New Zealand's Bottom 10

So far, we’ve written a lot this blog about how wonderful New Zealand is. Lest our loyal readers begin to think this fair island is all sunshine, puppies and hobbits, here is a perspective on some of the struggles, trials, and tribulations of life in the southern hemisphere. Without further ado…

New Zealand’s Not Top 10:

1.       The direction money flows - All of it out of our wallets, none of it in.

2.       Sam’s rat tail – We were very disappointed to learn that Sam’s rat tail is too short to attach a bead to or braid. This unfortunate information was delivered to us by a woman at a surf commune selling friendship bracelets for the exorbitant price of “whatever you feel like giving”. If this registered hippy was unable to braid Sam’s hair, it’s officially too short still.

3.       Chase’s pants pocket – Hid Chase’s winning raffle ticket from him when his number was called at a bar event, preventing us from winning a teapot full of alcohol or a MYSTERY BOX! (he would have chosen the teapot).

4.       Dallis’s pants pocket – Their small size prevented this trip’s first (and best) prank from happening. Chase eventually found his winning raffle ticking hidden in the abyss of his pocket, and tried to prank Dallis by planting the ticket in her pocket. Over the course of a couple days, he continually mentioned that he thought he gave the ticket to one of us at the bar and got everyone to agree on horrible punishments for someone if the raffle ticket was found in their possession. Unfortunately, Dallis’s tiny pockets somehow lost the ticket and Chase’s prank masterpiece never unfolded.

5.       The price of gas – A pretty normal gas price here is $2.11 (New Zealand dollars) per liter. For those of you (all of you) who don’t think in New Zealand dollars or metric volume units, let me put this price in terms you can understand. A NZ dollar is approximately 0.8 US dollars, and a liter is 0.264 gallons. The price in US dollars per gallon we are paying is $6.39. Given that we have a 50 liter fuel tank, this also means that it can often take over NZ$100 (US$80) to fill our tank.

6.       The state of the Washington Wizards –  Man, I know it was supposed to be a rebuilding year, but COME ON. This is pathetic. Has John Wall really regressed that much? Does Andray Blatche have any trade value left, or are we stuck with him? Is resigning JaVale McGee going to be worth the money? Was firing Flip Saunders the right move? Why is old man Lewis still getting PT? Will the draft lottery be the highlight of the season?

7.       The fact that we have been mistaken for Canadians twice and Germans once – Really New Zealand?

8.       The chemical toilets in our housebus – So apparently there is a dial on the side of our chemical toilet that tells you when it is close to full. In retrospect, this is a better method than our previous one of “whoops the toilet is too full to close”

9.       The hole in the ozone layer – It’s real folks, and situated nicely over New Zealand. SPF 60 here we come!

10.   The weather – There have been scattered showers lots of days. Ok, so this probably isn’t bad compared to weather back home, but I’m pretty much out of bad things.