If New York is the city that never sleeps, then New Zealand is the country that is in bed by 10, for an early alarm tomorrow. I am a night owl, no news there. Unfortunately, I am now living in an entire country of early to bed, early to rise practitioners.
As someone who lived in a city for decades and grew used to having grocery stores with late hours, 24 hour pharmacies, and restaurants open until ten, the time line here just does not work for me. We learned the hard way that coffee shops and cafes close at 3 p.m. If you need caffeine in the afternoon, good luck. Restaurants are busiest between five and six and most close by nine. Five o’clock dinner out? Those are Pop Pop hours. Matt’s grandfather Pop Pop had to have dinner at five. Six was horribly late. Forget seven.
Shops and businesses are open only nine to five on weekdays. If people work from nine to five and shops are only open from nine to five, how does anyone get anything done? I guess people are expected to leave work if they need to run an errand. Even worse, waiting for the weekend to get anything done is also problematic since most businesses, aside from retail, are closed on weekends or are open only until noon.
Granted, the grocery stores are open a bit longer. One store makes it to 10 p.m. Another major grocery store has a sign that offers “late night” hours–on Thursday they are open until seven. Late night? Seven? That is just adorable. So far as I can tell, there are few if any 24 hour anythings in most of the country. (I can’t speak for Auckland, the largest city of one million. I am going to hope they have some kind of night life.)
This is a very rural country with a lot of people having grown up on farms or having lived in small towns where five is the time to close up shop. I often wonder if perhaps that is the cause of the general early bird syndrome. Whatever the reason, in order to get anything done here, you better set the alarm.
A Yank Among the Kiwis 