A Flower Bed And Mexican Woes

“Compared to Chicago, New Zealand’s like a botanical garden,” said Sammy. But New Zealand being a giant-sized flower bed isn’t the only thing setting it apart from Chicago. Everybody here is nice. Period. Even from the moment we stepped into the ‘Air New Zealand’ terminal in the San Francisco airport, we were greeted with an unfamiliar friendliness. Our section’s flight attendant was particularly merry and had a sort of grandma-esque aura. Once we got on land and had walked around a little, we realized kindness does not only dwell in the thoughtful stewardess; New Zealand is a happy land. But why? Coming from Chicago (and having recently visited New York), its kind of an astonishing fact. We have a (slightly proven) theory: Smaller communities have better chemistry. Everybody’s nice because there’s less of a city to deal with. One less parking meter, one less grocery store, one less cab driver, and a lot less stress. The same phenomena sort of happens in Michigan. We visited a family there, and they were extremely hospitable, treating us as if we were their close relatives. Small town (or country) = niceness. I rest my case.

For the past two years, our family has gone to Mexico during winter break. Some of the best memories I have were made there. We absolutely love snorkeling, one thing they don’t have in New Zealand (at least where we are). It makes me–us–miss the cool Central American nights, with half mutilated gecko carcasses being carried away by hordes of ants, and tan actors doing Grease en Español. Its great to be in New Zealand, I’m just having Mexican woes.

By the way, do New Zealanders think Americans sound just as weird as we think they do? Unless they’re just really good listeners, it seems like our accents (or non-accents) don’t matter to them. Its all a matter of perspective: Our normalities are their oddities.. are those words?