Ben's Spiffy New Uniform, and Musings Completely Unrelated

I think I’ve finally figured out my host family’s method of doing dishes. They didn’t really know, it’s obviously something they do subconsciously, but I figured out how it works. When the dishwasher is empty, you can put dishes in it, and then the dishes are cleaned. From there you use the clean dishes straight out of the dishwasher, then hand wash them after you’re done with them, then put them away. Once the dishwasher is empty (i.e. It has all been used) then you are free to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher. This means that 98% of the time, the dishwasher is just a glorified kitchen cabinet.
I also discovered something else while attempting to put together another lunch for myself. They have no salt. Sorry, they have no table salt (I eventually ended up crushing some sea salt I found in the cupboard to suit my purpose.) Rather what they have is a small plastic grinder labeled “Salt and Pepper” that contains (you guessed it) large grains of salt and peppercorns. Just another one of the oddities I have found living with another family. I don’t know whether its because it’s in New Zealand, or if its just because it’s a different type of family, but it’s new.
While I’m on the subject of food, if anyone is interested, here are the list of dinners (“tea”) I’ve had so far.
· Ground chicken patties on salad topped with yogurt
· Corn chips mixed with chili and melted cheese (nachos I guess)
· Gorkha (at the Nepalese restaurant)
· Saturday lunch was notable. It was grilled cheese, but they were called “Toasties”
· Lasagna
· Sunday lunch was notable because it was at a restaurant in town, celebrating my host sister’s cousin (I think) going back to Germany. It was the first time I’ve ever tasted “ginger beer” which is quite different from “ginger ale” in taste, but similar in that both are non-alcoholic beverages with alcoholic names. It tasted like a stomachable version of air-borne (that tablet that you drop into your water before you go on a flight so you don’t get sick). I also had the house pasta, and I had a forkful of food that was somehow just mind-blowingly tasty it was… a penne noodle, a chunk of what I assume was cheddar cheese (I have yet to see any evidence that grated cheese exists in New Zealand), a piece of tomato, and a fried mushroom, all covered in marinara sauce. I don’t know why, but this combination of foods was quite possibly one of the tastiest bites I’ve ever had.
· Sunday dinner was not. It was tomatoes and eggs (as in the tomatoes were mixed in with the eggs) on bread. For some reason it kind of tasted like corn.
Today (Monday now) was also my very first real day of school. Nothing really interesting happened except for me being extremely confused, blowing a lot of money at the school shop buying books, being told I had to shave off my goatee :,(- ,and figuring out where the cantina was.
And finally. I know I’m putting up these posts in a rather sporadic manner, two at a time, with many days in-between. Worry not citizens of Delaware, I have not forsaken thee, rather I’ve had a lot of trouble getting access to the internet recently. All of these posts so far have been uploaded on someone else’s computer, though written prior to the actual posting on mine, so if things seem a little out of date, you now know why. As for all the friends and family back at home who are wondering where the hell I am on Skype after I made you all download it, assuming I move in with my temporary host family soon, I should be on within the next week. For those of you who had no idea I had a Skype account, my username is “Benjamin.Kegerise”, so look out for me.