Livin' like a Kiwi

"The wind in New Zealand is always in a hurry," the farmer says to us. "It doesn't blow around you, it blows through you."
It's been a cool spring in the south island of New Zealand. The locals grumble a lot, but take it as a given. They're happy when it's sunny and +15.
And so are we. We're living life like the locals, house-sitting a home with doves, parrots, cockateels, chickens, ducks, and dozens of wild birds.
It's cold in the morning. I get up, and stoke the coal-stove. Pick the thin skin of ice on the outdoor bird feeders. Feed the birds. Bring a jacket when we go out for the day.
House-sitting isn't travelling. Not really. Travel is really experience-from-a-distance. No matter how friendly you are to the locals, or if they bring you into their home for a local meal, at the end of the day, you go back to your hotel, or you're on the next boat, or plane. You take some photos, you swap Facebook addresses. You're in it, but you're not of it.
I take out the garbage on garbage day. I wander the aisles at the grocery store, or see what's in the local library. We watch local TV, and start catching the jokes, knowing the politician's names. We worry about the bylaw officer catching us letting the dogs run loose. Complain about dumb government rules. We pick up litter we see laying around. We start using local slang.

Thornley's OK, but Sim, what an asshole.

A few weeks later we're on the north island, caring for some dogs in farm country. We worry about possums getting into the trash. Wonder if we'll encounter a wild pig while we're walking the dogs through a neighbour's fields. We see flowering trees bloom, the grass turn browner day by day.
The neighbour, a dynamic, no-nonsense woman who tends 60 head of dairy cattle, becomes a friend. She has a horse named Pippa. One of the dogs we're taking care of is called Pepper.

We're talking one day about the animals, and there's some confusion wether we're talking about the dog or horse.
"Not Pippa," she says in her Kiwi accent, correcting us. "Pippa."
We now ask each other to pass the 'pippa' at dinnertime.
It's a fun, peaceful time of exploration for us. We travel the same roads, time and again. Get fed up with traffic, and learn when the best times are to avoid it. Find the cheapest store for meat, the most convenient one for a bottle of wine. The guy at the Internet shop shares some freeware with me, helps me clean up my hard drive. He's an ex-network technician, and is more web-savvy than any senior I've met.
The roads get easier to drive on. Right-hand steering, traffic circles, become second nature. We know where to get the cheapest gas, which parks have the best trails.
The guy at the video store recognizes us, lets us rent movies without ID.
We've been here three months. It's starting to feel a bit like home. Like we are Kiwis.
Then sooner than we want, it's time to go. The dogs look mournfully as the car pulls out of the yard. They saw us pack.
They know we won't be back.