Very Specific New Zealand Downsides (and A Couple Things That Are Just Right)

No sweep!

Only push!

Push brooms vs sweeper brooms isn’t a deep conflict I’ve really spent much time thinking about before.  Apparently it is notorious in the American ex-pat community here that it is very difficult to find a sweeper broom. True enough, both of the brooms in my household are push style. And I do feel like the push style is the wrong tool for the job of sweeping a kitchen floor.

Towel drying racks - every bathroom seems to have an electrical layout geared specifically designed around where the heated towel rack will need to be plugged in.  Pulling a nice dry towel off of a heated towel rack is really living, this is an appliance I want to bring home with me for humid Chicago summers and cold Chicago winters.

Speaking of electrical sockets almost every single outlet has an individual power switch.

When I’m done in the kitchen using the stovetop I can just turn it off at the wall. That switch is helpfully labeled "hob."  This also means that since I’m not accustomed to this additional step I have plugged my phone in and walked away and when I come back it is not the slightest bit charged because the power was not turned on.  Ope.

Tiny Washing Machines 

I tried to research this so I can tell you exactly what the difference is but the American appliance websites list the volume of washing machines and the New Zealand ones give only give capacity in weight.  So I would be comparing apples and kiwis.  I have a deranged collection of scribbles on a piece of paper where I was trying to convert lbs to kgs and cubic feet to cm and laundry baskets to bath towels until I threw my hands up in surrender. Suffice to say, my usual once a week one load of laundry life is now a once a week two loads of laundry lifestyle, and I’m certainty not wearing any more clothes than I was before. The washing machine is just teeny. And the dryer lives in the garage, because the laundry room isn't big enough for it.

Clothes Drying 

Clothes dryers do exist (even if they exist exiled into the garage) but there’s so much wind and sun here (and electricity is relatively expensive) that almost everyone seems to hang their laundry up to air dry.  As someone who grew up in a deeply humid environment there is something soul satisfying about hanging up laundry and by the time you're finished the first garments are already dry. There’s an outdoor clothesline at my house, an oldschool post with four arms coming off and lines hung between each arm. It even rotates so you can stand in one place and hang up all of the laundry your heart desires.  We also have an indoor clothes line in the sunroom, and each of my roommates seems to have their own clothes horse (aka drying rack, the etymology is just that horse = something to be mounted, so it could like of mean rack anyway).

No Gas Stoves

Every house I’ve been into has either an electric stove (ugh, nothing makes me feel like an inept cook faster than an electric burner, suddenly I can’t even sautee an onion) or an induction cooktop.  Induction cooking = better than gas.  Sure, I can’t roast an eggplant on top of an open flame, but that’s what the grill is for.

Capsicum

This is the term used for anything I would call a bell pepper, from green to yellow to red (though red does seem to be the favorite here).  Any hot pepper is generally referred to as a chili.  This kind of drives me crazy, since capsicum is the Latin for the entire pepper family and so every chili is technically a capsicum and and capsicum is just another varietal of capsicum and... sigh, it's frustrating, but language isn’t ever going to be a balanced equation, so I’m just trying to let this one go.  “Pepper” usually refers to the black, white, or red peppercorn spice that you crush and sprinkle on top of your potatoes and eggs.