Pretty Money

Tomorrow it will officially be 2 weeks in New Zealand.  It's been rainy (for my jealous midwestern drought friends) but it's been great.

Things I miss, other than my friends:  Diet Pepsi, Diet Mt Dew, Crest toothpaste, and to a lesser degree Crystal Light.

I see a lot of Coke products (regular Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite) but much less Pepsi/Mt Dew and I have found no Diet Pepsi or Diet Mt Dew - I guess you could call this "forced diet soda rehab". :-)
Oh well, obviously I am still alive without my diet soda fix.  Yes Charles, I tried the Diet Coke, still can't handle it.

But you're not here to hear me whine...

New Zealand money is very pretty.  Maybe the US saves money on ink when it prints money (probably not).
Take a look at this pretty money.

front:

and back:

The coins in the picture are 20 cents (silver one on the left) and $1 on the right.  Yup, they don't seem to have any problem with a $1 coin here.  In fact, they have a $2 coin!  I've seen 50 cents, 20 cents, and 10 cents.

There is no penny.  Life seems to churn along quite nicely without a penny.  Do you think the US will ever dump the penny?  I have some US pennies in my pocket, the NZ bank chuckled when I asked what to do with the pennies.  I guess my pennies will come back to the US on my next return.

Things seem more expensive here, but I am getting used to it (I have to eat!).