Modern Vespa

After postponing a trip t NZ and OZ last year, we're off on Monday to Auckland. We're planning to visit both islands, hit some tourist spots and some hiking spots. Hope to rent an electric scooter on one of the excursions, and would love to meet up with any Kiwi MVers available. We'll be all over from north to south, then fly to Melbourne 7-2. Hit me up if you want to try to meet up.

Be careful down under, wmak.

I hear they all have cooties.

And if you see znomit, keep your mug covered.

and don't look at the water in the toilet bowel spin, it can cause insanity for us right side up folk.

I'd love to hear about your trip!
I'm planning/hoping to go to NZ this year.. probably stay in Wanaka.

You'll have a fantastic time!

I did when I last visited "Down Under"!

Plus EnZed is betterer than Down Under... no nasty things waiting in the undergrowth to eat you... and the beer's better!

PM sent...

PS. If your cell phone is "locked" to a US network it may not work in either NZ or Australia - check with your provider. If it is, then a cheapy phone that takes a SIM card and get a SIM card here and use 'prepay'.

Warren, I am sure you and Susan will have a great time. Send pictures.

New Zealand is a country I want to visit.

Looking forward to hearing about your trip.

Bill

Meh, why bother? I hear the scenery is dull, the people are grumpy, and it's nearly impossible to get a beer.

Also, I'm not jealous. At all.

Enjoy!

It's been over forty years now when my parents visited New Zealand, I was so jealous because I always want to visit there still do, but she told me something that has stuck in my mind. At the time my parents lived in Kailua Kona and at the time there was at most two stop lights in town. Well, she tells me New Zealand is beautiful but there was nothing to do there, there are only sheep. I found that extremely funny but it doesn't stop me from wanting to visit.

Scenery is as dull as ditch water and flat as a pancake... beer, what's that stuff?

Plus, they use really dangerous electricity at 240v...

You're right, you'd not enjoy it one bit.

And your electrical plugs don't work, either.

Don't forget that dingos will eat your babies!

Besides both my parents are Aussies and look how I turned out! I hear it's contagious.

Nah, they are just twisted.

We didn't make it to Auckland on our last NZ trip. We went no far north than Wellington or we'd have looked Marcus Argentus up again. Enjoyed our time with the two of them last time. Here's a Bombay Saphire raised to ya.

I have a friend who lives in Napier. He reckons that after 6pm you could lie down in the main street and no one would notice.

Hopefully not like the state of Montana, "where men are men, and sheep are nervous."

Too bad, we don't let MVers like you in. Not since the Hobbits won that war with Sauron.

Y'all are having way too much fun with this. I'll post some pics next week.

After your scooter "adventures" last time, I'm surprised you'd risk NZ again!

You shouldn't listen to those Australians...

Ain't that the truth!

[quote=
I'm planning/hoping to go to NZ this year.. probably stay in Wanaka.[/quote]

Kinda predictable, but not the "real" New Zealand... biggest tourist spot!

[quote=
And your electrical plugs don't work, either. [/quote]

Thats due to Americas poffy voltage!

Bear-aware of them... ohh... plus the snakes, spiders, sharks, crocks & any other animal/insect that live in Aus.

BTW: if you are in Melbourne, look me up & i may even scare you with a blat on Speedy

Thats due to Americas poffy voltage![/quote]

This is the secret to our American supremacy: by using 110 we're able to conserve half of our electricity.

We use the left over half to generally dominate the world, go to the moon, invent the internet etc.

Yeah, nah. You only do that stuff to make up for you teeny tiny little voltage.
Voltage envy. Look I'm sure your domestic appliances are perfectly happy with half a real voltage. You must have some other redeeming qualities that keeps the hanging around. Or maybe they just don't know any better.

The US will eventually get around to 220 or 240v . It is just a phase they are going through.

Homes in UK use 240 but industry uses 110 so the locals can't steal stuff and take it home !! Clever use of 110.

FYI Brazil is 126v !!

Aussies like to scare people by telling them all about the nasty exotic beasties they have but in fact horses kill more people than any other animal in Aus..

So if visiting Aus. don't ride horses.

The trick is not standing behind them. I had an ex that was a show jumper and she has a habit of leaving me holding her huge Rhodesian Ridgeback as well as her huge horse while she walked the course with her trainer. That made for some very interesting and rather nerve-wracking moments....

Seeing as how this is MV allow me to clarify...

My girlfriend rode the horse - the horse did the jumping. My girlfriend was the one that would occasional going flying over it's neck at a liverpool.

nerve-wracking and nerve-racking are both acceptable terms.

And I hope took risk more adventures again But it won't be for another few years.

Enjoy New Zealand.
The country is beautiful and it has great riding opportunities.
(Watch your speed limits!)
South Island has the best scenery if you are into that.
Don't get freaked out by the fact that the sun rises on the right hand side
and the water in the toilet bowl rotates the other way around.
To us in the sunny half of the world, it is the correct way.

I hate say, but if you are referring to the World Wide Web,
then a Brit named Tim Berners-Lee did that.
It earned him a knighthhood.

Half the volts, twice the amperage for the same power output.
AFAIK, AC is also safer than DC because it doesn't cause muscles to freeze in contraction.

8)

Uh, hellllllo, next you'll be telling me we didn't invent English!

Or the ocean.

https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-the-internet

I always thought it was Al Gore? Have I been lied to all these years?

I see what you did there...

I don't know any celebrities, but I know two guys who have been in interesting places at the right time.

A family friend of mine, a Finn, worked a few years at Cern when they put the WWW in place. Retrospective, how cool must that have been!

https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web

My other friend from university turned out to be a world class software vizard. There was a small, new business in the US that noticed a young Finn doing magic with code... and hired him based on what they saw in the code and based on few telephone discussions. That company was called Netscape....

Funny that celebrity talk comes up. I'm just getting home after spending over an hour talking to an ex NHL player and his wife over beers. About my age and we did talk hockey though mostly junior as we had that in common. We also talked about a lot of other stuff we have in common and the best part is we are all animal lovers and donate to many of the same charities. Both he and his wife were great people. Don't ask me who though as TBH his name didn't come up just some of the guys he played with and the cities he lived in. He was a bit of an enforcer so a dying breed. I'll say one thing about Toronto and where I live, you meet a lot of interesting people.

Time to head to summer! This crap showed up overnight. Leaving Monday, brief (12 hrs) layover in SFO, then off to AKL.

And you wonder why married men live longer?

That's going to be one long flight.
OTOH, think of all the FF miles you're accumulating!

In the Great Unwhite North here, we're down to a few patches of icy snow. Ain't fair, I tell ya!

FF miles cashed in for the flights, so no further accrual. Just have to depend on the credit card points. We decided to break up the flight over into two segments, we'll see how that goes.