Hey Melnq8,
Belly dancing's quite "the thing" here at the moment - maybe you could start a group :)

Funny you mention belly dancing Bokhara - I took belly dancing lessons when I lived in Kuwait. Never did get the hang of those hip moves, though, either you've got it or you don't.

Shakira I'm not.

Kinda funny that a traditional Arab guy would refer to a rare event as a "Christmas gift".

qwelts' use of language makes me think English is his first language - maybe American.

qwelt, I guess you've concluded by now that you've chosen both the wrong forum and, unless the Kiwis are keeping something under wraps (or more accurately not under wraps) the wrong country.

I'm going to assume qwelt is genuinely seeking our help here and isn't part of the Chaser team. Qwelt you're better off flying to somewhere closer like Amsterdam.

ozchinois, you're a kind & generous soul, and you put the rest of us heartless cynics to shame!

Thanks guys, Ozchinois, Neil Oz, Bokhara and Melnq8. Nice to know that my English is as good as an American! British would have been appropriate as I studied in a British curriculam school. So, I am seriously thinking of changing my travel programs. For the starters, Prague is much bettr than Amsterdam... The butterflies are much affordable and still naive.

Last year, I was walking on the Strip in Las Vegas wearing Kandura ( the Arabic dress) and I really thought some american punk will pull a gun on me.

Austrilia better
Siho

Don't know much about Nude Bars in NZ but if "other activities" includes movies - the movies in the hotels are pretty adventurous!

Hi gwelt
how come you're using American spelling if you studied in a Brit School i.e program ???!!!

Have we reached the climax of this discussion now then!

Thanks to internet where English is only American!

heathy, "program" is the near- universally accepted spelling in Australia and has been for some time. Are things different in NZ?

qwelt, why don't you tell us about the naive "butterflies" of Dubai. Perhaps your time would be better spent promoting the cause of sexual liberation in your own country. In my circle, even when I was much younger, guys who had to pay for sex were generally considered to be rather pathetic losers.

As for your excursion to Vegas, what do you expect when you walk down the street wearing a tent? When in Rome...

Hi Neil-Oz. Yes we spell it as programme, colour , centre and a number of others I can't recall. Mind you Iam a hopeless speller !

heathy, we also use 'centre' and 'colour' - although the '-or' spellings used to be quite common in Australia, as evidenced by the 'Australian Labor Party' and 'Victor Harbor' in South Australia.

Sorry about the tone of my last epistle to the OP, but this bloke is starting to annoy me (assuming he's genuine and we're not the targets of a wind-up). With his good English he probably knows the meaning of 'sleazy' though.

Hi Neil

Thanks for the heads up on Victor Harbor - I didn't realise it wasn't Harbour...

My pet peeve is "z" as in realizing. You have to be careful with MS Office.

Are there any risque bars in Queenstown given the tourist industry?

Hi, Sarvowinner. I did set Word to Australian English, which means Microsoft Outlook (which uses Word as its editor) is also happy with 'realise', say. But if anyone emails me using US English my reply also defaults to US spelling.

I know I'm in a minority on this but it wouldn't bother me if we deserted Mother England in the matter of spelling conventions and adopted US spellings instead.

I think the Oxford English Dictionary's view is that the British themselves probably would have adopted 'color', 'labor' etc. by now, but for one thing - the Americans got in first, and pride wouldn't allow them to follow the despised colonials.

It's been way too many years since I visited Queenstown to know what goes on there these days. That was back in the mid-1970s, before the Kiwis developed their current awesome talent for attracting tourists. I remember almost causing a riot in a sandwich shop by asking for a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich. The problem was that there were published prices for ham-and-cheese, ham-and-tomato and cheese-and-tomato, but not for a sinfully decadent concoction involving all three ingredients. Lacking a price, the girl behind the counter refused to sell me one. It's a trivial thing to remember, but at the time it broke us up.

Hi NeilOz;
An identical "ham, cheese & tomato sandwich" thing happened to me in the late70's in a sandwich shop just off Picadilly Circus!

The lady looked at me as if I had 2 heads & were fast growing a 3rd ... then, as in your Q'tn experience, couldn't grasp the combination. So exasperated was I that I bought the two "listed" sandwiches & then ostentatiously ditched the superfluous 2 slices of bread & whacked the lot together ...

The look was pure agreement with Nino Coluttaf's (sp?),"They're a Weird Mob" :)

Sounds like Jack Nicholson's famous scene in Five Easy Pieces where he wanted a plain omelette:

Probably against Fodor's rules but....

Dupea: I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, a cup of coffee, and wheat toast.
Waitress: No substitutions.
Dupea: What do you mean? You don't have any tomatoes?
Waitress: Only what's on the menu. You can have a number two - a plain omelette. It comes with cottage fries and rolls.
Dupea: Yeah, I know what it comes with. But it's not what I want.
Waitress: Well, I'll come back when you make up your mind.
Dupea: Wait a minute. I have made up my mind. I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes on the plate, a cup of coffee, and a side order of wheat toast.
Waitress: I'm sorry, we don't have any side orders of toast...an English muffin or a coffee roll.
Dupea: What do you mean you don't make side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don't you?
Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?
Dupea: ...You've got bread and a toaster of some kind?
Waitress: I don't make the rules.
Dupea: OK, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. I'd like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.
Waitress: A number two, chicken sal san, hold the butter, the lettuce and the mayonnaise. And a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Dupea: Yeah. Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.
Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken, huh?
Dupea: I want you to hold it between your knees.
Waitress: Do you see that sign, sir? Yes, you'll all have to leave. I'm not taking any more of your smartness and sarcasm.
Dupea: You see this sign? [He sweeps all the water glasses and menus off the table]