You know the interesting thing about New Zealand? It's the little differences.

I’m sitting now in an airport in Christchurch, New Zealand on my way to Brisbane, Australia. I’m in one of the coolest airport bars I’ve ever been to. I’m sitting here sipping down a Speights Dark (Speights is an excellent New Zealand brewery) next to a wall of windows overlooking the runway, a forest, and the Southern Alps (the mountain range from Lord of the Rings). The plan right now is to knock down enough Speights to be able to wipe this flight from memory, but until then I figured I’d point out some of the good and some of the not so good of traveling to New Zealand for those not fortunate enough to have made the trip.

The good

• Lamb. Lamb is everywhere here and it’s good. One of the more interesting facts of New Zealand is that there are more sheep than people here. Ok, that’s not really that interesting, but still, the lamb is awesome. I’ve had so far, a braised lamb (with a red wine sauce, lentils, and truffle oil) so good I nearly lost all self control, a lamb pizza (with feta, rosemary, and potato), and lamb chips. That’s right, I had lamb flavored potato chips. Surprisingly enough, they actually tasted lamb like, and even more surprisingly, they did not suck. I did pass, however, on the lamb sandwich from Subway. You’ve got to have standards.
  
  
• The accent. No matter how much I hear it, it still sounds cool – especially when coming from kids. Although for some reason I feel like they’re faking it.
  
  
• The coffee. It’s a little known fact that coffee down under is quite fantastic. It’s made even better by the funny names. A “flat white” for example is basically a latte (although they also sell lattes at the same place… I can’t figure this one out). A “long black” (or the less adventurous may opt for the smaller “short black”) is like a double espresso pulled over hot water so it's a little diluted and has more volume. Three long blacks paired with six pints of Speights is the perfect cure for jet lag. Side effects may include excessive pissing and the misguided belief that you can do the accent.
  
  
• The scenery. Anyone who has seen Lord of the Rings can vouch for the beauty of New Zealand, but the thing that makes it cool is that since the south island is sparsely populated, it’s more like a natural place with pockets of civilization; unlike the US which is more like a big city with pockets of nature. Then again, as a Floridian, any time I see a mountain not named “Space”, “Big Thunder”, “Splash”, or “Trashmore” it feels really foreign.
  
  

The not so good

• Waking up and football has already started. I would have put this under “the good” if the Texans didn’t just get their asses handed to them by a team nearly chased from home by fires. What the fuck?! Was this a charitable donation?! “Hey, sorry about your house. Here’s a few interceptions to get you back on your feet.” Now to get through the rest of the day, I have to stay drunk for 15 hours instead of the usual 5 or 6. Wait a sec… I gain three hours in Brisbane… carry the one and... shit… another Speights please.
  
  
• Departure tax. This isn’t exactly exclusive to New Zealand, but I don’t understand why when you land they say you can only stay for three months, but they're going to charge you $25 to leave. What the hell do you want from me? I’m getting mixed signals here. Imagine if I did this at home. “Hey guys, why don’t you come over for a barbecue? You can only stay for a couple of hours and before you leave you have to give me a bottle of whiskey.” Hmm… maybe I should put this under “good”…
  
  
• Excessive coinage. This also applies to multiple countries. I’m not a fan of the $1 and $2 coins. You end up trying to buy a $10 sandwich with nothing but change otherwise you get this big bulge in your pocket and people start getting the wrong idea about you.

Well the battery’s dying on the laptop and the Speights is running low. Time to move on. If history’s any indication, I’ll post again from the next airport.

Note: During the writing of this entry, they had some horse racing on the TV. One of the bartenders was a partial owner of a horse that nearly won (and who apparently had never even been close before). They were all going nuts. It was pretty exciting and I found myself getting excited near the end even though I really couldn’t give a shit.

They also showed a dog race which was delayed because one of the dogs took a shit on the track. Ironically, they continued to play football in San Diego after the Texans did the same thing.