English or American?

Every now and again my friends here will teasingly comment that it is a shame I have not yet learned to speak English. There is a seemingly ever-growing list of things that I have not yet learned how to say correctly.

One word on which we have agreed to disagree is aluminum, or as kiwis say, aluminium. We have agreed that since our respective countries spell the word differently, we can pronounce it differently. That being said, the jury is still out on which country spells it right :)

Something we have not yet reached an agreement on is the correct pronunciation of the name of the Australian city of Melbourne. I pronounce it the way it is spelled but when kiwis say it, it sounds like "Mel-bin." Despite claims of that being the correct pronunciation, I have my doubts. I pointed out "color" is spelled "colour" here, but is pronounced the same way as in American, not as if there is "in" on the end. This apparently was not a valid argument for my pronunciation of Melbourne being correct.

"Ta" is a way to say thank you. It's quite informal; I might hand someone at work something off the printer and they would respond with "ta." I have not yet worked this into my vocabulary, but maybe someday.

Some other fun phraseology:
"How ya goin?" Means how are you, how's your day, everything all right, that sort of thing.

"Good on you!" This means good for you, that's great.

"That's all right." Used the same as "you're welcome."

"Good as gold." I hear this around the office a lot, often when someone gets the desired answer to a question, they say "Oh yea, that's good as gold, mate."

"Sweet as bro."  This is probably something that falls under the slang category. It can be interpreted as "cool" or "that's awesome dude."  I rarely use it, but when I do there is always at least one kiwi that gets excited :)

Last but not least, what do you wear to the beach in New Zealand? Togs and jandals of course! Now jandals I figured out pretty quick, not far off from sandals, so yea, sweet as. But Togs. TOGS? Huh? They don't say bathing suit, they don't say swimsuit, they rarely even say trunks or bikini, they say togs. I have been told I sound old-fashioned when I say "swimsuit", which makes me laugh :)
In case there is any confusion as to what togs are, here is an informational video :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC1GUmwzUNw

Happy New Year

Despite how long it's been since I posted anything, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth :)

All has been quite well in sunny NZ. I haven't refrained from writing because I forgot about all y'all, but rather because I was in the process of moving so I didn't have internet access. Instead of being 5k from downtown, I'm now right in the middle of town where I have easy access to everything, and am only a two minute walk to the water. The coastal walkway is nearly the sidewalk outside my door. Since I didn't bring much with me I didn't have much to move, but enjoyed going around with my new flatmate to find the things we need. Apartments here do not come with a refrigerator, which I found odd. But we do have a full sized oven, a dishwasher, a balcony, and a garden plot, so we were both happy :)

I had a pretty quiet start to the new year. We had just gotten everything unpacked in our new place as the best timing for moving was during the holidays. So we stayed at home, had a couple friends over did a puzzle of New York City while eating chocolate and listening to music. Relaxing and uneventful but memorable in its own way :)

I had two weeks off of work for the holidays, a very nice surprise. I wasn't paid for it, except for the statutory holidays, but it turns out Boxing Day and Jan 2 are both considered statutory holidays so I ended up with four days of pay for the 10 working days off, not too shabby. I didn't have to return to work until Jan 6, so I had time to settle in and enjoy my new found mobility as I can now walk almost anywhere I need to be. I considered traveling but decided I was happy to have a quiet holiday season with friends here and after hearing traffic reports and crowds congesting popular places to visit, I think I made the right choice for sure.

Yesterday we had an earthquake, the second I've felt in my time here. It was 6.3, so we felt it quite a bit, seemed to last about 3-5 minutes. There was little damage around here, and I have not heard of any injuries. It's a bit hard to describe how it feels. Closest I can come is the way a canoe feels when it's going over rapids. Which is quite a strange sensation when you're sitting in a big building and suddenly feel the floor moving :)

Today started out cloudy and gray, with rain pouring down. I decided I didn't want to stay at work quite all day so I had decided to skip out a bit early. Just as I left, the sun came out :) Taranaki has persnickety weather in that you can get up to four seasons in one day. It routinely rains when the sun is shining. So it wasn't altogether unsurprising but was nonetheless wonderful to see all the clouds disappear in about ten minutes. I decided my afternoon was much better spent walking along the coast than staying at the office.