A New Zealander who lives in Sweden e-mailed me the other day. He had seen on my website that I just had published a diary from a New Zealand tour. (I spent most of November 2010 in New Zealand). He had read the diary (probably helped by “Google translate”) and thought I should post also an English version. “I think there are many New Zealanders who would find it interesting to read what an occasional visitor to New Zealand writes about the country.”

That’s the background to this document which is a slightly improved version of a Google translation of the Swedish text (but only of the text, there are no pictures as in the orginal).

What is the diary all about? Well, this is what I wrote in the preface to the Swedish version.

An interest in the New Zealand society runs like a red thread through the diary. It’s much more about society and how people live in New Zealand seen by a visitor’s eye, and about the prospects for a small country far away to compete in a global market, also viewed from the outside, than about the marvels and sites I have encountered or overcome. That doesn’t mean that I’m unaffected by all the marvels I have seen. Most remarkable of all is the New Zealand countryside.

Download the dairy here. You find the more elaborate Swedish version here