TQ 042 David from New Zealand

Warning! David speaks quickly and has a large vocabulary. This podcast episode may be challenging for some listeners. On the other hand, it's a good chance to hear a New Zealand accent.

David is from Wellington, New Zealand. He and his girlfriend Caroline love to travel. They saved for three years and lived simply, then sold almost everything they had and hit the road. They've been in Southeast Asia for a year and a half. They believe in "slow travel", meaning to take your time in the countries you visit.

Here are some of the words that David uses that you may not know: harrowing, torso, rugby, paste, metabolism, one-upmanship and genre. He also mentions tabla (Indian drums) and I mention fjords and Kiwis. When I said that he speaks quite quickly so I'll need to put a warning on the podcast, he called it "a three chili spice level podcast", a term he invented on the spot to mean "very difficult". On some restaurant menus there will be one, two, or three chilis (hot peppers) next to dishes to show how hot they are. The dishes with three chilis next to them are for the brave only.

David also teaches us some New Zealand words and phrases: "Kia ora" means "hello" in Maori, and "sweet as" and 'choice" both mean "nice" or "awesome".

David and Caroline have a blog called eggbananatravels.com. If you go here you'll see the blog entry about their stay with me in Nanning. You'll also see a photo of me (I'm the big one, not the Asian one!) and the e-trike that I ride on campus.