Winter Time in Auckland, NZ

God bless the person who made thermal clothes and hot water bottles see, cause da place COWL!!

Now, lemme tell you something, I’m from the Caribbean. Where is 28 degrees celsius (82F) all kinda day and night, no MATTA da season.

When I wrote this, it was about mid June 2018 in Auckland, when their winter was actually going into full swing. In the Southern Hemisphere, June, July & August are their winter months. Winter (in Auckland) ranges from roughly 12C/53F (in the day) to 8C/46F (at night) which, for me, was COLD.

I did winters in Canada for school, but oh gosh when I got into bed it didn’t feel like I was outside same way 😭😭. I can say a benefit of Auckland was there was never any snow though. Amen.

As I began to experience Auckland winter however, I couldn’t help but notice a few things that I found ‘different’, and thought maybe you would too. For instance:

• People be outside liming at bars or sittin by Cafe tables on the sidewalk like if is summer time. They had their heating lamps (essentially lamps designed to give off heat when outside in cold) and so everyone was good to go.
• The way people dress – no one was actually ‘bundled’ up. People be walking around in hoodies or a sweater an saying dey dressed for the cold (but were they actually?).

• To further stress the point of people’s dress, sometimes people wore no jacket at all and today self I saw a lady in slippers. IN WINTER. It really is each to their own when it comes to their winter.
• The streets seemed just as busy as summer time – the cold did not disturb majority.
• People take cars, buses, trains, ferries, bikes, run and walk to work or wherever they need to go. STILL. IN WINTER.
• My wardrobe had now narrowed down to hoodies and sweatpants in the house and as much as I could get away with it outside. The good news is cause of the city I chose to locate, I haven’t had to pull out the big Canadian winter jacket. And for that, I was grateful.

• Indoor central heating isn’t a thing here. But electric blankets, A/Cs blasting heat and hot water bottles are. Listen, call me naive but I never even thought A/Cs were used for anything else besides cooling down a room [look, it was so bad I half believed if you put the AC on past a certain temperature heat wise, it would mash up]. I’m here to tell you, that that’s not the case. It works either way! [But again, when you think about it – AC = air conditioner – cold or hot. The people who named it knew what they were talking about.]

• They call ACs ‘heat pumps’ over here. When I first heard the term I was half expecting something like a water pump in the back of the house only to discover the person was referring to an AC unit 😅. I had to laugh in my head.

• An oil heater can save lives. My survival winter is proof. Memba me tell you so.

To summarize, one of my friends said it best “New Zealanders do not have a concept of cold – and I BELIEVE!

Look, it does be cold outside but the way people dressing you wonder if is sumtin wrong with you or them. Dese people be outside jogging in normal shirt and shorts or pushing their baby pram strolling strolling like if da place not cold. Half the people dressing like if it’s spring/summer while the other half dressing like winter. Have poor you, the newby, confused if the place really ‘cold’ or not.

But if it’s one thing it shows, cold is ‘relative’ (and also that this cold life ain’t for me). But on the plus side, I survived to tell the tale 😁.

Yours truly,

Global Gyal