Things the UK does better than New Zealand

Supermarkets.  I actually MISS Lidl, Sainsbury's and Waitrose and sometimes Tesco.  (maybe I miss their familiarity). Eitherway Countdown is OK I spose, Pak N Save is too yellow and hard to find stuff, New World is too pricey and I don't even step foot in the other ones that are more expensive.

Cereal.  Weetabix taste different. So do Cheerios.  I don't want Uncle Toby Cheerios I want Nestle Cheerios with the added sweetness.  NZ has a piss poor selection if you don't want muesli or porridge.

and on that note. Sweets. WTF is a Moro bar?  And a Cherry Ripe? Where is my Lion bar and my Drifter and my Fruit Pastilles!

Road signs.  Adam pointed this out to me - the lights on a zebra crossing aren't lights, they're little bright orange discs not the big flashing bulbs we have in the UK. No wonder I nearly run people over all the time.  

Look! A stupid disc!! 

Road markings.  The words on the road are written backwards!  A year later and it still takes me  second to work out what they mean.  For example, in the UK if we were driving along a road and written on the road was "Stop Here", in NZ is would be "Here Stop" because i guess they expect you to read the first word first.  

Way Give?

Pubs and nightlife.   I walked past a really cool pub on Thursday at 7pm (happy hour) and it had about 5 people in it.  In London this would be rammed from 5pm onwards. Sad!

Central heating. And insulation.  My house is made of wood. It's well pretty and has wooden floors I'd die for in London and has a pretty little verandah (or a "dick" if you're a kiwi) and nice in the summer but in the winter jeez it's cold. Zero insulation. AND NO CENTRAL HEATING. WHAT THE FUCK DO I LIVE IN THE 1900s? We have these gas heaters but only 2 (one in the hallway which doesn't work and one in the dining room which only heats the dining room and kitchen and is then redundant when you turn on the oven)  one of which doesn't ignite and a fire. A fire! To be fair I do love the fire.  In fact it's going right now because it's a bit nippy but every 5 minutes we need to get up and blow on it and do fire maintenance.  But I do love it.  It's well romantic.


Public Transport.  Oh gosh this is truly terrible.  Auckland has one main train station in the CBD (Britomart) and it has 3 lines coming out of it. 3 WHOLE LINES.  The lines don't even go North.  And if you wanna get to another town you have to get a coach or fly. I think there's one train line on each island.

Haggis.  I don't think there is haggis here.  Maybe in the south island. 

Old Buildings.   There's nothing old and made out of stone here. Maybe like one building. But that's it. I miss architecture.

This blog post was written out of frustration that I didn't get a job I really wanted and it would have provided me with a Visa to stay here so now I am trying to think of good things about the UK and bad things about NZ so when I have to come home it makes it easier. And I have had a glass of wine and I have peed 3 times and I have a nice happy buzz after crying for 5 minutes on the road side with my friends. And now I am listening to a Jan Blomgvist playlist and he's really good and you should listen. I am assuming he's a he. I should prob check. Bye.