Half Flush or Full?

When I arrived at the Auckland airport seven weeks ago (seven weeks! though it actually feels longer), the first thing I did when I finished with customs was hit the ATM. It was the usual stuff – enter your password, select withdrawal, key in the amount, etc. As I was wrapping things up, a message came up asking me if I wanted my receipt. Again, typical stuff. But, glancing over the message, my eyes stuck on something unusual. “Would you like your receipt? Please be mindful of the environment when making your decision.”

I am not a super environmentally conscious person. I mean, I try to recycle when I can, but environmental causes are pretty far back in my mind. Pulease, I’ve got like, Bjorn and what am I going to have for lunch today and should I have another cup of coffee and why can’t my bottom be less jiggly and all other manner of important things on my brain instead.

But in all seriousness, I was struck that day by how something so seemingly simple – just an extra sentence on an ATM machine – could make me (and millions of other ATM users) immediately aware of the environment. Do I really need my receipt? Well, no, I guess not. I’d probably just take a quick glance at it, wad it up, and throw it in the nearest trash can.

New Zealand is a very familiar place. The people speak English, they look like me, they dress like me, have similar backgrounds. But I have learned that NZ is also an extremely different place from the US, and the differences come across in very subtle ways.

The toilets here are fairly standard, but wherever you go, be it a restaurant, a gas station, a shopping mall, the toilets are spotlessly clean. The first few weeks I kept approaching public bathrooms with dread, breathing through my mouth, prepared for the worst, and finding…clean! They have these little sanitation boxes in each stall, which are full of disinfectant that you can spray out onto a bit of paper and wipe the toilet clean. A great idea, to be sure, but even greater, people ACTUALLY DO THIS! Can you imagine Americans EVER stooping so low as to clean up after themselves in public restrooms? I love us, I promise you, but we wouldn’t do it. It wouldn’t catch. I can’t figure out why.

While we are on the subject of toilets, let me also tell you how puzzled I was at first when it was time to flush. Instead of one little flusher, there are two little buttons – one plain and another with a little half-moon symbol on it. After about a week of just randomly selecting a button to push, I brought this up to Bjorn. Oh, he said, that tells the toilet how much water it needs to pump through. If it’s just a number one, it just needs a half flush. If it’s something more, it needs a whole flush.

Water saving brilliance. This is so simple it’s just silly.

I'm not trying to put America down for not operating this way, for not having these kind of systems set into place. But, when you see these simple things working so easily in a country, functioning successful, actually succeeding in making citizens more mindful about things like the environment, this light sort of dings on, like - Oh! These things ARE possible. It CAN work.

And, in light of our most recent election, I am feeling rather hopeful about things like this. Hopeful about my country. Proud of my country! We CAN change.

And that is all I am going to say about that. Because I don't like to talk politics:)

Now then. Everything is super here. This morning at 8 AM I began a five week exercise class led by my friend Erin. It's twice a week, for an hour and fifteen minutes, and we meet on the recreation field, just across the street from my house. There are about eight of us in the class, and we just do an assortment of cardio, strenth training, that sort of thing. I was doing lunges across the rec field today, the sun shining, the bay looking like its beautiful self, the mountains doing the same, and I just had an eek moment. I do love this place.

And this afternoon, I got invited to go out for a FREE sailing lesson, taught by a friend of a friend who is trying to start up a sailing instruction business. It was such fun. I got to be the jib trimmer. I got to trim the jibs. (I just sort of moved the front sail from side to side when we needed to turn.)

Sailing lessons, outdoor exercise - it's all making me very excited about the quickly approaching summer season here. (December is like our June.)

At the same time, though, I am really feeling homesick for fall. I talked to my parents the other day, and they were cozied down by the fire, eating chili - spending a November day the way it's supposed to be spent! And I thought about the fall leaves, and the way the air smells and feels, and I felt a little sad to be away from it all. But I won't complain too much. Skipping from summer to summer to summer isn't half bad!

Okay. Wrap it up, wrap it up. This blog has taken me bits and pieces of all day to write because I cannot focus! I am all over the place!

Love you all lots. Hope everyone is well and enjoying November.