Some exciting things about New Zealand

Thought we'd mention some of the odd things we find exciting now that we've left South America and are in New Zealand.

Potable Water
Potable tap water is just about the most exciting thing ever. Water comes out of the wall, and you can drink it. After months of going out and buying bottled water, making sure we have enough water, rinsing our toothbrushes with bottled water, and otherwise worrying about water, we LOVE potable tap water. We can also now eat raw veggies and salads. Score!

Speaking English
We got fairly good at Spanish, at least for "standard" conversations like getting a hotel or taxi, ordering food, talking about our trip or where we're from. Long conversations were not really possible as we lacked sufficient vocabulary (and the ability to use past tense for all but a couple words), but we got along. In New Zealand, we can just open our mouths and words come out. And people understand! It's been fun. The first few days we kept answering questions in Spanish, but by now we're back in the swing of English.

A Car
Wow, having our own transportation is great. We don't need to plan ahead for bus schedules and which towns we can actually reach. We can just drive. And if we don't like the town we find, we just keep going. Miss something? Turn around! Public transit may be cheaper, but having our own car is totally worth it. Driving on the left side of the road turns out to be no big deal, too.

Not being a Gringo
In South America, we were marked as tourists from a few hundred yards. It's not really avoidable, we're very white. This isn't really a problem per se, but it does get old being an obvious outsider. In New Zealand, you can't tell we're foreign until we start talking. Even then, we're not that far out since English is our first language.

International Cuisine and/or Cooking
Nothing against local fare, but we're used to having access to all sorts of food, from Cambodian soups to Russian pastry to African stews, not to mention whatever we can cook up. The food in South America was not bad, but it got monotonous. And we didn't always have access to a kitchen, so we had to eat out a lot. Chicken, rice, and potato for every meal is not really satisfying long-term. We got to Auckland and got sushi, Indian tandoori wraps, vegan chocolate-mint cake, and whatever else we could find. And we found Asian supermarkets, farmers markets, and pretty much whatever produce could be found. We stocked up on our traditional kitchen staples and have been eating well lately off the local produce and steady access to kitchens. So far, we haven't eaten a potato despite finding the Peruvian blues in Kerikeri. Our spicy soup with local catch fish, however, is excellent.

Plumbing
Now, it's not like South America didn't have plumbing. There were pipes and water indoors and all that jazz (minus the potable part, but we covered that already). What were missing were a few important features we take for granted in the US. First, U-bends. Admittedly, Ecuador and Peru had these. Bolivia didn't, which perhaps isn't too surprising as it's on the lower end of the development scale. However, Chile and Argentina were strangely lacking as well. What we can't figure out is why anyone would not install one, given that they're pretty inexpensive and trivial to add to even existing fixtures. Who wants to smell sewer all the time? The less important thing we missed is robust plumbing. Nowhere in South America could we flush paper. Again, this is not really a big deal once you stop forgetting about it, but it's rather nice to have that ability.