4 Years Later

So it has been just about 4 years since my last post. In true Aries fashion, i lack the ability to complete anything with as much gusto as I start them with. 4 Years. 4 bloody years. Being a 24 yr old as in my last post is no longer an option and looking back, I think I have spent the time wisely. The illustrious 'twenties' have been kind to me. During those years (and still one and half left to go) I have lived in three different countries. I have visited 14 different countries. My passport has been battered and bruised by immigration officials and i have gained a significant amount of 'laughter' (hardly) lines around my eyes. I have lived in 6 different houses. I quit and then started smoking again. I spent a lot of time worrying about everybody including myself.I got engaged. I worked in more mundane jobs and then I found a meaningful one. I wrote and received many postcards. I reluctantly got a cat (who I now love dearly). I bought and drove my first car enjoying all the freedom and cheesey music moments it brings. I became familiar with depression. I hardly wrote a sentence apart from Facebook and twitter status updates. Looking back I can say it has been a a time full of growing pains and full of new friendships, love and care. I am still in New Zealand. Work permits and residency papers were finally processed and we became permanenet residents of New Zealand. Now we have seen majority of this beautiful country and I call it home. It has brought many happy and many sad memories. Maybe the next few posts will give you a good idea of to spend your time travelling New Zealand and what to expect if you ever want to move here. Dont hold your breath while you wait though. Clearly I have issues with consistancy in blog posts. Kia Kaha (take care) See you when I'm in my mid-thirties.

Auckland in Winter

This was written three months ago in the height of winter. Summer Edition coming Soon!!

I am currently sitting on a cheap brown sofa, in a studio apartment, on the sixth floor, along Anzac Avenue, in Auckland, New Zealand. There is a cyclone raging at present, and gifts from other people's balconies are now scattered on mine. So far, I have obtained 3 pegs, one pot plant and a pair of pale yellow knickers. Who wears yellow knickers?! In fact, who leaves their washing out during a cyclone?!

If you are ever planning on travelling to the bottom right corner of the mapped world, DO NOT come in winter (June until September) Luckily for my boyfriend and I, our plan was to work and save in Auckland for a few months, before we purchase a smelly, second-hand camper van to travel the rest of the country. Un-luckily for us, we did not realise how tropical the weather can be, especially in winter! Even after living in England for 4 years. I've never got so wet (and dont be rude). Somehow the rain gets underneath your umbrella and slaps your face. I spend the majority of the winter months looking like a drowned rat with mascara streaks.

Auckland has been kind to us so far, apart from the weather. We managed to find a studio apartment to rent for three months, and although all the appliances were broken and the room smelt like a teenage boy with cheesey feet had lived there before us, it is home for the moment. I found work relatively quickly, first hiring out graduating gowns to graduating students of Auckland University, then wrapping presents for five days. I wrapped one thousand, five hundred mugs in three days. Not many people can say the same.

My current job was found through a temping agency,which is general administration for a bus company. Boyf was also quite lucky, he is a chef, and found a job at a professional's cafe, where they make the muesli from scratch.

If the jet lag caused by a twenty-nine hour flight was not disorientating enough, we arrived in Auckland to find we were on the eighth floor of a backpacking lodge where the lift did not work, so up the stairs we went with our overly-packed suitcases.

As soon as we left the airport, Auckland turned out to be pretty unexpected. It was clean with ferns growing from the buildings, the traffic lights (or robots, as we Southern Africans say) took forever to turn green and when they did, people in the hundreds and thousands came out of the woodwork and crossed the road. Aucklanders must spend at least half their day waiting for "robots' to go green. And when they finally do, the roads have hell to pay with at least 300 people crossing them in haste.

Auckland is known for its high-rise buildings and many people, living in the city, live in apartments. We dropped off our luggage and headed out to explore the city. The city was bustling with so many different cultures, especially Asian, along with backpackers looking at their maps and harrassing the bus drivers for directions.

We walked down the amazingly long Queen Street and were laughably shocked at the amount of 'erotic massage' and 'private karaoke' businesses along the way. We were later to find out that prostitution is legal in New Zealand. Even with the amount of legal brothels in and around Auckland, it seems to lack the seediness, places like Amsterdam thrive on.We walked to the harbour, saw the Auckland Bridge and basked in the last of the autumn sunshine, while eating not-so-cheap ice-cream.One or two homeless people sat in derelict doorways, sniffing their glue and going about their day.

By that point I was dying for a glass of wine and we went to every Co-op we could find. None of them sold any alcohol. We had to go to a 'proper' liquor store and even then, they would not sell me anything because I did not have my passport to prove my age. They would not accept my driver's licence (of which I am extremely proud), as it was "foreign". Haha, I laughed. Finally we were "foreigners".So I had to go without. We went back to our lodge and went to the communal lounge with our laptop and started to look for jobs and apartments.

As we logged onto the communal broadband, a familiar accent greeted us. An Ex-Kiwi, who had been living in London for 12years said something about the broadband being slow. We started chatting and found out he was married to an English girl and had come back "home" to visit his mum for a few weeks. And as much as he loved his mum, he couldnt bare to stay at her house so had booked into the lodge too. Jason was his name and he introduced us to Auckland in a special way. Before he did that, he managed to sort out our laptop and load over 10 of the latest movies from his laptop onto ours. Turns out Jason is a top IT consultant for a prestigious company (He also developed the Harry Potter computer game) and where others would pay him £300 an hour for his services, he gave us a freebie.Jason told us all about life in New Zealand and took us to the best Schwarma place in Auckland, introduced us to Spirulina (a smoothie made with seaweed-one of my favourite drinks now) and took us to "the Thirsty Dog", where we watched a few bands play. We never saw him again after that night but his kindness won't be forgotton. Top bloke!

From one corner of the earth to another...UK to NZ

What brought me and my boyfriend to New Zealand, they ask? Well apart from my own quintessential "lostness" and desire to run from the makings of what my life was going to become, I applied for a working holiday visa, took my love by the hand and said "Follow me". And he did.
Before we were sitting at Heathrow Airport, sick with nerves waiting to board a flight to Auckland, New Zealand, I was living my own mundane nightmare. Or I thought I was, until recently I realised that perhaps it was other people's judgements of my life and my own self-image that made me feel like it was mundane.
I had made good friends in the UK, had a job, which was by no means challenging...But I worked with a great bunch of English builders, who would boost my confidence daily and I worked with an even better Irish compadre, who happened to become my mentor and close friend, even though she had not signed up for it. I got paid and spent my money on myself.
I found love with a deep, insecure chef who is the bestest friend a girl could ask for. His compacity to forgive and cater (what he does best) for my every need never fails to surprise me.
That's how he ended up in Auckland, New Zealand.
But for some unknown reason, my life in the UK was making me unhappy. I missed my friends and family back in South Africa (and Namibia) daily and I missed my boyfriend as he was working over 70hours a week. Even though we lived together, we hardly saw each other and when we did, we were both tired. People who were close to me but who were not physically near to me and my life, at the time, began to worry.
An old best friend of mine mentioned that she thought, "I should do more with my life" (even though she was hardly running for President- but she was happy) and my Father (who lives in South Africa) would say "Dont get stuck there, Love" and my mother (who lives in Turkey) said " I dont want you to look back on your life and regret it". Three people closest to me had all thrust these words onto my current situation and it stung like a bee.
What did everyone expect of me? Had I let myself down? Was my unhappiness so clear to people? What exactly did these three people want me to do with my life? What did I want to do with my life? Was my current life and situation really that bad?
I cant tell you the answers to any of these questions. I just knew I needed to get out. Get out and think. Or get out and learn. Like my Irish friend once said "Hindsight is an important thing" and to have hindsight, you have to leave something behind.
And so now four months down the line, we are still in Auckland, New Zealand learning things about ourselves and although I cannot tell you what will happen next, I know in my heart I am happier and wiser.
And this is how I got wiser. They love me a lot. They worry about me.They will always want the best for me. But at the end of the day, I'm living my life how I need to and I probably wont ever live up to their expectations because I have my own or none. My father also once said to me "The most important advice I can give you, Love, is: Make Yourself Happy."
And that's what I'm trying to do.

The princess without her castle

My prince- my one and only true royal attribute-lies asleep in our bed, in a studio apartment, on Anzac Avenue in Auckland NZ. After one too many vodka and lemonades, he rests his hard-working, dragon-slaying head. I, on the other hand, insist that I need to finish my bottle of $10.00 wine and as it is a Saturday soon, I can sleep it off in my royal robes.
I got a phonecall from my mother, the Queen, who lives in Turkey with her lovable Irish husband about an hour ago. She has set my head reeling once again, as parents so gallantly do...about the future and what it holds for me. She said, "you do realise that England is in an economic slump and living in Brighton will be highly expensive for a princess?" and i said, "yes ma'am". She said "you do realise that it was a good move going to NZ and getting out of England?" and i said "yes ma'am". And i know what she was trying to say. My interpretation was that I should avoid England at all costs and yet it is where my ladies-in-waiting hold court and it is where my prince has his Kingdom.
What i wanted to say or shout...(however a princess would go about this matter) was "Where shall I go?!!"
What is a princess to do when she has no castle or Kingdom of her own? Does she willingly follow her prince to rule the Kingdom that she has unwillingly inherited?
Or is she meant to feel this utter sense of "lost" to eventually find her own way and her own Kingdom to rule?
I'm not sure if it is the $10.00 bottle of wine that makes me want to reach out to my prince brother and gain his acceptance or if I just crave some royal family love. Perhaps as he is the older sibling and next in line to the thrown, I feel it is his duty to protect and guide me.
I love my family and it has been a long time since I have craved the togetherness that I had lost a long time ago. Quality time has been reduced to pricey air-fares and foreign phonecalls with time-delayed questions about the future that set my princess head on a jutty carousel.
I guess the point is, I miss my family. I can finally admit it. I miss having a castle to call home.

I'm a 24yr old girl "living the dream" in an exotic country, with a man who loves me to share it, with true friends across the globe and a generous family in each corner of each hemisphere. I am lucky. I am a princess...just lacking the castle.