Nelson: morning of nov 3, 2006

it's just about 7AM, we're up early to drive up the coast from Nelson(haw haw) to take a 3 hour boat tour, a 3 hour boat tour. The proprietor at the last place we stayed highly recommended it. It's about an hour drive though and we have to be there at 10:30 so we got up early. I was unfortunately up early this morning anyway, briefly, for a bout of Maori's revenge, but it was defeated by me with some backup provided by Sir Imodium AD.
So anyway, we started writing down a list of the little things to mention that are different, so without further rambling:
Gas. It only seems to come in 3 varieties: 91 octane, 95 octane, and diesel. Very odd, what we consider premium is the base level here. No idea why though.
There are ads, at least in Wellington, that are actively recruiting for the police. Somewhat like our military ads I guess, but for the local police.
Street level parking is paid for at a central box, that might cover say 6 or 8 spaces, there aren't meters for each space. And you get to pay for the privilege of paying - there's a surcharge to pay at the box.
Individual servings of condiments are very big here, so big you can buy individual servings in stores. Including vegimite, which is apparently very popular here, as the vegimite was sold out where we were.
Ketchup, with the exception of Heinz, seems to be generally labeled tomato sauce.
The have chicken flavored potato chips...among other flavors you don't see in the states.
Cars don't seem to have cruise control, but you couldn't use it if they did, especially in the mountains, which are everywhere.
Police cars look like they are rally cars with blue sirens stuck on the top.
The turn signal lever in the car is apparently not standardized. In the 2 cars we've now tried, one was on the right(which was weird and led to much inadvertent use of wipers) and one was on the left(which was happily normal for us).
It's apparently common for lodgings here to give you a small container of some dairy product, presumably for your coffee, when you check in(your choice of half/half, skim, or whole milk I believe).
It seems like it's also common for the room key or a fob with the key to be needed to have room power on(it inserts into something, you leave and take it with you the power goes out...no heating the room up while you are away).
BYO wine to restaurants is allowed and common even. It looks like there is a licensing for it for the restaurants.
There's no shoulder, or nearly none, on most roadways.
Food serving sizes are reasonable, you get enough food to not be hungry, but not so much that you get full. It's probably part of the reason why there appear to be much less obese people about, that and many seem to walk most places. But there have been a few, there was a young girl on the ferry who I placed at probably 1.2 Cleric's.
The McDonalds here in Nelson had a McCafe(their name, not mine) in it, separate from the food counter, which was like a little coffee store. Pastries in glass displays, and a full on coffee setup. Also they had internet in the McD's, with 3 terminals for use even. We knew they were rolling internet out at McDonalds, we just didn't expect the one in Nelson ot be so progressive.
The McDonalds around here also have playlands, like the US, but they aren't in a separate enclosed room, the crawl around thingies go outside the building. There seem to be many things here that I would say are the way things would be in the US if we didn't have a litigation happy society right now.
Surprisingly, some things are apparently universal. A quick flash of the lights from the oncoming traffic means that a cop car is ahead, same as in the US. People like to stop in entryways suddenly to have their conversations. The 4 slowest walkers in the building will walk abreast of each other in the passage way that is wide enough for 5 people, centered nicely so that you can't get around them. They are of course oblivious to anyone trying to get past them(because what could possibly be so important that you want to move more quickly then the 4 elderly people that are using 1 regular walker, 1 mega walker, and 1/2 a coffin).
Nearly the whole country(as far as we can tell) shuts down at around 4PM. Things that don't close at 4, close at 6. This even includes a good portion of restaurants, which seem primarily to serve a lunch based crowd. It's very strange to us, like Kansas City on a Sunday. A few things don't open till 4 or 5(the movie theaters specifically). Grocery stores seem to be open 24 hours or until 9. Otherwise we can't figure out how anyone gets any other kind of stuff done.