No New Zealand is not part of Australia

New Zealand is not on the same continental shelf and so is not part of the continent of Australia but is part of the submerged continent Zealandia. Zealandia and Australia together are part of the wider region known as Oceania or Australasia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_(continent)

Just so we're clear :)

The usual argument people falsely cling to is:
As a cultural construct, the concept of a continent may go beyond the continental shelf to include oceanic islands and continental fragments. In this way, Iceland is considered part of Europe and Madagascar part of Africa. Extrapolating the concept to its extreme, some geographers take Australia, New Zealand and all the islands of Oceania (or sometimes Australasia) to be equivalent to a continent, allowing the entire land surface of the Earth to be divided into continents or quasi-continents.

Credit Cards

I stopped in at Albert Heijn today to get some essentials (and non-essentials) and just as I was at the checkout counter I realised I only had 20 euros left in my wallet plus a few coins. I knew what I was buying would come to about 25 euros. Fortunately I saw the person in front of me pay using a card so I thought phew no problem I can use my credit card (I don't have a bank account here yet, still waiting on my SoFi number).

So anyway, a minute later it was my turn to pay. I offered my credit card and asked 'Can I use my credit card?' and the lady replied 'No'. I was dumbstruck for a couple of seconds while this sunk in -- before I realised I'd even asked again, 'You don't take credit cards?' to which she again replied 'No'. I recovered from my brain freeze a few seconds later and asked her to take out a couple of things I didn't really need and used my remaining cash.

But seriously, a supermarket not taking credit cards? In the capital city of a European country? Is this standard in Europe? Quite amazing to me, but I guess since New Zealand adopted EFTPOS such a long time ago (1985) it never occurred to me that other countries wouldn't have the same level of service by this time. I had thought England a little behind when I lived there but even they have found the benefits of the scheme and most shops now have the service.

Ah well, at least I now know to always have cash on me until I get my bank card.

New Apartment

I've been in Amsterdam for three weeks and have just moved into our new apartment -- I'll go into more details of the process in a later post so that I can hopefully provide some useful tips.

Our apartment is in the Nieuwmarkt area which is a great location right in the heart of the city. Thankfully we're far enough away from the red-light district that we can avoid the masses of tourists. I'm very much looking forward to exploring the local area, especially once my girlfriend (with whom I shall be writing this blog) arrives in April.

The apartment is nicely furnished and the common areas are clean which is apparently quite unusual for Amsterdam. The living areas are very sunny and we have a lovely view of two canals out the front, and no buildings immediately behind us so we don't feel too cramped. The only downside I've noticed so far is that we don't have a proper oven! I'm not sure how I failed to notice this when I visited the apartment. I guess it's just one of those things that in New Zealand you never think to question... who *doesn't* have an oven!? Things aren't too bad though, we do have a special microwave oven which appears to have a grill so I believe that's the cut-down substitute. I shall look forward to experimenting with that tomorrow.