By Audrey

Some older girls came up to me in school and asked me what was different about America. So I’m making a list of all the things that are different.

Shipping

Cultures

Language

School Uniforms

Air conditioners

Transportation

Celsius

Okay, so the shipping here is bad. Like, if you want something in the next two weeks, you have to go out and buy it yourself. We ordered school supplies, and they were supposed to arrive on Wednesday. They arrived on Friday, and we had to deal with school without them. It’s kind of like we’ve traveled back in time.

The cultures are cool and different. You see Japanese, Pacific Islanders, Chinese, African, all different types. It’s cool. For once, I feel like a minority, but I don’t mind. Today, I met my future piano teacher, and he was from Saudi Arabia. That’s normal here.

Language is English and Māori. Only problem is, I don’t know Māori, and a bunch of major things are Māori. For instance, our school pledge and the Kapa Haka songs are all in Māori. Our only hope was Duolingo, an online language course, but they didn’t have Māori. Guess we’ll just have to sound out words.

Not much to say, but school uniforms are very strict. Regular uniform, hat, black socks, black shoes, no nail polish, dangly earrings, or hoop earrings. No makeup. A little bit stricter than America.

The air conditioning is not used to hot weather. There are only two units, and apparently, it’s an unusually hot summer. Uh Oh!

Not much transportation here, but at the Airbnb you could take buses or trains using a card that you buy and put money on. Little different than America.

Celsius. That’s how they tell the temperature. Somebody said something about it being 25 degrees where they live and I was like Whoa that’s cold! Wait a minute…