Christmas-ness Dec 12th

I've been in the routine recently of just working in the morning to early afternoon, and then working at the restaurant at night, so nothing too spectacular has happened, but it's a nice lifestyle still. So it's the Christmas season around here, but you really couldn't tell, it's not quite like I'm used in Chicago or Boston where people go crazy putting up tons of decorations. There's a bit of lights here and there, and we just put up a fake tree in my hostel, but otherwise there's not too much. It's also in the 65-80 degree zone everyday, so it doesn't really feel like the holiday season I'm used to.

The funny thing is that places like Starbucks still use all the same promotional deals here as well, so they haven't quite figured out that for half the world, it's not the same season. So it's quite amusing to pass it on a 85 degree day (which is scorching with the sun) and see snowflakes and snow drawings everywhere along with "Warm up with a Gingerbread Latte" signs. You'd think they would have figured it out by now.

Also, there's more Americans here as well, I'm told that many Americans come in the December-January zone, so I'm meeting more of them especially waitressing, who ask me exactly why I'm here being waiting on them. We all especially like waiting on Brits, Americans, or Germans because they tip whereas otherwise it's not customary to do so in NZ. It's really funny (and sad) that whenever I meet new people, one of the typical openings around here is "so what part are you from?" and people also guess that I'm Canadian. I didn't think much of it until some people were saying, "oh you don't seem American", which I later figured out meant, "oh you don't seem like an idiot". So, it seems we don't have the best reputation and unless I have a southern accent or are outwardly annoying, I am assumed to be Canadian.

On the foreigner front, it's pretty cool how many different people I meet waitressing, because I've waited on people from Malaysia, India, Australia and half of Europe. Some waiters knick a bit of bread from people's baskets if they haven't eaten it when they leave, and I'm wondering if some will come down with some crazy disease now. I'm also watching a lot of the medical show House at the hostel, so that doesn't help my imagination.