New Zealand Day 6: I leave today.
Slept last night at the cheapest hostel I could find, too tired to care about character and charm any more. The place was right by New Brighton beach, and was attached to an excellent Thai restaurant. The owners--who were from Thailand, in fact-- kept asking me if their Thai food was as good as or similar to the Thai food in America. Most curious...
Sunday morning I got up early to walk to the beach. The pier was lovely-- the sky and sea blue and blue again. I ate a traditional Australian/New Zealand breakfast treat: two pancakes drowning in maple syrup and powdered sugar, with grilled bananas and bacon between them. Sounds like something they'd have thought of in West Virginia already. It was delicious, but of course I wanted to crawl under the table and die after I'd eaten it.
After that I had a series of long, arduous, annoying and time-consuming hassles with public transportation in Christchurch that made me (i) really cranky, (ii) really late to catch my flight, and (iii) NOT a fan of Christchurch. I finally had to take a taxi to the airport, which set me back about 50 buckaroos. Adieu to you, too, New Zealand. Sheesh, I was cranky.
But once on the plane flying back over the deep crevasses, shadows and glaciers of the Southern Alps, the beauty of the country put me right as rain again. It happened too fast, though, and soon we were over the never-ending ocean. Sydney was quite literally a grey haven--cloaked in rainstorms and gloomy. Though a small rainbow did appear at the end of the tarmac just as we landed, which was nice.
And that was it. The end of New Zealand.
I'm sorry it took me three weeks to get it all out. I don't think I'll ever really understand or be able to satisfactorily process all that happened there. But thanks for giving me a venue to try, at any rate.
This week is my last week in Melbourne, already. I will try to post once more from Australia, but I am attending and giving a talk at a conference for the better part of this week, and I've got a million things to tie up before I leave for the Netherlands. But at some point I will try to explain a bit about this place. I will say that I have spent far too much money eating the most amazing food here, and seeing shows and drinking good wine and traveling, and making friends with the philosophers here. This is a fantastic city, and I am sad to be leaving it after such a short stay. Perhaps someday I'll make it back again.
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1 comment:
Hi Leesie,
Yu MUST write a book....I've read all those adventures about Everest, and I can tell you that to keep ME reading and not sleeping it HAS to be both interesting and entertaining.
Your writing is exactly that! It tells a very interesting story, and yet spices it with humorous bits of human nature that makes one chuckle at the truth of it when it is read; like this bit:
"I've done a lot of soul-searching on this brief, intense solo trek in New Zealand. And, as I suspect is the case for many people who are painfully analytic, the best soul-searching happens unexpectedly, and without prompting. It can never be named afterwards, either."
That's good writing, sweetie. Seriously....I think you should send this WHOLE blog to a publisher (ask mom about them) and see if I'm not correct!
Anywho, Justin regaled us with his Kenya trip last night....it took forever cuz he was sleepy and had had too much wine (or something). Soon you'll be back to the States...we'll see you soo at the dunes
TC32
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