1984
wahoo my first winter in New York! mmmmm snow. wow didn't realise snow was wet... then again that ain't a surprising considering it is water haha. but mum of course had to clean and dry stuff after me and paul went out in the snow. for mum it was less enjoyable and i guess for adults who actually have lives to live and places to be ppl to see then it could be of an annoyance. driving was a mish in da snow... but not as bad as it could have been as Americian drivers are soooo much more courteious than kiwi drivers. better driving over there was what mum and dad allways commented on. then again nz drivers are terrible... its well known... and back then it was no different than it is now. but in general we found americans to be lazy and rude and back then we noticed a huge difference in their living habits. kiwis had better manners, ate way healthier (so many fast food places in da states) and were way more active than americians. I was one of the best athletes in my school in america whereas back in NZ i used to get my arse kicked in sports etc. at shops we noticed we noticed all the carpark close to the shops were full... i know this sounds normal now in NZ but back then ppl just parked anywhere in NZ malls.... thats if they had to do a big shop... otherwise they didn't even use the car. But in america they were lazy. basically the crap thats in NZ now was in america back then.... gee how unorigional... we are sheep being led to the slaughter. Another thing we noticed in america was the HUGE gap between rich and poor. the minute you set foot off the train into grand central station you can see homeless ppl everywhere... this in the middle of winter (which is colder than what akl ever gets). But out in the burbs where we lived there are palaces everywhere. This scary country was getting scarier and scarier for this little boy.
You go into the malls... security guards have guns, you go onto the street, cops have guns.... and so do the criminals... and there are plenty of those. Our area was nice where we lived but places close to the city were utter shitholes. just writing this makes me happy to be a kiwi to be honest.
but it wasn't all bad over there. Summer holidays were very long... not much school in america... we had the whole summer off... 3 months of it lol. And summers were hot. In 1984 we went to Arizona and the SW of america. We did universial studios in LA and then went to Pheonix Arizona complete with 45C of desert heat. We couldn't swim but paddled in the pool at every hotel we went to pools are important at those places for some reason.... well there was 50 reasons to be in a pool at one stage..... yep it got up to 50C at one stage and getting from the pool to your hotel room involved a 50 yard dash across the concrete aka frying pan. but it was sooo much fun. epic holiday, we even went horse trekking... loved that going into bryce canyon. Also went to grand canyon.... huge and we even went in a plane inside the canyon. We also went to smaller canyons including this one called spider rock... this spire of rock that jutted up in the middle of this huge canyon like a church steeple. mom (lol americian) told us that there was a native americian legend that sed that naughty boys got taken by the spider lady and placed on the middle of this spire... i think that was to make us behave ourselves but wouldn't be surprised if that was an actual legend as these places had a real spiritual feel to them... middle of nowhere... far far away from the hussle and bustle of New York.. this is a different America out here and i liked it. we also went to Yuma... didn't know what Yuma was famous for back then but found out later that its the sunniest place in the world with 4000 hours of sunshine a year... just as a comparision wellington has just over 2000 and that is still regarded as quite sunny.
but unfortunaterly all good things come to and end and by the end of the year i was back in new york in their very NOT sunny winter but thats ok cos it was snowing again :) Now Christmas in america is VASTLY different to NZ... only america can make something both commercial and religious at da same time. Instead of bbqs, singlets, stubbies, jandals and toejam it was suits, ties, turkey and not a jandal in sight... it was all very posh. Yes we belonged to country club and yes we had to dress up.... i wasn't kidding when i sed suits and ties.... but thats exactly what it was.... but thats ok, no toejam but the turkey made up for it.... mmmmm food it was worth it.... its amazing what an 8 year old boy will go through for the sake of a good feed... even wearing a dreaded tuxedo. Americians in general dressed up WAY more than kiwis.
You go into the malls... security guards have guns, you go onto the street, cops have guns.... and so do the criminals... and there are plenty of those. Our area was nice where we lived but places close to the city were utter shitholes. just writing this makes me happy to be a kiwi to be honest.
but it wasn't all bad over there. Summer holidays were very long... not much school in america... we had the whole summer off... 3 months of it lol. And summers were hot. In 1984 we went to Arizona and the SW of america. We did universial studios in LA and then went to Pheonix Arizona complete with 45C of desert heat. We couldn't swim but paddled in the pool at every hotel we went to pools are important at those places for some reason.... well there was 50 reasons to be in a pool at one stage..... yep it got up to 50C at one stage and getting from the pool to your hotel room involved a 50 yard dash across the concrete aka frying pan. but it was sooo much fun. epic holiday, we even went horse trekking... loved that going into bryce canyon. Also went to grand canyon.... huge and we even went in a plane inside the canyon. We also went to smaller canyons including this one called spider rock... this spire of rock that jutted up in the middle of this huge canyon like a church steeple. mom (lol americian) told us that there was a native americian legend that sed that naughty boys got taken by the spider lady and placed on the middle of this spire... i think that was to make us behave ourselves but wouldn't be surprised if that was an actual legend as these places had a real spiritual feel to them... middle of nowhere... far far away from the hussle and bustle of New York.. this is a different America out here and i liked it. we also went to Yuma... didn't know what Yuma was famous for back then but found out later that its the sunniest place in the world with 4000 hours of sunshine a year... just as a comparision wellington has just over 2000 and that is still regarded as quite sunny.
but unfortunaterly all good things come to and end and by the end of the year i was back in new york in their very NOT sunny winter but thats ok cos it was snowing again :) Now Christmas in america is VASTLY different to NZ... only america can make something both commercial and religious at da same time. Instead of bbqs, singlets, stubbies, jandals and toejam it was suits, ties, turkey and not a jandal in sight... it was all very posh. Yes we belonged to country club and yes we had to dress up.... i wasn't kidding when i sed suits and ties.... but thats exactly what it was.... but thats ok, no toejam but the turkey made up for it.... mmmmm food it was worth it.... its amazing what an 8 year old boy will go through for the sake of a good feed... even wearing a dreaded tuxedo. Americians in general dressed up WAY more than kiwis.
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