Common words to Canadians, New Zealanders, and British. But Colin and I are *still* thrown off from time to time. In general, the evening meal in New Zealand is called "tea". But there is also "morning tea", which is just tea, coffee and a small snack. "Supper" in New Zealand is a small evening snack. Colin and I were thrown off once about 3 years ago when we went to a parenting workshop that advertised "Supper will be served". And yet, it started at 7pm. Yes, supper turned out to be coffee and cookies.
Yesterday, we were invited to "tea" at some people's home, who we met a few weeks ago at a garage sale, believe it or not. He is the drama teacher at another high school here in Wanganui and he and Colin met 4 years ago at a drama workshop not far from here. This family is from the UK. We thought we were being invited for dinner, supper, the evening meal. We arrived, were served drinks and a snack (which is sometimes common here) and then we visited for awhile. Time went by and it was clear they were about to get their kids ready for the next day of school and it was time for us to leave. We weren't invited for a meal, apparently. We laughed at ourselves when we left. We had been invited for 3pm, and this was obviously "English tea time." Another friend of ours here, also from the UK, talked about how British, Canadians, Kiwis, Americans, etc, are all "separated by a common tongue." Isn't that the truth?
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