"Kia ora," or, Utterly Defenseless

My infiltration of the Newish Zealandish nation was well-planned. I packed a variety of papers offering a plausible itinerary of my travels, including manufactured names and addresses associated with phone numbers of confidants who can vouch for the trip. This after all, is what you typically need for traveling between the United States and Canada, and moreover you must have it memorized so that you can repeat it verbatim while being hosed naked in their interrogation chambers. Any mis-step and you will be sent to Gitmo or one of the CIA's black sites for further processing.

New Zealand doesn't care for such proper, well-regarded defense procedures. They instead caqll you to their little booths, squint at your "Unetid Staats" passport without a glance at you, and send you on your way. I exaggerate of course. Other travelers report that they may occasionally ask about camping equipment or fruit, which the Newish Zealandish have a particular fear of: throughout customs and immigration there are posters of decaying, vampiric, zombified fruit as if ready to attack, which apparently is what the Newish Zealandish people think of when they think of fruit. It is probably best that on a reconnaissance mission such as this I did not bring anything to set off their fruit detectors; my AR-17 got through without any difficulties.

Don't think this open attitude is limited to their immigration checkpoints. Everywhere you go in New Zealand people will greet you with the traditional, unpronounceable welcome "kia ora," which, applying my investigative and literary skills, roughly translates to: "Please take whatever you want, just don't throw any fruit at me." And so it was, I went to a stand, showed my over-21 ID and purchased a holster and a banana, and nobody gave me any trouble the entire day of my arrival.

There you have it: New Zealand is an utterly defenseless, virgin land ripe for the taking, with its unplowed skyscrapers and parking meters, its open fields of concrete, and extinct species of giant birds.