My flight was scheduled for 9: 45am. It was still dark at 6am but it didn’t look like there had been any further snowfall, and it wasn’t snowing anymore.  Once it got a bit lighter, we could see that there was a couple of inches of snow, and they sent out a fire engine with a snowplow attachment to start clearing it.

Around 7am they started making announcements about the flight status. The Pacific Blue flight to Brisbane from the night before was initially re-scheduled to depart at 8:30am but was then delayed until 10:30am. Most of the Air New Zealand flights in the morning were cancelled. There were two 737s at the airport and so only two flights were left on the board – one to Christchurch and one for Wellington, and both of them were delayed until at least 10:30am. My flight was cancelled.

I waited half an hour on hold with Air New Zealand bookings to rebook my flight. They told me that all the flights to Auckland that day were full except for the 8:50pm one. I told her I didn’t think there was much chance of that one actually taking off. I’m pretty sure like last night that once it gets dark the runway would ice up again. There was another flight to Auckland scheduled for about 2pm but it was via Christchurch. I already knew that Christchurch airport was closed and that there wasn’t much chance of that flight happening either. So I opted to book the 9:45am flight the following day, and I would try to get that changed to an earlier flight if things started looking more promising.

I spent most of the morning sitting around reading my book, chatting to people and just generally waiting. I’d have loved a comfy seat and a shower but they never opened the Koru lounge because they were too short-staffed.

I think it was around midday that they announced that people should check in for the Pacific Blue flight so they would be ready if there was a chance to take off. Things were looking promising … the snow was definitely melting – you could see grass, and you could see water on the runway rather than just snow. There were occasional snow showers, but they weren’t very heavy and didn’t last too long. So there was at least a chance the flights would get out. Air New Zealand then announced they would start checking people in for the flight to Wellington but that it would be people flying to Wellington only. They would not book anyone with transfers to another city. People who wanted to go to Auckland or elsewhere could change their booking to Wellington but they would be on their own from there and would have to buy their own tickets to get from Wellington back to Auckland. Given that all the flights from Wellington to Auckland seemed full, I decided to wait for a flight to Auckland.

A little later they announced that the other plane on the tarmac wouldn’t be going to Christchurch because it was still closed, but that they might try a flight to Auckland. I had no idea what flight number that might be, but I called the booking line to try and find out and see if I could get on it. The booking people actually had far less idea about what was going on than I did, so they weren’t able to help very much. The issue became moot pretty soon when they announced that they didn’t actually have enough staff to enable the plane to take passengers, so it would be departing to Auckland empty. I asked if there were any earlier flights that I could be on standby for and was told that there was no such thing as standby on domestic flights so I went back upstairs thinking I’d definitely be here another night.

All three planes waiting managed to take off – Pacific Blue to Brisbane, a full AirNZ plane to Wellington and an empty one to Auckland. Then one plane managed to land – a turboprop from Christchurch. The board was now showing that there was a direct flight to Auckland at 5pm that hadn’t been cancelled, and the inbound flight also was still showing up as departing from Auckland on schedule. I decided to go downstairs and wait in line to find out if there was any way I could get on that plane. After about half an hour in the queue, I was told that yes, I could get listed as standby on that flight. I was told that when they called check-in to just come down and check in and they’d give me a standby boarding pass. I went back upstairs and looked up the inbound flight and saw that it had taken off from Auckland on schedule, so there was at least some hope there. The runways were still clear, and there had been no fresh snow, just a few brief flurries.

I went to check in when the inbound flight from Auckland touched down.  Only one of the three self check machines was working so the queue was pretty long in front of the two people on the check in desk.  I chatted with some of the passengers in the queue around me.  Most of them had just arrived at the airport and were hoping to make it to Auckland to meet international connections the following day, but there was one family who had spent the night and were on standby for the same flight as I was.  They’d been put on the standby list just before me.    One man who’d just arrived asked me what I thought were the chances of the flight leaving. I said I thought the chances the plane would take off were very good, but the chances that I’d be on it were pretty low.

Eventually I made it to the front of the queue, and it was the same guy who’d been in the lounge the night before.  I told him he was on standby and he looked me up and told me that no, I had a seat allocation.  Woohooo!  After he checked me in and gave me my boarding pass, he smiled and asked if I’d ever come back to Dunedin again.  I laughed and said ‘only in the summer’.

Interestingly, the family who had been put on standby at the same time as me had standby boarding passes, not actual seats.  I saw a few others later on who also had standby seats.  I’m not sure why I got a seat and they didn’t – perhaps even Silver status with Air New Zealand has value sometimes.  About 2 minutes later they asked us to please go through security to the gate lounge so they could get us boarded and away as soon as possible in case the weather changed.   I ended up sitting back in the same gate lounge where I’d spent the night on the floor.  They got us onto the plane super quick, we were all ready to go probably at least 15 minutes before our scheduled departure.  Some of the people on standby made it on to the flight but not all. I’m not sure how they decide who out of all the people hanging around with standby passes gets to board? First in first served?  But then they decided to de-ice the plane as a precaution, so we sat there for half an hour or so while they scraped & hosed all the ice off the wings and tail.

Eventually though we taxied out onto the runway and it was still clear and we took off.  There was huge relief, although probably only about 20 of us had actually slept at the airport the night before.      Due to the fierce tail winds we landed in Auckland after just 1hour 20 minutes, as opposed to the almost 2 hours it normally takes.   And man, if I’d thought the queues at Dunedin were bad, they had nothing on Auckland.  The queue at the Air New Zealand ticketing desk was enormous, stretching back past the baggage claim and through the foodcourt.  I felt sorry for them, since I knew all the other inbound flights to Dunedin, Christchurch and most of the south island had been cancelled already.  At least there is a selection of hotels very close to the airports in Auckland so nobody should have to sleep in the terminal.

So I missed the snow in Auckland, but I’ve seen enough falling snow to last me for a while now.   I know it’s a stupid comparison, but when I was watching the snow fall, I just kept thinking how much it looked like a snow globe.  I mean, obviously it should since a snow globe is designed to look like falling snow, but I never really thought about it before.  That’s really the first time I’ve seen properly falling snow, more than just a few small flakes.  It really did look like large chunks of white snow swirling and falling and blowing all over the place before finally settling on the ground. 

So, overall, I’d say this was an interesting experience.  How many people get to sleep in an airport terminal in the middle of a blizzard?  Not something I’d like to do again – one night was enough, but still, it was actually quite fun. 

My flight was one of two to depart at 4:20pm, but because the inbound flight was delayed, we were now scheduled to depart at 4:45pm, and start boarding at 4:25pm.   About 5 minutes before boarding was due to start I thought I should probably go to the toilet and get packed up and ready to go.  On my way to the toilet, I stopped to look at the view of the hills to the east out of the big picture windows.  By the time I came out of the toilets, all I could see out of that window was white.    The entire airport was engulfed in a blizzard.   It was like being inside a snow globe.  Over the next hour, they just kept delaying the flights by 15 minutes at a time, until finally around 5:30pm there was a bit of a break.

They boarded two planes (though not mine) and tried to take off but weren’t able to find a big enough gap. Eventually, all the passengers were brought back inside the terminal and they announced that the airport was closed and all flights that night were cancelled. The announcements in the terminal told us to call Air New Zealand’s 0800 number to rebook our flights. They also told us to collect our bags from the baggage claim area and to try to leave the terminal and return to Dunedin while the roads were still passable.

While I was down collecting my bags, I saw dozens of people were queuing up at the service desk downstairs to try and get rebooked. I had decided already that I was probably going to stay at the terminal and wait for a flight, and not take the risk of going into Dunedin without anywhere to stay. I tried to call AirNZ but just ended up on hold for about 20 minutes. I went back upstairs to the lounge which was by now almost empty – only 3 or 4 others had got their bags and come back up like I had. I told the guy at the desk that I’d been on hold for 20 minutes so far and he took pity on me and rebooked me onto the Monday 9:45am flight.

Shortly after that they announced that the road between Dunedin and the airport was now closed due to snow and ice. A few people decided to try their luck in Mosgiel, which lies between Dunedin and the airport, but there was always a risk of getting stuck on the way there, or not getting back out to the airport the next morning, plus Mosgiel isn’t exactly a metropolis – I’d no idea how much accommodation would even be available.

I got my laptop out of my bag and quickly logged on to Cecil and cancelled my classes. I planned to stay in the Koru lounge as long as they would let us and then go downstairs to the terminal with everyone else. They basically closed the lounge immediately – we got to sit there for 15 minutes while they cleaned up and then we had to leave. Down in the main waiting area there was a massive queue for the only cafe still open. They mostly had pies, pizza, lasagne and sandwiches – nothing gluten free. After sitting around for about 20 minutes I figured that even if I didn’t eat anything, I should probably get something to drink, so I queued for half an hour for a bottle of water and a mochaccino. By the time I made it to the front of the queue, they were pretty much out of food. While I was in the queue, the Pacific Blue staff were walking around talking to all their customers, offering to help with finding accommodation or transport, and handing out vouchers for the food. I thought that was quite a nice touch from them.

There were periodic updates over the PA system about transport into Dunedin. They announced that the road was closed and that there were going to be no more shuttles going to Dunedin that night but that the two shuttles still there would take people to Mosgiel. A little while later they announced that there were a couple of 4WDs going to Dunedin if anyone want to get a ride. And later still, there was one last shuttle taking people to Mosgiel. At this point, I could see about 50 or 60 people sitting around the terminal, but there may have been more down at the check-in desks downstairs. I read a book but basically we all just settled in to wait.

Airport staff came around every now and then and a man in front of me asked if they would open up the gate lounges so we would have somewhere to lie down. The guy in fluoro went off to ask and must have been successful because about 20 mins later they opened up the restricted area and let us head down to the gate lounge on the southeastern corner of the airport. I grabbed myself a set of 3 seats up against the back wall. I figured that being close to the windows was probably going to make for a cold night and I was best to be as far from them as possible. About 20 or 30 other people eventually filtered down to the gate lounge. I know another bunch went upstairs to the conference room – they were all travelling together for some ice skating thing.

About 15 minutes after we got into the gate lounge, we were told that Red Cross had brought us some blankets and these were available down on the ground floor. There was a bale of about 30 standard grey blankets (I got one of those) and there was also a mixture of dozens of other duvets, quilts, sheets, bedspreads etc. The guy said they had been donated for Christchurch but weren’t used. He’d got through from Dunedin in a 4WD truck and said it had taken him over an hour.

Dunedin airport announced there were some urns with coffee and tea available upstairs in the terminal. By now it was about 10pm and all the cafes had shut long before. Most of us were trying to lie down and get some rest in the gate lounge. Someone asked for the lights to be turned off so we could sleep … or at least, try to.  After a while I was uncomfortable on the seats and moved onto the floor. Then I was quite cold and tried to wrap myself up even tighter. I was grateful I had my big fluffy dressing gown and my slippers as well as the blanket.   I snapped this picture of one of the 737s waiting outside the gate lounge in the snow, and the second picture I took in the gate lounge just before they turned out the lights.

During the night, the temperature dropped and dropped and dropped and I tried to wrap myself up tighter and tighter. Around 3am someone figured out that when they’d turned off the lights, all the heating turned off too. So they turned all the lights back on and slowly a bit of warmth returned.   I noticed that everyone else had abandoned the seats for the floor also.   I didn’t sleep particularly well, but managed to snooze a bit until they came around at 6am to clear out the gate lounge and start prepping for the flights they hoped would arrive today.

Well, this weekend proved to be more of an adventure than a mystery. The backstory is that I won an Air New Zealand Mystery Weekend for 2 people for 2 nights. I was asked to participate in an online discussion forum about FlyBuys & Air New Zealand Airpoints a few months ago.  I made sure to tell them what I thought in detail and was given the mystery weekend for being the best contributor. I only had a few months to use it though, and most weekends were ruled out for one reason or another and so it came down to 12th, 13th & 14th of August.

The guy I was originally supposed to go with pulled out (although after the tickets had been finalised) and so I substituted Stephen ($50 change fee). Stephen didn’t want to take another day off work having just arrived back from a trip to Queenstown, so I bought him a one-way ticket down on Saturday morning ($100). By this time I’d figured out that the mystery destination was Dunedin. It’s not that difficult to deduce it from the flight times. Anyway, both of those rebooking actions proved to be pointless when Stephen got sick and couldn’t go after all. So I was on my own.

I had to get up at 5am on Friday to make it to the airport in time, but everything at the airport was uneventful and thanks to Stephen not showing up, I even had an empty seat next to me on the plane. Score! Then the next bit of bad news – Dunedin was closed due to fog. We flew a holding pattern above Dunedin for about an hour before eventually diverting to Invercargill.

Most of my family was in Invercargill for my grandmother’s birthday, and they’d been hoping that’s where my mystery weekend would take me.  I couldn’t take advantage of it though since as soon as we landed, they bundled us onto a bus for the 3 hour drive up to Dunedin.  It wasn’t too bad as bus rides go – I do love the scenery in Southland & Otago.    There were even a few early lambs to see along the way.  Once arrived at Dunedin airport it was a further half an hour to get to the city, so instead of a 9:30am arrival, I was there about 2:30pm. On the plus side, my room at the hotel was ready straight away.

I wandered around Dunedin for a while – up and down George Street, then had some dinner on the Octogon and retired to my hotel room for a bath. You know you’ve lived in an apartment too long when one of the most exciting things about travelling is the chance to have a bubble bath with a good book. The next day I did more touristy things. Well, I went to the chocolate factory and walked more around Dunedin. I wanted to go to the Otago Settler’s Museum but it is apparently closed for renovations. Having found a Lush store, I bought myself a bath bomb and a bubble bar and went back to the hotel for another bath. Exciting times!

Then, on Sunday, the snow started. I mostly killed time drinking copious amounts of hot chocolate and reading my book in Meridian mall in central Dunedin. I thought it prudent to go back to my hotel early since it was up a steep hill and I didn’t want to wait until the footpaths were all iced up. The storm was predicted to be bad, but there were still more sunny patches than snow, and the snow wasn’t really settling.   The first picture below is my hotel as I was walking back up the hill during a break in the snow.  The second picture is about 5 minutes later from the hotel lobby as the snow returned.

The weather was gorgeous on the way to the airport – the sun came out and there were patches of blue sky – and there was no snow at the airport itself.  I checked in, poured myself a wine in the Koru lounge and settled down in front of a gorgeous view of the hills while I waited for them to call the flight.  I was completely confident about my flight making it out.

One of the nicest things about going to Denarau Island is the number of great restaurants in all the resorts.

The nicest cocktails we found were at the Sofitel, halfway around the island. Still, it was worth walking there every evening for their drinks. This photo was taken at the bar next to the beach during the daytime, but there was also a an upstairs lounge bar that had great live music in the evenings.

The first time we went to the Radisson, the happy hour was 4-6pm and gave you two for one drinks at any of the bars. These Pina Coladas & Margaritas were from the main bar. The second time, happy hour was only at the pool bar. That meant that the drinks tasted just as good, but came in plastic cups rather than looking this pretty.

Chime bar at the Sheraton resort next door was also quite nice, since half the bar is just long couches that you can lie around on drinking your cocktails.

I’m not actually sure which restaurant this is below, since there are two where you are dining on the sand: Flying Fish at the Sheraton and Moo Moo at the Westin. The setting is just beautiful for both and the food is equally good.

Our favourite restaurant of all is Cross at the Radisson. Richard Cross is a kiwi chef who runs the place, and makes the most awesome food. We went there twice on the first visit and three times on the second. In fact, Stephen reckons it is worth flying to Fiji just to go to this restaurant. This was probably my first ever taste of true fine dining, and finally made me understood what all the foodies are on about. It’s a qualitatively different experience from normal eating. It’s not just food that’s higher on the quality/taste scale, it’s like an entirely different kind of experience. This is the first time I’ve understood people who say that food is better than sex. So, on with the food porn.

The best entree I tried was the tapas plate. This is the first half:

And the second half. That’s a mojito shooter in the shot glass.

Stephen’s prawn cocktail starter also looked delicious:

This was the grilled Salmon main course:

And I can’t even remember what this one was of Stephen’s. Ballotin chicken maybe?

We tended to skip lunch so we’d have room for a third course. This is Stephen’s chocoholic’s delight:

And his sticky date pudding:

This was my bombe alaska:

And my favourite of all, coconut tiramisu:

Stephen and I have taken two trips to Fiji now, and I haven’t posted about either of them.  Both times we stayed at the Radisson resort on Denarau island, which is about a 20 minute drive from Nadi airport.  Denarau is really more of a peninsula than an island, but they have dug a canal and built a bridge so that it technically qualifies as an island.   It is home to half a dozen large fancy resorts which are along the ocean front on the west and north sides of the island.  In order, they are the Worldmark timeshare resort, Radisson, Sheraton, Sheraton Villas, Westin, Sofitel & Hilton.  You can walk from resort to resort around the beachfront or via the road.  There is also a bus (the Bula bus) that runs around all the resorts and to the marina on the eastern side of the island.   From the marina, you can get transfers out to the Mamanuca & Yasawa island (e.g. Mana Island, Plantation Island, Treasure Island etc).  You can either stay at the resorts out there (more beautiful and more pricy), or you can just go for a day trip.

The weather was perfect both times we were there (end of June 2010 & beginning of June 2011).  I think it rained once on the first trip (while we were having dinner in the swimming pool), and I think it was a little bit cloudy one day on the second trip.  The temperature is around 30 degrees most days, and is fairly humid.  When you get hot, you just take a dip in the pools (or the ocean), and then lie in the sun until you dry off again.  Everything is unbelievably beautiful and everyone there is just so friendly.    Basically, if you stay at a resort, you get to use their pools, but you can go to restaurants and bars at any of the resorts.  I’ll post about the food and drink separately.

This is the resort from the balcony of the room we stayed at on the first trip. The second trip we were on the ground floor, so didn’t have as much of a view but could walk straight out of the front door to the adults pool just a few steps away. We were literally only 20m from the restaurants and pool bar too.

Here is our hotel room (note the hibiscuses strewn around).  This photo was taken on the second trip, but the rooms were the same both times.

This is the adults only pool, where we spent most of our time.  This was taken late in the afternoon when Stephen was enjoying a drink from the Pool Bar’s happy hour.  You can either walk across the waterfall to the pool bar in the main pool to buy a drink, or just wait for one of the staff to come around and take your order and bring it to you.

Here is stephen in his sulu and bula shirt with his pina colada and iPhone in hand on his lounger at the adults pool.  The pools at the Radisson are made to look kind of natural, set in gardens with rocks and little artificial beaches all around them.

I think next time, I might try visiting another part of Fiji, but honestly, for a friendly, relaxing tropical getaway that is pretty affordable and less than 4 hours from Auckland, I don’t think you can beat Denarau.

I’m a big fan of Grabaseat deals, although I’ve still never managed to snag myself a $1 fare.  The cheapest I got was a $18 fare to Hamilton which I needed to get enough status points to qualify for Air New Zealand Silver frequent flyer status.   Normally grabaseat deals are the cheapest flights you can get either domestically or internationally.   Not always though.  Apparently sometimes you’re better off not taking the grabaseat deal:

This post wraps up my series on American culture.  I have already dealt with American food, shopping, and TV.  This post is mostly concerned with roads and driving.

One of the worst parts of the Auckland motorway system is Spaghetti Junction, and the worst feature of Spaghetti Junction is the Newmarket on/off ramps.  Southbound, traffic comes on at Kyhber Pass to find itself in an exit only lane that exits at Gillies Ave.  This traffic has to change lanes to get into a lane that continues south, meanwhile all the traffic on the motorway that wants to exit at Gillies has to change lanes to get into the exit only lane.    The same thing happens northbound as well.   This is one of the biggest bottlenecks in Auckland.

Intersections like Greenland and Ellerslie-Penrose are much better because all the exiting traffic leaves, thinning out the flow of cars before the entering traffic merges in to take their place.

A long time ago I read a letter to the editor in the Herald stating that the reason the Khyber Pass/Gillies intersections were so bad was that they were designed by Americans who thought we drove on the right-hand side of the road.   However, a moment of mental spatial manipulation should reveal that even if we did drive on the other side, these would still be badly designed.  So it wasn’t that the American’s didn’t know what side of the road we drive on.

Nope, it was that the Americans (or Californians at least) think this is good freeway design!   The freeway system in LA reminded me very very much of Auckland and the Newmarket section in particular.   Pretty much all onramps come into an Exit Only lane, often a fairly short one, making everyone rush to quickly switch lanes.  It’s a bit worse in LA because Americans do not seem to understand the principle of merging like a zip.  Nobody lets anybody in, ever.

Apart from the wrong side of the road thing, LA freeways were very much like our motorways.  The signage is the same.   The architecture (using the term loosely) of the freeways, overpasses, on and off ramps in LA also seems the same as here.   It would not surprise me in the least if we originally based all our motorway designs on California.

By contrast, Texas freeways are somehow much more attractive.  Part of the aesthetic value could be because they bother to paint the concrete rather than leaving it bare.  But there is something about the very form of their structures that is aesthetically pleasing in and of itself.  Perhaps they are better proportioned, I don’t know.  But they are certainly much more attractive.

Not only are they more attractive, but they are way more functional.   Every freeway has frontage roads – ordinary two lane roads that run parallel tothe freeway on each side.   Every few miles there is a set of on and off ramps, coupled with either a bridge over the freeway, or a tunnel under it.  At any point you can easily get off the freeway and access any of the businesses on either side of the freeway, and easily get back on again.   They are also very forgiving if you make a wrong turn, offering U-turn lanes so you can go back if you made a mistake.    And if you miss your exit, you can just take the next one and backtrack on the frontage road.

The architecture of American fast food restaurants also makes perfect sense in this context.  Distinctive building with huge sign up a pole so you can easily spot it from the freeway (in either direction).  Building is freestanding with lots of parking all around it, because space is just not an issue like it is in the much more densely populated areas.  Plus there’s a drive-thru if you are in a hurry.

I’ve also reconsidered my opinion of things like rubbish bins angled so you can use them from a car, or drive-though ATMs.  The initial opinion of most people from NZ to these things is to decry how hideously lazy Americans must be if they can’t even get out of their car for that.

But the thing you have to remember with America (and Texas in particular) is that it is huge.   We inherited an architecture based on density from our British heritage, who were accustomed to trying to squeeze as much as they could into London.  We consider the appropriate means of transport to be walking.   We use cars to travel longer distances to put ourselves in another area to traverse on foot.

It doesn’t work like that in Texas.  They have heaps of space.  Distances are huge and everything is much more spread out than it is here.  To get anything done, you have to go and do it by car – there is no other way.   A car is not a luxury, it is a necessity.  Their entire landscape pretty much co-evolved with their cars.     Because of the distances involved, people spend a lot of time in their car.  Given that this is the case, things like drive thru food, ATMs and rubbish bins are are simply trying to be efficient.   It isn’t being lazy and wasteful, it’s good usability.  Texas is optimised for driving.

Another example of this is all the rest areas.  In NZ, this means an area with a few picnic tables and maybe a grotty long drop.   In the US, it’s got picnic tables and toilets, but also vending machines and wireless internet. 

To me, America seems both progressive and curiously backwards.  They bleep the god out of goddamned on TV, but they provide free wireless internet in roadside rest stops in the middle of nowhere.

This post continues my series on American culture.  I have already dealt with American food and shopping, and this post is about TV.  I have a few random observations mostly concerning driving still to come.

American TV was an experience in its own right.  To my thinking, American TV is the source of ‘western culture’ typified by sleaze, sex and swearing.  I’m pretty sure most of my swearing vocabulary came from American TV and movies .  And so it was a shock to find American TV is extremely prudish.   They don’t just bleep out fuck and cunt, but they bleep shit & bloody hell and they bleep the god out of goddamn.  And this is not just on TV, but in songs on the radio as well.

Another notable feature of American TV is the number of channels.  Most of the hotels we stayed at had upwards of 50 channels.  Probably about 15-20 of them were in Spanish.  However, of the 30-35 channels remaining, they probably only have programming enough for 10.   And so almost all American TV is re-runs.  

Here, a re-run means that the channel has already showed the entire series (one program per night or week over some extended period) and is now repeating the entire thing a second time.  Sometimes a really popular series might be repeated even more times.  I think MASH was repeated at least 8 time.

In the US, a re-run means that the exact same episode is shown multiple times on the same channel.  Not just multiple times per week, multiple times per night!  On the same channel!   So you watch an episode of CSI at 8pm.  The very same episode will probably be on again at 11pm.  And 3am.   And 12pm the following day.  And 4pm.  And 7pm. And so on.

While we were in Vegas and LA, ESPN showed the 2006 final of the World Series of Poker at least eight times in six days that we saw.  And we only watched TV when we weren’t out at Disneyland or down in San Diego or otherwise checking out southern California.

Apart from that I also discovered that the discovery channel wasn’t quite as cool as I’d always thought.  I’d always thought you got truth on the discovery channel, but at various times I flicked on to it to see programs about a haunted house, the imminent end of the world according to various half-baked prophesies, UFO visits, and the "groundbreaking and extraordinary new theory" that the dinosaurs were wiped out because of a meteorite impact.  Yawn.

It wasn’t just the subject matter of the discovery channel shows was fairly bad, it was how they packaged it too.  They would literally repeat the same things over and over again within each show, then repeat the whole show several hours later.   Their only redeeming feature in my eyes was that they show Mythbusters …. six times a day.

This post continues my series on American culture.  I have already dealt with American food, this post is on shopping, and TV is still to come.

This was the part of American culture that I didn’t experience quite so much of.  Walmart was my first taste.  You can almost literally buy anything at Walmart.   Where else could you go in and come out with ALL the following items:

• An apple
• Dried pasta
• Shampoo
• A pair of jeans
• A 12 gauge shotgun
• A cordless drill
• Enough paint to paint your house
• A television
• A tyre

It was also very cool to walk around the malls and see shops that I’ve heard of on so many TV programs and on websites, even if I didn’t really do much (or any) shopping in them.

Now, I know this isn’t shopping exactly, but everywhere we went, we saw ads for lawyers saying things like this:  
"Serious injury accident?  You need a lawyer."  "Poisoned by benzene?  We’ll get you a cash settlement".    Every time I saw something like that I’d mentally scream ‘no, you don’t need a lawyer, you need a goddamn doctor’.

Steve has already posted a trip log covering Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Las Vegas, so I won’t duplicate his effort here.  Instead, I just want to jot down some random observations and thoughts about American culture.   To me, American culture seems to have about three major components: food, shopping & TV.  This post will cover the food.

Firstly, restaurant portions really are huge.   I don’t think there was one single meal that I was able to finish in the whole time I was there.  And we pretty much only ever ordered just the main course.  We seldom had a starter, and never the soup, salad and dessert that the waiters constantly urged on us.   It seems pretty much standard to ask for a doggy bag, although when we were staying at a hotel we didn’t usually have that option since we had no way to reheat the meals. 

Every restaurant started with a free bread basket, unlike here where you usually have to order a bread platter separately if you want one.   Also, if you order a soft drink, they will come around and refill it for you for free.  And it’s generally a pretty large glass to start with.  This is quite a contrast to here where you pay $4 per refill of a 250ml glass.  Overall, you get excellent value food in the US. 

On my first night there, we cruised around Walmart giggling at the odd food items.

• Cheese whiz?   I can’t even stand the plastic cheese you get in slices at the supermarket here, never mind cheese sprayed from a can.
• Cookies.  Those poor Americans don’t have anything akin to toffee pops, timtams or real biscuits.  Instead, their cookies are more like our Farmbake biscuits except that they are chewy.  Apparently Americans like their bikkies chewy for some reason.
• Sticks of butter.  I was always a bit baffled by recipes that called for a stick of butter.  Apparently they buy their butter in 500g blocks that look the same as ours, but internally are divided lengthwise into four sticks.
• Sweet bread.  Stephen warned me of this but I didn’t actually experience it until later.  American bread is very very sweet.  Here, even the bread in chocolate chip easter buns isn’t anywhere near as sweet as ordinary American bread.  It was always a relief if a restaurant had fancy non-sweet bread in their bread basket.
• Sausage wrapped in chocolate chip pancakes on a stick.  I was disgusted and horrified by this.   Here we have hot dogs on a stick, but the sausage is enclosed in batter.  Savoury batter.  Not sweet chocolate chip pancakes.  It’s just so wrong.  (However, having subsequently eaten American bread and corn dogs, it probably isn’t such a big deal to Americans.  The corn dog batter is far sweeter than any batter you’d ever get here)

The food isn’t the only strange part – the drinks were also an experience.  Firstly, tea.  Every restaurant and fast food place has tea as one of the options for cold drinks.  I suspect if you asked for hot tea you’d get some very funny looks, because they only kind of tea they seem to know about is iced tea.   I always thought it was a little strange that my Spanish books (designed for the American market) gave you instructions on how to order tea with or without lemon.  I always wondered why they didn’t tell you how to ask for tea with milk and sugar, but now I know.

As far as coffee goes, the standard addition to an ordinary filter coffee here is milk and sugar.  Not so in the US.  Instead of milk, you have a choice of "cream" (actually half-and-half – half milk and half cream) or creamer (non-dairy white stuff made from god-knows-what).  Instead of sugar, you have packets.  Every table has an assortment of colour-coded packets.  White is for sugar, pink for Sweet n Low, blue for Equal and yellow for Splenda.  Some Americans seem not to even know what each type of packet actually is - they just know they like "two pinks and a blue".

Anyone who’s tried Starbucks knows that Americans like their coffee very burnt.  That’s what the coffee was like everywhere we went.  In fact we eventually found Starbucks to be actually fairly palatable as American coffee goes.    And we found that Starbucks sells a fantastic bottled iced coffee.  It is far nicer than anything you can get Starbucks to make for you.    Still, I’m glad I’m back in New Zealand where I can go to Esquires.

Pretty much everywhere we went we had great food, but the highlight for me was the BBQ Baby Back Ribs from Saltgrass.   You must try this if you ever go to Texas.