Unfinished Business Time

Two weeks on vacay alone, meant

mastering my self-timer, oh just

wait to see the beast that this has

unleashed

The happy couple

Revisiting old ground with new progress,

the garden boxes that have been installed

and the garden club as a result of my

fundraising and teaching at Aro Valley School

Catching up with old friends, including

Graham and Nancy who held onto

a bag of my belongings for a year

New Zealand's cathedrals

I will lay on the beach on this vacay -

the Coromandel coast delivering on

my last day. I went from this pose

to an upright Coach seat in less than four

hours, sand brought along for the ride
Good morning Catlins

I went to Southland in search of

penguins, but still knew it was rare,

especially to find two yellow-eyed penguins

Sooooo glad I could make it around

the world to celebrate with the

happy, adorable couple. Excuse my

smashface and undid hair, this is 4 hours

after landing and 20+ hours of travel,

my dressing/grooming ability was at a minimum

FINALLY!!! Unpenned sheep, now

if only someone was with me to

photograph me frolicking/tackling them

Oh NZed, your sense of humour

never ceases to amaze me

Picturesque beach to myself on my

last day - thank you NZed

He was yelling at me that I woke

him from his nap

From the bottom of the world,

the Southern tip of NZed

In true NZ superlatives - the

steepest street IN THE WORLD

in Dunedin

Just missed Intnational Gumboot Day

My old street

With some of my favs on

the shore of Lake Taupo

Oh Kiwi randomness towns, I missed you

On my last night, NZed was visited by

an aurora only visible this far south.

Auroras are best enjoyed with a glass

of Martinborough Pinot wearing

Icebreaker's merino

After a quick 48 hours in Peru, in which I gave a presentation to the Ministry of Agriculture plus 100 others in mangled Spatalian, I was off to NZed with a huge grin and glad to leave work and the rest of the world behind for a few days. Starting off in Lima, I was next in line at the customs/passport check when the computers went down and they redirected everyone to a desk behind me, which meant I went from first to last. I remembered how much patience I've learned to have and kept a happy smile and then ran to the plane. Sweating at the start of a 24 hour flight is never a good idea. Two TACA flights later (with a short stop in El Salvador), I arrived to LAX, helped a stranded Peruvian traveler who couldn't understand why there wasn't free wifi at LAX; asked to borrow a stranger's phone to call my Mother, and then got in line for Air NZed, with another huge grin. I decided to inquire about the upgrade to business class - $2,000 additional, which I declined and then subsequently forgot to ask where my seat was. Lucky me - a middle seat on a 13 hour flight, after already flying 10 hours. Thank god it was Air NZ, and everything else is so awesome about it or I would have lost my grin. I arrived on time to Auckland, got myself a flat white, topped up my NZed sim card and withdrew money from my NZed bank account, and my grin got wider while I waited for my flight to Welly. Arrived to sunshine and no wind - a perfect day for a wedding.

So flash forward and it's my last night in NZed. I'm sitting on the coast in the Coromandel, watching the sunset with a rainbow while drinking some pinot and eating some blue cheese and fully wishing I had a lifetime here.

The overwhelming feeling I’ve had since arriving in NZed is a simultaneous urge to grin ear to ear and burst into tears – grin because I’m back and cry because I know it’s only temporary, and both when I think of all the memories (especially with all of you who came to visit!). The hardest thing about being back is how natural it feels to be here.

While I was pretty proud of all I accomplished in my year in NZed, there were a few things that remained on my list undid, so naturally I needed to come back and attend to them –

-Alice and Aaron saying 'I do': I always told them they needed to hurry up and get engaged/married to give me a reason to come back to NZed. They are such good instruction followers that they planned it for exactly a year after my departure. And with this, I also got to check off a long lasting item on my list "Furthest distance to attend the wedding". I mean you'd think that I had already easily won this (Eve, Kaitlyn, I'm looking at you) but no, someone has always managed to rob me by coming from Australia, China, Vietnam. Well, there were plenty of eager folks to try to rob me again from the U.K., but I tallied the miles - I finally win. And it was so worth it. The wedding felt incredibly intimate, with the way their vows were delivered (full of inside jokes/moments) that everyone could connect with, to the serving of the family beer (Stoke), and that Alice made the wedding cake and did the flowers herself. I was a bit worried that I would feel a bit lonely at the wedding, and instead I felt like I was part of the family (Alice's brother and I served as the photographers). Serving pork belly at your wedding is also always a good idea. I even managed to last until 11:30 at night, and then subsequently fell asleep in the cab on the way home

-Master Elizabeth: Remember that obscure topic I came to do a Master's in? Well, I submitted my thesis last August and only received my grade two weeks before coming to NZed, but there were still the colors of the binding to pick out and the lodging of the published copy with the library, which I was blessed with being able to do in person. All 150 pages of A- glory "Exploring Comparative Advantage in the Context of Climate Change with Maori Organizations" are now available for your reading pleasure online and in hard copy in metallic blue and gold lettering.

-Far South: You avid readers may remember that I never made it to the far south (Dunedin, the Catlins), so I decided on this visit that I should finally journey to the end of the world - literally. The only things between me and Antarctica were a brutal southerly wind, a lighthouse, and a few penguins.

Having been away a year, NZed still absolutely feels like I never left and totally feels like home, but there are a few things I forgot and a few things that are just as I remember them –

-People: I forgot how many people I actually know in NZ, and most days I felt like I was running around trying to catch up with everyone

-Driving: was a little worried about driving again on the other side, but it almost feels more natural, although trust me I turned those wipers on more times than I car to recall when trying to signal

-Internet: or lack thereof. I still can't imagine how in 2012 New Zealand has such poor internet access and that they still charge for use by MB. Since I was working this time while in NZ, this became especially apparent, including dropped skype calls where my co- workers thought I might be in Africa instead of NZ. There's a rumor that the issue lies with NZ running its internet cables from Australia, under the sea. I have not looked into the validity of this claim, but seriously? Can cables under the sea really be cheaper/more efficient than investing in your own infrastructure NZed?

-News: Anywhere else the news is full of violence, political strife, celebrity gossip, etc., Somehow the biggest news in NZed is still penguin sightings,remodeled homes, lady gaga coming, and jesus curing cancer as the top stories. However, I did get to watch a documentary about the CHCH quakes while I was there, and it is seriously sad, except for the heartwarming moments of Kiwi humor ingenuity.

-Hills: My first walk up my old hill, and I was thinking 'Wow I don't miss this', but yes I do miss the shape it kept me in, and the view it gave me from home

-Food: I forgot how expensive food/drinks are in NZ, but not how good they are. It's nice to come back to NZ with a bit of money so that I could fill myself up on the king of blue cheeses Kikorangi (not my words, theirs, and at $13.00 for 2 oz, it better be), blackball salami, flat whites, pinot noirs, linseed bread, lamb, Steinlager, ciders, KK Malaysian takeaway, sushi for a$1 a roll, and more...

-Weather bombs: The equanimity of weather in Rome must have gone to my head, because I packed a suitcase full of light summer clothes and images of myself frolicking on lonely beaches, cavorting in the sea with dolphins, but no one told me that summer never came to NZ this year. During my two weeks I also got to experience two "weather bombs" (again not my words, theirs) with southerly (meaning from Antarctica) winds at 100 km a hour. The nicest weather days of my trip were the first and last days of my trip

-Hitchhiking: While I can't speak for everywhere in the world, I've never experienced another country where hitchhiking is such de rigueur. I guess it speaks to the safety of NZ, and also the prevalence of backpackers. My whole time living in NZ I never picked up a hitchhiker, mostly because they were usually men and I didn't feel like getting raped. On my scenic drive through the Far South, I was singing along in the car, when I encountered a lone girl hitchhiker and planned to just zip by and then I thought, since I'm not a raper, I should pick her up before someone else does. Of course she was German, and we passed the rest of the day together visiting NZ's cathedrals (waterfalls) while I told her everything she had to do and eat while she was in NZ. She got an unraping ride, and I got to reminisce and boss. I was a bit worried when I had to send her on her way to get her next ride, so I bought her a Whitacker's chocolate bar and instructed her to eat one everyday and to email me when she got to her hostel so I knew she was safe = exactly why I'm not ready to be a parent. A side note on hitchhiking, since I don't do it (you're welcome Mom, and no I wouldn't call taking rides when you can't find a cab after a Red Sox game or in Adams Morgan on a Friday night hitchhiking), I find it pretty presumptuous. And I don't mean the hitchhiking if you've found yourself stranded or whatever, but actually going to a country with your plan of transport being to hitchhike. This basically means you've planned a vacation based on mooching off the kindness of strangers. Maybe I also find it a bit unconscionable because it means you are at the whim of others with no control of when you go places. Both of these probably speak more to the fact that I don't like to depend on others than on the actual merits/demerits of hitchhiking

So all in all, amazing, too short, thought provoking, giggle worthy, and while I was extremely sad to leave, I now know that while NZ might be on the other side of the world (from Italy), it's not as hard as you think it is to get to (especially with Air NZ) and I will be back.

*I would like to thank my sponsors for this trip, Victoria University scholarship - I'm sure this probably wasn't how you envisioned me spending my grant but do know I put a lot of attention into picking out the colors to publish my thesis in; and the FAO Tanzania project for paying me while on the other side of the world. Hope I can show you it was worthwhile next week

I know I've promised you a NZ/Italy matchup, and I promise it's coming with even better perspective now after this refresher.....