Dale's Adventure Diary: What NZ does better

I've been over in England for long enough now to comment on things that I believe New Zealand does better than our English relatives. I've heard customers over here refer to New Zealand as 'little Britain' in the sense that when they've visited NZ they've felt that it was like Britain on a smaller scale. I've also heard it said that NZ is like England was 50 years ago. While I see a lot of similarities between the two, I think that New Zealand has a really solid identity that makes it beautifully unique. And there are some things that Aotearoa does that I think are just great.

1) England never really sleeps. Well, London in particular, but in comparison to NZ the country doesn't really. By this I mean that shops are open really late and don't close on any day of the week. In contrast, for most of my life in Hastings and then in Palmerston North, you'd barely find anything open on a Sunday. While it's convenient that things don't close, I think it's nice because it means more time spent at home with family. More time making memories and less time focusing on money and consumerism. Which leads in to my second point...

2) The lifestyle. New Zealand definitely does this better. People over here seem to be all about the money, and are definitely more uptight about things. Again, London is the exaggeration of this and it's not as bad in other places but it's still more so than back home. In London everyone's in a rush, life is mostly all about work and hours are long. But even out here in Lane End, the office lady Pam is in the office by 8.30am every day and doesn't leave till after 7pm, sometimes even as late as 9pm. That's 11 hour days. She doesn't work on the weekends but still, those are long days! Also kiwis are a lot more relaxed about things. Small things that have caused big issues at work here would be shrugged off in NZ, or noted but not stressed about. NZ is definitely more kick-back than England. No one would argue any different.

3) Smoking. What I've come to appreciate about NZ since being here is the way that smoking is perceived in the culture. Back home it's pretty anti-social and definitely frowned upon. There are also sooooo many anti-smoking campaigns from local and national governments and it's not as common as it once was. Which is GREAT. Over here though, smoking is VERY common. Most of my workmates are heavy smokers and I've yet to see a quit-smoking or anti-smoking adver in the newspaper or on TV. C'mon England - get your country healthy! It should be a priority!

4) On a similar wavelength is drink driving. Working in a pub I'm more exposed to this I suppose, but it's pretty shocking. So many people drink drive and no-one seems to bat an eyelid. A couple of weeks ago one of the ladies that works in the office was obviously very intoxicated (we're talking couldn't walk straight, obviously couldn't see straight, was blurring her words etc etc) and when she went to leave everyone just said 'bye, see you later'. No one asked her whether she was ok to drive, no one offered to call her a taxi or anything. I had seen her state but didn't see her leave, otherwise I would have said something. I think that's really terrible, and found it quite shocking. And so many customers do it. From what I've seen, there isn't the police presence that we have back home, and there's no media reinforcing the message that it's not acceptable. No good.

5) Weather. New Zealand weather > England weather.

Here are some pictures of my time in the London Eye (which is over-priced and over-rated in my opinion).