Town Names

We have been here for a little while now, and I have been struggling with one thing more than anything else.... how to pronounce names of towns. The towns are often named by the native Maori people which leaves the NZ newcomer confused. The town we are moving to is in a district called Whangaparaoa. The town Brandon has been working on is Aotea and Porirua. On our drive to Auckland we passed Paekakariki, Pouwhakaura, and Waiouru. Brandon has to be able to refrence these towns in his job and is constantly corrected. I was trying to pronounce different places that we were looking for houses, and Brandon just looked at me and said "ok Nell"... haha! There is also the record for one of the longest city name in the world that is held by NZ. It is... "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu", which translates roughly as The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his nose flute to his loved one. It is 85 letters long!! So needless to say, we are working on that!
There are more signs for road safety here than in the states. There are campagnes to slow down, be safe in intersections, and be cautious when passing. The speed limit never goes above 100 km/hr, which is roughly 65 mph. There are also electronic ticketing systems that take the license plate number and send you a ticket for speeding. The picture I posted is of the intersection safety ad. It has a wheel on it with "near miss", "miricle", and "death" writen on it and the sign says spin. don't spin. The tv version is the scary part though. There is a creepy looking guy that waits for someone to pull out in an intersection while a car is coming, then spins the wheel. There are several versions, but they show someone getting hit then the wheel stopping at death... it does make you think twice before pulling out though.

The spelling has also been an issue. There is different spellings for a ton of stuff. Tires = Tyres, Center = Centre, Color = Colour, and Curb = Kurb. And yes they do pronounce the "h" in herb. It makes me think of the tomato/potato song.

That is all for today! We are moving into our new place tomorrow, so I will have to wait to get internet hooked up there before the next posting...
Love you guys!