#and then that final panel made my heart drop 💔

[roscolate]

LUIGI NOOOOOOOO

ACT 1 - 1

ACT 2 - 1 <<< 19 / 20 / ?

:))

[aonoexpat]

10-01-2024

Happy new year everybody! And as the previous submissions highlighted (thankss friends ❤️), yes, it's been a while, and I do apologise for the radio silence. My mental health has been a bit of a rollercoaster the past month and a half, and I've had to prioritise other things. But I'm not about to let the daunting task of summarising 6 weeks in 1 post discourage me! Let's go.

The talks of politics and philosophy at home have continued, occasionally with extra participants. They sent me down a pretty depressing and nihilistic spiral for a little while, but I feel like I've really managed to climb my way out of that again. I was finally brought to a bit of an epiphany that's made me able to at least pick myself up by my bootstraps, and though I'm currently not very comfortable in any hard political or philosophical positions, I seem to have a bit more grip on a general framework again. And that helped me stop moping around and start enjoying my time here more again. Though I'm still quite fragile mentally and quickly overwhelmed, sometimes to extremes that I haven't experienced in years, all in all I feel like this has been an incredibly humbling experience that has helped me grow tremendously. Who knew the last leg of my journey would be one of this kind? I spent four months exploring the South island, and now I've spent the next two exploring my own mind. Though I think that's a journey that will never truly be over, which is both exciting and terrifying.

I have been extremely lucky to be able to live this last bit of my journey rent-free, thanks to my wonderful housemates (and their adorable little dog):

Which meant that I could get away with only working part time. I still thoroughly enjoy my job and my coworkers (we love singing along at the top of our lungs to broadway songs as we clean up after close), but it's great to have a lot of free time around work to meet up with old friends and eat sushi or go to the beach...

...Play board games...

...Celebrate Sinterklaas...

...Organise all my marked road maps, give myself manicures and haircuts, and, with deep deep pain in my heart: sell Elrond 💔 I will say I was extremely lucky to be able to sell him for DOUBLE what I paid for him back in May 😱 I definitely did improve upon him, with the brand new solar panel, newly constructed bed and shiny new rear brakes. Still, I hadn't expected to get my asking price for him, but I got lucky having two interested buyers who wanted to compete. I can barely believe it, but this means I have almost fully earned back my entire South island trip, car costs and fuel costs combined! And now I don't have to worry about the scenario in which I wouldn't manage to sell him, and would have to leave him with friends. All that was definitely the silver lining I forced myself to focus on as I gave him one last deep clean, both to be able to present him properly to his new owners, and as a sort of closure ritual for myself. I cleaned out all the dead sandflies, dusted all the surfaces, vacuumed the floor mats, and gave the kitchen a thorough wash. Saying goodbye is never easy, and I definitely had to fight back some tears when his new owners came to pick him up and take him away. But they are absolute sweethearts (they already sent me a photo from their adventure with him), so I can rest assured that he is in good hands! Farewell my darling, you were the best first car I could have wished for, and you will not be forgotten ❤️

Aside from all that, I was also very glad to have the chance to go on two more spectacular hikes in this area!

Patuna Chasm

This GORGEous ~3-hour hike definitely justified my bringing my Teva active sandals with me from home, as almost three quarters of the walk was through knee-deep river water. It was a cold and windy morning as we got driven to the start of the track in a 4WD car by the owners of the land, and were told to be back at the drop-off point in three hours to be brought back to our own car. If we were to miss that car, we'd have to wait a full hour for the next ride. So with our route map in hand, we set off on the first leg of the hike, which took us up the hills and back down to the chasm. The views were stunning, with spectacular rock formations and the grass on the hill faces waving in the wind like a green ocean:

Down at the river, we got our clothes and bags ready to get wet, and stepped into the water. As we followed the river, first upstream towards some serene waterfalls (where I may have given myself a brain freeze and mild hypothermia by deciding to stand under them):

And then downstream to start making our way back to the car, it started to slowly rain, but that didn't stop us. We saw eels:

We clambered up muddy hills and over huge boulders, down ladders, through deep and shallow sections of the river, explored caves:

And when we finally got back to the section of the track that would take us to our starting point, two of my friends were kind enough to carry mine and our fourth friend's backpack, so we could go down the alternate route: the last stretch of the river, which required us to swim through neck-deep water. I couldn't feel my feet or forearms by the end, but the adrenaline drowned that out as we sprinted up the riverbank to make it back to the 4WD car, only to catch it right as it was about to leave without us! It was absolutely exhausting, but so much good old childish adventurous fun, and one of the most spectacular hikes I've done in the country! (Photo credits to Liv :) )

Escarpment Track

This was the last hike my friend and I did together, which was a sad fact I tried not to think about too much as we walked. The track took us about 10km along the East coast, and it was quite the climb. The view was stunning though, the path itself was very well laid out, with stairs and ropes to hold onto, and benches along the way, which we happily used to take a lunch break about halfway through.

We were very happy to have some cloud coverage that day so we weren't constantly exposed to the sun. My favourite parts were the two rope bridges that were bouncing wildly in the wind. Standing on them felt a little like flying!

And for most of the track we were flanked by immense amounts of fennel, which gave the whole walk a wonderful background aroma:

I was so amazed by the thought that this hike was literally 15 minutes from my friend's home. That type of easy access to incredible nature is definitely something I'm going to miss when I go home. But that made me all the more grateful I got to do this while I still could! (Photo credits to Liv :) )

Soon enough my birthday rolled around, which was an incredibly emotional day for me. I had to say goodbye to my dear friends, one of whom I won't see again before I leave the country. I gifted her a little hand made photo album of our adventures together, which had taken me a lot longer to make than I had anticipated, but luckily I had managed to finish it the night before:

She told me this wasn't a 'goodbye', but a 'see you next time', and though I'd happily believe that, the next time will be at least a long time from now. She has meant the world to me during this trip, has helped and supported me more than I could thank her for, so I had to bite back tears as I watched her walk away. After that I had drinks at work, where my super kind coworkers surprised me with vegan chocolate and doughnuts, making me struggle not to cry for the second time that day. In the evening I had a video call with home, during which I remotely participated in their game of Memory, and still WON 💪😤

After my birthday my housemates and I went straight into Christmas mode, running around decorating the house and cooking all sorts of dishes! It was very odd to have Christmas without the associated weather/season, and without getting to see my family. My housemate introduced me to Tim Minchin's song White Wine in the Sun, which makes me cry like a baby every time I listen to it. So I took a photo of myself and my housemates, drinking non-alcoholic sparkling white grape juice in the sun, and sent it home along with a link to the song to make my parents cry as well 😈 We spent our days here enjoying all the wonderful food and the company of the neighbour and his family, and I even got to sing some songs which I hadn't done in a long while. I also got to give Christmas presents to my housemates, which I worked quite hard on: matching cowl scarves for the two of them and the dog 😊

Of course next on the calendar was New Year's Eve. In honour of my family traditions, I got some non-alcoholic sparkling rose and cocktail fruit from the supermarket, and a couple of minutes before midnight a musician friend and I combined them into portable cups, so we could cheers to 2024 at the waterfront as the fireworks lit up the sky!

I had a wonderful night of music, dancing, playing on the beach, walking in the woods, and eventually sheltering from the rain, and didn't fall asleep until 6 in the morning. My sleeping rhythm still hasn't recovered! The next morning I woke up from my alarm at 11:55, and quickly got up so I could listen to the last minutes of the Top2000 and wish all my Dutch people a happy new year at noon. It felt so odd to do this in the sun in the middle of the day, but in a way that felt more real than the midnight before!

The next days I spent some time looking back at my highlights and achievements from 2023, and I created my own makeshift "Spotify wrapped" by analysing some statistics from my offline music player app. It turns out that (besides Asha, which is the music I play to fall asleep nearly every night) Ghost was my top artist of the year 🎧 Oh and I caught a big spider in my room!

For Sinterklaas, my parents had gifted me a metaphorical voucher to spend where I wanted to, so I got myself a ticket to a tour at Wēta Workshop, the SFX and other movie magic studio behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Avatar movies, and many more. I dragged one of my housemates and a mutual friend along, and I'm really happy we got to go! We were shown around the different stages in the SFX process, we got to hold some movie prop swords, and got to see the original weapons and armour used on-screen in a plethora of different movies. Unfortunately for copyright reasons we weren't allowed to take photos inside the studios and work stations, but I snapped some photos outside!

And while I'd much prefer not to face it... By now I have had to start focusing on my upcoming homebound trip. Slowly plans for when I get back home are trickling in, which feels very surreal. I can't believe it's actually only two weeks until I go home, a fact that I like to hide from as much as I can. It's not that I don't want to go home, I've been looking forward to seeing my family again, eating all my familiar foods, seeing my neighbourhood and getting to hug my friends again for so long now. And I am genuinely excited for that. Part of the reason I enjoy traveling is that it reminds me of what I love about home, and allows me to miss it, and return to it more grateful than before. But it also feels like returning to 'normal life'. I'm afraid of going from a time of adventure to a time of stagnation, even though I know that's not a fair or reasonable thought. I suppose something I was afraid of is happening, which is that I feel at home here now, and happy, and have found the right people, and am enjoying the summer, and so going home (to winter 🥶) actually doesn't sound very attractive at all at times, at least not the way it did when I was living in Elrond. Back then I was struggling a lot more, I felt alone and lost, and so the thought of going home felt like such a relief. Now that I've grown accustomed to the luxury of living in a house again, and being surrounded by a social network I feel safe and appreciated in... the contrast is a lot smaller. And it almost feels like I'm going to feel homesick towards here when I go home. Like this upcoming flight is my departure, not my return.

This thought was solidified even more when my housemate asked if I'd be willing to wear a sweater that I'm not going to take with me as much as I can for the last two days or so, so that it will smell like me and I can leave it for the dog 😭💔 I really struggle not to cry at that thought, and I'm wondering if maybe (i.e. am pretty sure actually that) I'm even procrastinating with booking the trip between here and Tāmakimakaurau out of pure denial. I don't want to leave. I don't want to say goodbye, and never come back. Much more than I ever felt with Australia, I want to return here. I don't care when, maybe that will be when I'm old and retired and have no family left in Europe to miss, or when the most important people to me come with me, or if I find out I have been irrevocably changed and flee back here in a year or two. But I want to come back.

I have procured a second suitcase, and am slowly working on getting all my possessions sorted. I've sold my busking amp and microphones to a good musician friend after we'd used it for a last busking hurrah at the harbourside veggie markets last Sunday. It was a fantastic end to this busking season for me, as we connected with the crowd, the weather was wonderful, and I got to sing all the songs that were important to me. I can't bring my guitar with me, so I'll bring it to my friends' house for safekeeping, and maybe they can get it back to me some day. And the big pink bear who was riding shotgun with me in Elrond? It would break my heart to leave him behind, so I stuffed him into one of those vacuum seal bags:

And I'm going to break my back trying to fit him into the new suitcase! He means too much to me, even if I only paid $10 for him.

My to do list is shrinking slowly but steadily, and I really have to plan well to fit everything that's left into the little time I still have here. I am going to make the most of it, spend time with the people here that have meant the most to me, immortalise the memories and when the time comes, I will get on that plane with a fond smile ❤️