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Things to know about living in New Zealand (what the guidebooks don't tell you, or at least I didn't read):

-They drive on the left side of the road. This is not actually easy to get used to, and does have an impact on your life as a pedestrian.

-Dual-flush toilets: are great. If both buttons are the same size, the black one is usually a half-flush.

-They're on the metric system. Among other things, this means your oven is in Celsius and you will buy produce by the kilogram.

-They don't have pennies. If you pay two dollars (using coins--everything below a fiver is a coin) for something that costs, say, a dollar eight-four, you will get twenty cents change.

-Crosswalks make a ping sound when you can walk. It sounds like a spaceship from a video game is shooting at you.
-I'm still not sure how this works, but they spin a lot of things with possum fur. Like merino-possum blankets. Merino-possum fabric is marketed as Lothlorien, as in Lord of the Rings.

-Black beans are hard to find. Look in the international section of the grocery. The person you ask for help may not know what they are. When you find them, they may be labeled "black turtle beans" and I'm still not 100% positive those are the same thing.

-Also hard to find: bikes with rigid forks. For some reason, New Zealanders (kiwis) are enamored with shocks.

-I go to the university tour buses visit! I go to a university they advertise on TV! (I always said I'd never go to a school they advertised on television. Turns out it's a trickier promise to keep than you would expect.)
-"Sweet as" is a legitimate expression. And yes, one 's' on the second word is the correct spelling.

-Chicken flavored potato chips. I don't know.

-Each individual outlet has a toggle switch, on/off. This is a great idea, and only a problem the first time you use an outlet and don't understand why it won't work.

-They don't have snakes.