Today's our last day in Wellington and it's now one of our favorite cities. Such a pleasant place to spend time! It's easygoing, has lovely views, good restaurants, and nice locals. We've hung out with a couple locals--siblings Noel and Christine--and among other things (like showing us around this beautiful city), they've educated us to some Kiwi slang. My favorite is 'box of fluffies' which is short for 'box of fluffy ducks' (of course!) and indicates something good. A few other fun phrases or words:
- 'Sweet-as' which also means good/excellent. It's really the '-as' that's key here and they'll say just about any adjective with '-as' tacked on. At home you'd probably explain what something is sweet as--like a favorite southern saying 'sweet as honey on a biscuit' but they just leave off after saying the 'as' and I guess you get to fill in the blank. The other day, we walked past a playground and a kid raced to the big slide and yelled out 'Long-as slide!' At first we thought he was saying 'long-ass' but no!
- 'Munted' which means kaput, broken, and got a lot of use after the Christchurch earthquakes, indicating that much of Christchurch was munted.
We fly tomorrow morning for Melbourne. What will it be like? Australia has had such horrible fires. We'll be there for a little bit--though we were scheduled to be there a month (but we just cancelled our apartment rental)--and decide if we should move on or not. I fear that Aussies are using the word munted a lot these days; we hope better days are ahead for them.
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| View from Mt Victoria |
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| We hope Geoffrey is no longer a problem at this house! |
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| Personal funicular for a house in hilly Welly. What happens when the power goes out? |
