place. This means you swim at your own peril and a foot can come at you from any direction. I have not seen one person swim free style here, they all do breaststroke, and the men are obsessed with Speedos! You definitely don’t see anyone covering up in board shorts here.

Oh and something else random that happened this week, I went to get my haircut, which always seems to be an experience in another language, and the hairdresser somehow shaved my neck and gave me a rash, I kid you not! They all seemed to be obsessed with reinventing the 80's. Ahh well, at least it will grow back.

I have just had a fantastic weekend chilling out with my old flatmate Hamish, who has been living in London for the past 5 months, and decided to check out a bit of Germany before I left. After missing his flight on Friday night, I picked him up first thing Saturday morning, and although the weather wasn’t great, we walked into the centre of Wiesbaden and chilled out for the afternoon. Did a bit of window shopping, took him to the farmers market, to a nice beer garden beside a lake and got some Thai for lunch. Both feeling pretty knackered after all that effort :o) we headed home for a few hours nap, and went back into town for dinner to a new restaurant that’s just opened up, and then checked out a band playing at the local Irish Pub.

After a big sleep in, he got the grand tour, which I’m becoming quite the little expert at giving. We headed out to the Rheingau, a beautiful wine growing region running along the length of the Rhein River. I took him first to Schloss Johannisberg, a winery that’s been making wine for over 900 years, is famous for its Riesling, and has impressive views over the whole area. Then we carried on to the touristy little town of Rüdesheim, and I convinced him to take the cable car over the vines, up to Niederwalddenkmal, a huge monument designed to symbolize the re-establishment of the German Empire and Germany's unity was erected in the late 1870’s, which has fantastic views and I’ve wanted to check out since arriving here.

After getting the cable car back down and a stroll back through the small village we headed in the car up along the eastern side of the Rhine, past lots of castles and vineyards to Loreley, where a huge rock face marks the narrowest part of the river between Switzerland and the North Sea. A very strong current and rocks below the waterline have caused many boat accidents there and legend says, that a siren called "Loreley" bewitched the hearts of the sailors and when they looked up to the rock, their boat crashed and they sank. Since it was such a gorgeous day we walked to the infamous Loreley statue, jutting out into the river, and then headed to a very traditional Bavarian Beer garden, right in the middle of a forest close to Eltville, where we sat under the trees, chilling out and Hamish feasted on the biggest Wiener schnitzel I’ve ever seen.

It was such a relaxing weekend, with lots of eating and chatting and a bit of sightseeing thrown in. So now Hamish is back in London, I’m back at work and planning my last few weeks here. In other random news I've just found out I've had a whole lot of my photos featured, and I remembered that here are a few random photos of Wiesbaden I took before I went on my road trip and forgot to chuck in. So look after yourselves.