Ho Ho Ho Holidays!

Dearest Everyone,

This is your daughter/friend/cousin/co worker/granddaughter/neice/etc Julia Koop reporting in with some serious holiday cheer.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This year has been so incredible for me. I have completed a university degree, worked full time for the 1st time in basically ever, met some great people, and begun my first big adventure. Wow. It's been eventful.

Christmas letters (which I'm attempting to write now) are often a summary of the doings and goings ons of ones life throughout the past year. Hence the above couple sentences. But this Christmas letter is going to be different. This Christmas letter is going to tell you about the things I've learned about myself this past year and the few things I've learned about New Zealand in the last month and a half.

Things I've learned about me
- I demand a lot of myself
- I demand a lot of others (sorry guys, sometimes I was seriously out of line)
- I love to learn
- I hate to study
- I can handle pressure (Thesis you big jerk, I love you)
- I've learned to let things go
- I'm not as smart as I think I am, and I'm usually not as smart as you think I am
- There is always room for improvement but that doesn't mean that you can't be happy with where stuffs at now
- My faith is still important to me and is constantly evolving
- People are scared/intimidated by me
- I love people, specifically my family and awesome friends, but I love the human race as a group of individuals forming a collective
- I love working in the service industry aka the food and beverage industry
- I love big and.or unusual words (Ben, you know what I'm talking about)
- I have an unusual philosophy about how I am allowed to view my physical appearance
- I'm different than most girls
- I love getting dirty and working with my hands
- I LOVE the gym
- I love/hate the radio
- I love to sing and dance
- And my motto of the last year -- "I have no one to impress"
- I'm out of things I've learned. And, to be honest, this list was completely formulated off the top of my head about 5 minutes ago while I was typing. I'm sure I've learned a lot more, and a lot more important things, but that's what pops into mind.

Things I've learned about New Zealand (this list got considerable more thought, though it's still incomplete)
- NZ outlets (plugins) have an on/off switch. Often for both the top and bottom outlet
- Kiwi's say "Eh" just as much as we do
- Weather changes are no joke here. It really can change on a dime.
- People always talk about Mexico time -- New Zealand should really be included in that saying
- Standard vehicles have the shifter on the left and the indicators on the right
- Kiwi girls are generally accepted by all nationalities to be not as cute as the average girl in any other country
- Public transport is the same here as in Canada, which is greatly worse than Europe
- Sprite is called "Lemonade". You can look it up, it says that on the bottle. Weird.
- Orange juice is basically the only juice in the country
- Sober drivers are in high demand
- There is an incredible amount of texture in the NZ and I would suppose the world
- My body has decided that while in NZ my internal clock is set to 6:30am
- Hitchhiking is highly unadvised by the locals
- Canadian accents are considered cute
- NZ is populated by 4 groups, Asians, Germans, Kiwis, and Canadians (in that order)
- Kiwi boys love to cook and are good at it
- Internet is sold by the megabyte
- There is no such thing as unlimited text plans
- NZ geography is like a compressed Canada
- Kiwis have trouble articulating
- They don't say bless you when you sneeze
- There is no butter or margarine (very hard to find). There is "spread"
- Everything is expensive
- Sunblock should ALWAYS be worn
- People think I'm either Dutch or Irish. Mostly Dutch.
- Fat Freddy's Drop and Katchafire pump out some seriously good tunes
- Supper is called "tea"
- Dessert is called "pudding"
- Everyone asks "How you going?"
- Everyone loves the Red Hot Chili Peppers
- People "suss" things out
- And they "reckon" a lot
- Generally, Kiwi terminology is closer to British than American
- "Cool Bananas"
- "Sweet as"
- Bunny hug = Jumper
- Pop is roughly $4 for a 330ml bottle, still only about $2 for a 2 liter bottle
- No one says "man, dude, etc" they say "boi"
- This country is awesome

That's my Christmas Letter Reflections. I love you all. Miss you all. And want to wish you all the bestest, greatest, whitest, lovelyest, everythingest Christmas ever.

LOVE. MERRY CHRISTMAS. HAPPY NEW YEAR. GOD BLESS.
Julia