Here is an update on our likes and dislikes so far.

Likes:

• We don’t have kids, but I like to see really cool playground equipment kids can get hurt on.
• Drinking allowed in the streets.
• Not many lawsuits.
• Biking by the ocean.
• Kaffee Eis gelato.
• Delicious grass fed cows.
• People watching on Cuba Street.
• Having the beach five minutes away.

Dislikes:

• Parking enforcement.
• I think New Zealanders are used to having a lot of space so they walk down the sidewalk in widely spread out groups so you can’t get by. Then they just stop to have a chat and you can’t get by. It’s like being in Times Square with tourists in NYC.
• The word, “choice”. It’s not actually that we don’t like the word. It’s just funny to hear.
• The NZ symphony playing eighties music.
• Genre fashion on Cuba street, again eighties.
• Lack of insulation in housing.
• I took my shoes to get repaired. In NYC probably a $10.00 fix. Here $80.00.

We live in the Las Olas de Cuba apartments which translates to “the waves of the Cuba.” When received our quarterly gas bill from body corporate, El Che was on it. This piqued our attention for several reasons:

• It is the world’s most famous photograph and it is next to incredibly bad clip art
• Che is the most infamous Marxist revolutionary of our time
• And, it’s on a utility bill, from body corporate, regarding our middle-class home

Have we discovered the biggest and most obvious conceptual oxymoron in the history of oxymorons? Apparently so. Because in 1840 a survey party, traveling on a boat called the Cuba, landed near Wellington, with the task of surveying. So, that’s why there is Cuba street. And without any trace of profound thought, Che and Fidel’s photos and names popped up about 15 years ago to help market the trendy cafes which were on Cuba street, a street with absolutely no connection to the country, culture or politics.

We can only assume that if he knew, he would be upset and therefore haunt our body corporate.

Also, the word cuba comes from a Taino word meaning “where fertile land is abundant” or “great place.”

We think we have been able to gain some further insight into the New Zealander.  There does seem to be less confidence in people here than in America, which has somewhat hindered innovation, but has also allowed the New Zealander to create a much more stable society.  The people here do lack encouragement to push further, but there is a general competence it seems with everyone we meet.  In America you run into so many people where you can’t help but thinking,  ”I can’t believe you remember to breathe”.   This competence has lead to a very pragmatic people, that have sense enough to think things through without blind ego leading the way.

The strong pressure to conform here seems to come from their English heritage.  In English literature the protagonist becomes part of society in the end where the American is the lone rebel.  It’s funny. We live at the top of Cuba Street, which is a little similar to Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn.  Every time we tell someone where we live they refer to it as the alternative area with a slightly negative tone of voice.  It is the place where kids play dress up while finding themselves playing Bob Dylan, Radiohead and Ramones songs on acoustic guitars, talking about communism and anarchy, while wearing skinny jeans, ponchos and leather, with dread locks, mohawks, and expensive hipster haircuts.  Which from our perspective, there is nothing that alternative about. It is just another street where ideas along with cd’s and t-shirts are sold, but although their rebellion may be recycled, the general notion on Cuba Street says the corporate capitalist doesn’t have a monopoly yet in New Zealand.  Which may be true, in that most of what is sold on Cuba Street is made here, and the New Zealander still maintains a relationship with his fellow man and doesn’t seem to harbor the loneliness of the American individual.

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