An introduction to New Zealand!
Hooray! A new semester has started and what better a way to celebrate ourselves than to write a blog post about what students may expect from this beautiful country somewhere in the Pacific Ocean?
New Zealand, the land of endless possibilities, endless amounts of beautiful nature, and endless amount of sheep.
I have to make a confession, I knew very little about New Zealand when I decided I would take this course. In my mind it was always the „little brother“(or sister?) of Australia, forgotten on the majority of world maps, and forever damned to a life in the shadow of their continential sibling. I mean look at the map, it even looks like its a part that had been cut off clearly of the side of Australia! (Which apparently also is the official story of how new Zealand came into being)
But is the undermining of our little Oceanian friend really justified? Is it really just a “smaller Australia”? Certainly not. What will yonder await us can be both shocking and amusing.
Hold your breath, dear reader, for in the next weeks we will examine and celebrate the cultural particularities and will dig out one or the other curious oddity to amuse and fascinate our minds.
But as a start, let us begin with something more lighthearted, eh? While reading through fact pages on the internet, I found quite and interesting one. “ The logo for the Royal New Zealand Air Force is a kiwi- a flightless bird.”
As if a country on an isle in the middle of nowhere actually need an active and flying Air Force. What would they need that for against? Attacks by ostriches flying over from Australia?
What was that? The Royal New Zealand Air Force has been actively serving in WWII and was on hold during the cold War? So they might not be that isolated after all? Well that is some news.
Well but why a Kiwi as a logo(and roundel and mascot) then? Probably because it’s a bird that only exists in New Zealand and represents the country like no other.
Or because there aren’t any other birds there. Probably the first.
http://www.conceptdraw.com/How-To-Guide/picture/Australia-and-New-Zealand.png
