Kiwi & Aussie expats onlyVetted · tables of 5–8 · one good restaurant
Mateship, monthly,
and familiarity
without the plane ride.
You didn’t move to America
to become a novelty act.
The accent’s a party trick. The references go quiet. And you’re forever explaining where you’re originally from. Somewhere along the way, the people who’d just get it — no translating — stopped being in the room.
First month free · Two minutes to apply · You pay for your own food, just like dining out with friends.
I've spent six years in Dallas. I've started saying "y'all." I've defended breakfast tacos. My mum thinks I sound American. My American mates think I sound very Kiwi. Apparently I've been quietly building a third nationality this whole time.
Somewhere along the way I worked out something nobody had told me: the accent comes home faster around your own people than anywhere else. The job, the visa, the system — that part has a roadmap. The other part doesn't.
So I built one. Franzus Social. A monthly dinner club for Kiwis and Aussies in the US. No networking. No name tags. No dickheads. Just a small table of people who already get the shorthand, in a good restaurant, once a month, every month.
You’ve become the foreign one.
Not in any dramatic way — in a hundred small ones. A monthly table is where it switches off.
“I love your accent!” — said before you’ve said anything back.
You’ve performed the word “water” on request. Sober. More than once.
You mentioned your thongs. The table heard that very differently.
“Where are you from?” “No — but originally?”
90 degrees means nothing. Someone says 32 and you sweat on principle.
A smuggler’s shelf in the pantry: Vegemite, Tim Tams, one heroic bottle of L&P.
Then, one night a month — the act’s off.
A table of Kiwis & Aussies who already get it. The references land. Nobody asks you to say “water.” Just dinner.
