> Darien was a little different--there were no others with his name there, but it just didn't seem right to call him anything *but* "Darien." His own FIANCE called him Darien pretty much the whole time, and even admitted to slipping up and calling him Darien when not around other Rinkies. The guy just LOOKS like a Darien, even though I've never in my life ever met a person *actually* named Darien.

Darien's real name isn't Darien?

> Our interpretation was "Drive On Road." I thought it was awesome that New Zealanders needed signs to remind them of this. "Oh, bugger, I've driven through the bush again."

I think your use of the word "bugger" in this sentence was masterful. The vice president had to come into my office again so ask me what in the heck was so funny.

> The only other thing I find worth mentioning is about lunch on Day 1. I knew that the British call french fries "chips" and potato chips "crisps". We learned fairly quickly that New Zealanders use "chips" for both, thus forcing them to sort out in context which you are talking about. However, when we ordered lunch at the place by the beach, the woman asked me if I wanted "fries." I said yes, but realized later that she had called them "fries" rather than chips. This severely dissapointed me. I had been looking forward to hearing them called chips. I had come all this way, about 8000 miles (give or take a hectare) to hear people say "chips" when they meant "fries" and the first opportunity I get the woman hears my accent and talks down to me. BAH.

Dave, Dave, Dave, you don't need to go overseas to hear them called chips-- We call them chips sometimes right here in Canada. Of course, you might want to travel for more reasons than just the opportunity to hear the word "chips" applied to french fries, but if so, that's your loss.

> -- Dave

Don "One more good vice-president-coming-into-my-office joke would be good, but I think I'm out of material, and the first two were kinda lame anyway. Why am I posting this again?" Monkey