I also learned my lesson that Kiwis run their words together when I arrived in the UK a year after that excursion in the East Coast of Australia – however with rather amusing consequences which managed to lead me to some good places to travel.  

‘Twas on having a chat with a few Brits about the differences in language in Britain, and by comparison with that of the Aussie/Kiwi cultural as much as linguistic divide (and relating the story told in my previous post), that I realised that we Kiwis run our words together.

I was when I said:

“It’s no better Down Under”

My British compadres had thought I said:

“Snow better Down Under”

However I did, by accident of being misunderstood, learn from them some good places to go skiing on The Continent – which I subsequently did a year later, along with one them (who derived much amusement from not understanding what I was saying – but then I got my own back with my French being better than his, and apparently appealing to the single ladies because of my unusual accent). 

My issue, now, is trying to remember exactly how we got to that segue – coz I wonder, now, how many other places I could discover through being misunderstood. Or, for that matter, friends I could make purely because my accent or language amuses the locals….