Meeting a Kiwi

Had some interesting visitors knock on my door today. A couple of missionaries from 2 different countries one from U.S. California and one all the way from New Zealand.

You're probably thinking, big whoop what's so exciting about that, right?.  After all I do live in Canada world's #1 multi-cultural country.

Well, strangely enough in all of the 16 years I've been residing here I have never (until today) met a real life Kiwi before.

I've met plenty of American friends (we are neighbours after all), but for some reason I've never met a New Zealander.

Going through Highschool, and College (where I took a Tourism and Travel course I might add) in the world's most multi-cultural country you'd think I would have come across a few people from there.  But not so much.

I have plenty of online friends who hail from New Zealand, but it's one thing to have a long time pen pal of sorts, and yet another to meet one in the flesh.

Being Roman Catholic, I wasn't really interested in their missionary purpose, but I thoroughly enjoyed the conversion about our respective countries. 

Although it was brief it was quite interesting talking about the differences, and similaraties between each country.  She loved the multi-culturalism of Canada.

I loved the landscapes, and the laid back attitude of the people (which the girl herself pointed out).  Not that New Zealand isn't multi-cultural, far from it actually.

But I guess comparatively Canada beats New Zealand overall in that regard (given Canada's larger population it's understandable).

We also briefly touched on the different pricing structure of Internet access over there.  And I was surprised to learn it's actually a lot more expensive.

I've always thought my plan was awful, well compared to New Zealand I'm paying half the price for half as much bandwidth.

And yes unfortunetly just like Canada, New Zealand also has bandwidth restrictions (sometimes it's enough to make me wanna go back and live in Europe where it is unlimited).

When I asked her how she liked it here, she answered that it's very cold but that she loved it.

Given the fact that she was practically gushing as she said it, it was clear she was very sincere.

I had to chuckle at the weather comment though, yep nothing compares to the cold Canadian winters! :D.  And this year hasn't even been that bad (temperature-wise).

Coming from a country like New Zealand where the worst you get in the winter is lots of random rain, this had to be quite a shocker.  Didn't seem to dampen her enthusiasm for the country itself though.

Why the long ramble on New Zealand you ask?.

Well I'm not sure whether I have ever mentioned this in the four years I've been blogging (I might have a few years back not sure) but I have a bit of fascination with it.

It's the one country I would like to live in aside from Canada.

It all started with a little show called Xena: Warrior Princess, which is where I first took notice of it's beauty and appeal in general.

I did a couple of large study projects throughout Highschool and College which intensified my interest.  The more I learned about it, the more I liked it.

Aside from breathtaking landscapes, it also shares one other major thing with Canada, great health care.

Thus endeth my tangent.