I realized  two odd things about NewZealand today.

First.  Even though they don't have Thanksgiving down here the still have black Friday or, as we now call it in the US,  Friday of color.  Go figure

And second is that people down here sing in American. I just got back from listening to a 5 man band at the Settlers Hall in Barrytown which is a dinky little beach town about 20 miles (YES MILES - none of this metric BS for me) north of Greymouth.  And when I say dinky I mean dinky.  Think about your average dinky and then your small dinky and then your itsy bitsy teenie weenie dinky and then  take 5% of that and you're close.  So a small pub, the Settlers Hall which is about 1/4 the size of a basketball court and about 5 houses and that's it. For some reason though the Barrytown Settlers Hall is must stop for bands and singers doing the New Zealand circuit. What's really amazing is that some of the bands that play there are pretty good and the one today was great.  They could have burned the palce down but there were only 18 hearty soles who braved the monsoon deluge to show up.  The hall is actually pretty cool.  It looks like it was built in the 30s and, while some would say it's small,  I prefer to think of it as intimate....very intimate but in a platonic sort of way.  The seating is a bunch of big old cushy couches and overstuffed chairs that were probably aquired by donation, from the local second hand stores or just picked up off the side of the road, all lined up in front of the stage.  For $5.00 NZ ($3.50 US) you can get a bottle of beer or glass of wine from the window in the back to drink at your comfy seat during the show.  The whole thing is typical New Zealand South Island West Coast quirky.  Anyway, like I said, tonight's band rocked.  The lead singer gets up on stage and introduces himself and the band and their songs and thanks everybody and yata yata yata and world peace all in New Zealand but as soon as he starts singing he sounds like he's from Iowa.  I could see it maybe if he was singing a US song but even songs he wrote himself he sounds like one of my well spoken American homies (but maybe not so much like one of my old goomba New Jersey homies.)  Kiwis are a strange bunch but you gotta love 'em