10 things I love about you, if you are New Zealand

I have a complicated relationship with my New Zealand identity. The classic Kiwiana icons from the Kiwi Burger box leave me cold – I lost a barbie doll at the hot pools when I was seven and I think hokey pokey ice-cream tastes like an impending visit to the dentist. I grew up in the city and my family never had a bach, so images of paddocks and glaciers seem almost foreign to me.

That lush Hobbiton-green is a colour that I’d only see around the manicured lawns of Merivale in Christchurch when I was growing up. I’m not interested in watching an All Blacks or a Silver Ferns game – if I wanted to watch people exercise I’d just pull up a chair at a gym.

I’m not a particularly patriotic person – I don’t feel especially proud of New Zealand, just because I happened to be born there. I can’t even say the word ‘Kiwi’ without cringing. But there are definitely things I miss and love about Aotearoa. I’ve been back a handful of times since I moved almost two years ago but not for any good chunk of time.

I’m going to change that this month – I’ll be spending nine whole days in Wellington, the city where I went to university, grew up and met my partner. There are so many things I’m looking forward to, like hugging my friends and seeing new haircuts and gossiping about who has broken up with who since I left. I’m looking forward to those snippets of daily life that I haven’t been able to re-create in Australia, the little things that remind me of the place I called home for 24 years. Here are 10 of the things that I’m looking forward to the most.

Eftpos

In Australia you’re lucky to pay for something with a card if it costs less than twenty bucks. Signs with ‘cash only’ underlined in permanent marker are common, as are the glares you receive from wait staff if you ask to split the bill. In New Zealand I’m going to buy chewing gum on Eftpos, just because I can.

Taxis

In Sydney when you catch a cab, you hail a cab. If you’re on a quieter road, you walk to a busier road and hail one from there. And don’t try catching a cab during change-over at 3pm. Or the one at 3am. If you manage to find a cab, prepare for the driver to tell you to get out if they decide you’re not going far enough. And don’t even try to pay by card and don’t expect any change from your notes. I can’t wait to call a cab and have it show up right outside my door, no matter how frivolous the journey.

Calling a dairy a dairy

In Australia a bottle shop is a bottleo, a service station is a servo and if you’re meeting someone after lunch you’ll be seeing them this arvo. In a country where every word is shortened, there remains one cumbersome exception: the convenience store. I’m looking forward to announcing that I’m going to the dairy without someone asking if I’m planning on milking a cow.

Pronouncing my name and people understanding me

Even though my mum says that I’m sounding more and more like a character from Kath and Kim, Australians have known me as ‘Ellie’ or ‘Amy’ for the last two years. ‘Ally’ is really looking forward to going home.

Brunch

It’s not like brunch doesn’t exist in Sydney. There are plenty of places you can eat eggs on a weekday morning, and they all sell the classic Australian breakfast options of a bacon and egg roll or a piece of banana bread. Nothing I’ve eaten here even comes close to a Wellington brunch. I’m planning on eating the really good kedgeree, the haloumi and eggs benedict. Ideally, I’ll be leaving Wellington with hollandaise coursing through my veins.

Feeling cold

I don’t think I’ve felt properly cold for two years. I really like the weather in Sydney for the most part, especially the going swimming at the beach for six months of the year part (#humblebrag). The grass is always greener though, and the idea of feeling truly, properly cold has become a novelty. I want to feel so cold that I have to get up in the middle of the night and put woolly socks on.

Hearing people speak Te Reo

As a Pākehā whose knowledge of Te Reo doesn’t extend far past counting to four and singing along to ‘Mā is white', this one is super hypocritical. I didn’t even realise that I missed hearing people speak Te Reo until a couple of months ago, when a new Māori neighbour referred to my cat’s puku and our cozy whare. It made my ears smile. The sounds of Te Reo Māori reminds me that I come from a land of lapping waves and rolling hills in a way that the 100% Pure marketing campaign never could.

Normal birds

All of the birds in Australia squawk. They don’t cheep or twitter or sing. Here the birds squawk and scream, or they cackle like monkeys. Parks are filled with grubby, cat-sized birds called ibis – they dredge through rubbish bins with their sword-shaped beaks. Noisy miners with yellow feet jump around cafe tables, cockatoos swarm suburban streets to peck at the nuts on the trees and huge great crows fly overhead, making guttural noises like crying toddlers. I can’t wait to see some chill, sweet little sparrows. That’s what birds should be like. Small, brown and round.

Going to the supermarket

Some people visit Wellington and go on the cable car; I’m visiting Wellington and going to the supermarket. As well as the bread, I’ll be buying all of my favourite junk food that you can’t buy in Australia: twisties, cookie times, grainwaves, ginger nuts. I’ll be buying up chutney like it’s going out of fashion because for some reason, Australia isn’t big on chutney or relish. I’ve been meaning to get around to becoming the kind of person who makes their own for a couple of years now but I think it might just be easier to get on a plane and buy some. The liquor laws in New South Wales are different too – you can’t buy wine and beer at the supermarket, you have to go to a separate store just outside the supermarket which is still owned by the same company. It’s weird. I can’t wait to buy cheese and wine in the same transaction – it just seems cruel to separate cheese and wine. It’s like asking Juliet to marry Paris instead.

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