Those of you who know me will know that I have a incurable weakness for New Zealand. I have lived there two years (all of 1990 and the school-year 1996/97) and spent the summer of 1999 there as well (quite a sacrifice as it's winter there when we have summer! ;) ) I lived in Palmerston North (North Island) together with a wonderful family. They took me in as one of their own right away, and I think I'll always concider myself 'related' to them... if not by blood, then by love.
New Zealand is about the size of Italy, but only has about 3.5 million people. This means that there is a lot of room for the beautiful nature that is so characteristic for New Zealand. It is the only country with a temperate climate that has rainforrests. This is because of the extremely furtile soil that is the result of much volcanic action. Do you want to see photos of some really amazing scenary? Check this page out! Once there go to picture-gallerys/nz-pics1/New-Zealand-pictures. For some reason the full link doesn't work. I have yet to find out why...
The people of New Zealand mainly fall in two categories: the white people (Pakeha) and the native inhabitants (Maories). Hardly anybody speak fluent Maori any longer, but a lot of people can brag about knowing some words and phrases. What I started by greeting you with on this page - "Kia Ora" - is Maori, and is actually a multi-task word which can be used to mean "thank you", "yes / okay" as well as "hi" (which is of course the meaning I intended for it to have). Personally I would love to learn Maori as I find it a beautiful language, but unfortunately am not having much luck so far... living in Denmark does make taking Maori classes quite difficult I'm afraid. Still, here is a small list of some of the words I've picked up (and like to use every now and then). Who knows, they might even come in handy some day! ;)