Just a Couple More New Zealand Stories

This photo was taken in Pago Pago where my seatmate and I had an hour layover on our flight to New Zealand. I thought it was humid in West Virginia, but in Samoa it was like someone throwing a wet blanket over you as you emerged from the plane. My seatmate, Sara, was a Kiwi
(not the fruit, the people prefer this designation to New Zealander) and had just run a marathon in London. We decided to have a look around the island and since the pilot had announced we had a whole hour, we headed up a mountain.

While enjoying the view, I looked down to see our plane slowly taxing away without us. Sara, a great runner, took off down the mountain, out onto the runway, stopped the plane and we got on with much embarassment, but to a standing ovation for Sara. I later stayed with her family on their deer farm in Napier, New Zealand....had a great time and yes they do actually farm deer.

While hitchhiking around the country having a  "look/see" as they say down under, I found the slang pretty strange. A nice man picked me up and gave me a ride to the next town. He started his conversation with, "Do you like gridiron?" I knew he meant American Football ( in NZ football is soccer) and though I am definitely NOT a sports fan, I thought I should be agreeable so said yes.
"What team do you support?", he asked. "I root for the Pittsburgh Steelers", I told him. The look of shock on his face was followed by the question, "The WHOLE TEAM??!!". Yes, I explained, "you can't root for just one of them!" Well, he looked at me very strangely and was very quiet the rest of our journey. As soon as possible, I went in a tea room (snack shop/bakery) and repeated the conversation to a friendly woman behind the counter. She laughed til tears rolled down her cheeks and then explained that in New Zealand "to root for" means to have sex with! From then on, I was often asked if I was that Yank who roots for the Steelers. NZ is a very small country with 3 million and 70 million sheep so word spreads quickly...but I denied that I was that very wild Yankee gal.