Good on me mate!!!

At last, I have become a true kiwi! It has been a long process to become a NZ citizen since I applied about a year ago, spend my $500 or whatever it was, and waited and waited and waited. I was finally invited to the ceremony in which I would have the honour to shake hands with "his worship Mr Mayor Bob Parker", receive a certificate and a gift of New Zealand: a native tree. 200 lucky people were up for the same treatment...I ended up being number 189, so the majority of the audience was asleep by the time I took the stage. My friend Bob was in his element and he put huge amounts of effort into making everyone feel special. "Hi, it is so nice to meet you...Afghanistan, what a great place to come from!"...

All the 200 candidates had to collectively swear an oath (religious version) or an affirmation of allegiance (for pagans like me). It felt a bit strange to swear to Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth the second, Queen of New Zealand, and I had my fingers crossed (of course:-). Most poms, unless they have been to the scouts as kids, have probably never sworn on their Queen. I am maybe more of Pom than they in that case.
There was a real mix of people of different nationalities who received citizenship that evening. I counted for example 42 British, about 20 Afghanis, most of Samoa (12 in total), 10 Chinese (not as many as I expected). I was the only Swede!

Now, you are probably thinking "has she given up her Swedish citizenship"? No, I haven't and I will never do either. I am a Swede at heart. I like the idea of also being a kiwi since I after all have spent a significant part of my life here.

I had a bit of a party to celebrate the announcement. I tried to bake a Pavlova, which the kiwis claim to have invented (and the Aussies too). The pav failed completely and Clare, who comes from dairy country, thought that it resembled a cow pat. Apparently the trick was to never ever ever open the oven during the baking process. Of course, the acclaimed kiwi cook book Edmonds' failed to mention this.

The theme of the gathering was kiwi and there were a few gum boots clad people showing up, stripey polypropylene thermals, but Lara really stood out when she had a massive jandal on her back(kiwis don't call them thongs, which is something very different).

Kerstin and Lindsay are here for a visit in NZ with their little sunshine Yana. It is so great to see them again. Welcome home to New Zealand Kerstin!