11 Tips I Wish I Knew Before Moving To New Zealand & How To Prepare 

Car-b-que - A newly invented American term to describe an intentional car fire. Goes well with a side of baked beans. - Seems to be a lot of confusion about this :)

*Hullo* 👍☺ Some tips for incoming Americans to Aotearoa (and *Welcome* ): We will commonly greet strangers in the street and you will see us thanking our bus drivers when we alight the bus. We are kind, if a little parochial, and down-to-earth in nature we are told (someone cryptically told me we can make Canadians seem like Texans. Dunno what they were on about). Don't worry you are not being hustled, our nature just lends us to saying Gudday to one another even if we once were strangers before this.👍🏽 If you are invited by the friends you make over for "tea" for around five-six o'clock, then this "tea" actually means dinner. We don't really like to stand out above the crowd (this is called "tall poppy"), or to be making a fuss, or causing too much of it by putting folk out. We are kind of wallflowers like this. We think you are loud and brash, *you* who have gotten to know us long enough say we mutter and mumble when we speak (possibly due to the reasons just above). We are self-named "Kiwis". Naming us thus after our feisty long-beaked national bird, the kiwi. And those of us who like them eat *Kiwifruit", named also after the kiwi(bird). If you are a visiting celebrity and we see you coming, we will cross the road away from your side. Musn't fuss. And once again, Welcome!

There are only three toll roads in Gods Own, one in Auckland and two in Tauranga. Their total length is 27.5 km. So nothing to get stressed about.

I've lived in NZ my whole life and I have never heard of anyone stealing a car and setting fire to it.

"Japanese sandals" I believe jandal was an iconic kiwi brand which became universally used.

The bloke who designed the rubber "Jandal " whose surname was Yock ( can't remember his first name , might have been James ) had gone to the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 and observed the Japanese team wearing their traditional split toed sandals which is obviously where he got the idea , hence Jandal = Japanese sandal . As an old joker I can't help you with the applicator issue ! Good luck with that .

You sure can bring your North American appliances to NZ and use them. My parents moved to NZ with some appliances, in the 1970s, and ran the sewing machine, the blender, and other household appliances off a transformer my dad made. Nowadays you can buy them and they're a lot smaller than the big boxy thing my father made. Look for "step down transformer". This is not a plug adapter; this is a device that lowers/steps down the NZ 230/240v current to the North American 110/120v.

Thanks! I'm planning to spend a couple of months in 2023 in NZ on a university sabbatical.

Hay just wanted to say that with your friendly personality you will do very well in NZ and stoked you chose here to live have a great day :)

You are hilarious!!!! Love your witticism.....please keep it up. And...... kia ora💖

Loved this one😊

There are numerous other beets BTW, the other common one in nz is silverbeet. You would not want to mix them up as the part of silverbeet that gets consumed most of the time is the leaves, somewhat similar to spinach but not nearly as good. Also going a little left field, a huge portion of modern sugar is sourced from sugar beets rather than sugar cane like it used to be.

I have been here for 67 years and I've never heard of a carb eque ! I think that maybe peculiar to the area you live !

You are fun to listen to, refreshing.

Bank transfers work the same here in the UK, just give your account number and the money is paid in usually within minutes.

I live in South Auckland . Never met anyone who had there cars taken and set on fire

I’m learning things! I’m a kiwi and never heard of car-b-cues (they sound dreadful but a hilarious name!), or toll roads here! Thanks for an interesting video 👍

Dang - I'm late! I've been off grid and missed my *MorganFix* but here l am to catch up. Really enjoyed your perspective on the points raised. To tell the truth I'm too scared to disagree with anything you say knowing that if l do you'll send Mr Barkley to hunt me down! Keep doing what you do as you do! 💖👍🏻🇳🇿

Straight to it ! Aye kook vid

They used to publish an asking price for houses but then agents got this idea that they can get better results but concealing the expected price. Bloody annoying. Ps: you still see published prices from time to time.

Jelly, is what brits, Aussies, and New Zealanders call jello. Wellies is an abbreviation of Wellington, (yup, Sir Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington)who invented them.

"Jandals" The name is a combination of Japanese and Sandals. They came on the New Zealand market in the mid 1950s.

House sale prices are public information - you can just go look it up online or ask the realtor what the asking price is. Most house sales are not auctions and its just a realtor taking offers to find a buyer that the seller is happy with. However for general sales, the housing market has been so hot over the last 2 years that the asking price is always exceeded. Tara did a comparison of grocery prices and found NZ is surprisingly cheap compared to the USA ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pzT6xnxLHps.html

I love your dog, he is very cute!

It’s so funny that kiwis don’t like when they shop in the US that the price on the tag isn’t what you actually pay at the register, yet think it’s normal to sell a house with no price. The whole auction experience of buying a house would give me a heart attack. It’s like a Black Friday sale at Walmart but $1 million dollars more.

What did you mean when you said that you can't bring electronic devices even with an adapter? Adapters don't work for laptops, etc in NZ?

It really _is_ 'jelly'. 'Jello' is the Kraft Heinz brand name for their powdered, flavoured gelatine ('jelly' is an abbreviation of 'gelatine').

Hahaha I have never heard of at carbaque. But I love the word play

Never heard of a carbeque but we had a Subaru that got stolen 3 times and in the last one it was on the news in a police chase. Didn’t come back that time 😢

Close, but not quite: You go 'on the piss' (out drinking) with your mates... then you get 'pissed' (not angry, drunk) and if you get really drunk, you have a 'technicolour yawn' (throw up).

Also the online Maori dictionary is super helpful.

Do you say musk melon or cantalope?

Jandal is the original name. The word is made up from Japanese Sandal; cheap footwear issued to NZ and Australian pow's who the Japanese captured in Malaya. One of the Kiwi prisoners brought the idea back home with him and marketed them as Jandals.

How do you say aluminum?

What about you open a separate bank account for payment and be comfortable giving out the account number. Then you have another bank account for saving? I actually come across more often in Auckland the sellers or service providers that give me their bank account numbers and I deposit the payment to them.

No toll roads that 8 know of in Christchurcgh, don't like the auction system for buying houses either, that has creapt in to give the impression of demand and to achieve higher than the already ridiculous prices.

Luckily me I had hardly no gas in my car so I found it down the road still intact

"A-o-tora" 🤣🤣🤣 absolutely massacred that one its our-te'ah-raw

I want to drive a pickup truck, What they call a ute, or utility truck.

I've never heard of gangs stealing cars and burning them. . . gangs don't really target the public.. . . normally keep gang stuff between gangs. ..

You're young, lovely and you make your videos very interesting, very enjoyable and with added humor, luv it. Our NZ version of the USA social security number is our IRD number. Your bank account requires a access number(1)and your password(2) so having your bank number out there really don't matter, but having lived in the USA myself I understand your questions an querys. Keep up the good work and enjoy NZ.

With regards to the femenine hygiene products. After living in Europe for a 10 years, I can safely say that it is America that is the odd one out as far as applicators are concerned. It's fairly standard practice everywhere.

I object, Your Honour! "Jelly" is what it actually is. "Jello" is a _brand name_ that takes the "y" off the end of the word, and replaces it with an "o" to be cutesy. Jelly is short for gelatine. Jello is a north American dessert of flavored jelly.

Silverbeet

Ah no it's not called social security however if you have any dealings with work and income you will have the NZ equivalent

When you buy a house look on line for a govt valuation also most properties are sold via real estate agencies not via auction

Kiwis tend to be laid back and reserved, when compared to yanks anyway. When I lived in the USA I was always told I was extremely quiet, when I thought I was just being a normal Kiwi. Oh, and people don't eat Kiwis.

As a kiwi who has lived away from NZ for years, the home sale advertising and blind to price is insane. You are spot on. Such a waste of time - the capital value is sometimes shown, always off.

Crikey, I've lived in NZ for 50 of my 55 years. I don't know if anyone I know has had a car stolen, let a lone carbbq! I did have an old car stolen by joyriders in the UK.

We have social security numbers if we have the need for govt support. Today it is called WINZ. In the 70s it was Social Security and then Social Welfare. To get financial support they allocate you a 9 digit no.

jandal-japanese sandal

silverbeet

Ummmm... In my experience with the house value thing.... that's only for Auctions and E.O.I's?

kia ora......

Ki a o ra. Maori pronunciation is simple. Just voice each vowel individually, and when you get to a consonate, just tack on the following vowel. A O TE A RO A, A O RA KI, or A O RA NGI, TE WA I PO U NA MU, OO TA U TA HI. And look up the song a haka mana for pronunciation on RU-vid. Start slow and you will eventually be speaking like a ma o ri. It's refreshing when people get a person's name right, especially when they're talking with that person. Don't stress, have fun, and you'll pick it up. Ka ki te a no. And I love sarcasm, just not the American kind.

MMmmmm sounds like a north island thing never heard about a carBQ down in the friendly island

If you don't see tampons with applicators, ask. They're there and they're usually Tampax.

Kiwis are not private with our emotions

Nice going American girl you said aotearoa better than most Maori people I no 👋👋👋👋👋

Buying houses here is awful. But the houses are awful to, I think we should call them Living Sheds so there's that.

Entertaining lol.

I thought we got paid more than American’s

In New Zealand, the sellers pay real estate agents and will jack up the property prices as high as possible. I was told the realtors in America are the opposite paid by the buyers.

I've lived here for more than 70 years, and never come across anyone who's had their car stolen and deliberately set on fire.

Try some humour with your jandals,(Island styles) channals.

Yes we have gangs. Utopia does not exist

Best tip was to probably to stay in the USA...lol

ive hear TONS, TONS OF BIRDS.

Never even heard of a ‘carbecue’ and I have been here 20 years. Sounds like you just have some toe rags living near you.

Aotearoa pronounced ah oh tay a row a

Your videos are a carBque. lol

😂 There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for an American to go to New Zealand to live!… It’s a huge step down but there is nothing wrong with going there on vacation for a week or two although your money will be much better spent in Europe, Asia or even Australia!… The dollar is very strong and just keeps on rising against the euro and other major currencies so go enjoy your vacation!