Back in Kiwiland
Door: yours truly
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Timon
02 Augustus 2014 | Nieuw Zeeland, Ohaupo
Partypeople,
on the 21st of July 2011 I left New Zealand to return home after my exchange year had ended. You know, finish school, pick up life with family and friends again, that kind of stuff. On the 21st of July 2014 I boarded a plane back to New Zealand - and here I am again, picking up life with friends and families over here.
(Fun Fact: When I left Germany in 2010 for my first visit to New Zealand, I also left on the 21st of July. Lucky date or something.)
Now, first and foremost, I'll have to thank my parents: without them I wouldn't be here today. I'm not talking about the fact that they, like, made me - although that'd be technically and biologically and whatever correct - but about the fact that they paid my flight. When I graduated from highschool last year they gifted me a return ticket to New Zealand on a date of my own choosing. So thanks so much! It was the best gift you could have ever given me. I love you guys.
Although I'm using the summer vacation in the Netherlands to be over here, it doesn't really feel like 'going on vacation'. It's more like a mix between homecoming and déjà vu. Homecoming because there are lots of close friends to catch up with, déjà vu because...well, I've been here before, right? Walking the old places brings up the memories again really easy - like the supermarket, as you'll see shortly.
The flight over here was pretty good, I was pretty lucky actually. On the first flight - Amsterdam to Shanghai; my parents kindly drove me to the airport, although I now live in Amsterdam, which is awesome by the way, but I digress - I was randomly seated in the "Economy Comfort" class instead of Economy, which meant more food, more drinks and most importantly more leg space. My two neighbours made good use of the 'more drinks' option.
To my right, I had Jean-Claude, something like a car-engineer from Shanghai working in France. Apparently he loves beer, or maybe he only drinks it on flights like people who don't like tomato juice but drink heaps of it with salt and pepper on flights. Why do people drink so much tomato juice on flights? I'm guilty myself, but why? Probably it's to answer deep questions like this that I chose to study philosophy.
To my left, I had 'the nameless guy'. He owns a beer-factory and apparently it's the most popular beer in the west (or south? same difference.) of China. I guess he got sick of beer as he was constantly enjoying red wine on the flight. Fair enough.
Seeing that I don't drink alcohol, I drank in the rich Visuals of the movie-screen on the plane instead watching several movies. How typical, right?
Touching down in Shanghai was a little annoying for several reasongs:
Firstly, my luggage was meant to be checked through to Auckland, NZ, immediatly, but arriving at the gate I heard that I needed to get my luggage and check it in manually, which meant walking a looooooong way back, trying to get back into the arrival hall, getting my luggage, walking the loooooong way again and checking in.
Secondly, the airport was empty. 'The nameless guy' had promised me lots of cheap massage parlours at Shanghai airport, but I found not a single one. Shanghai airport is pretty weird and pretty sterile.
That's why I tried to get onto Facebook, or Google, or Youtube with my laptop and that's also where the third reason for being annoyed at the airport comes in: seemingly China blocks all of those and a lot of other websites. In the end, it pretty much became a matter of waiting for the plane and trying to teach myself chinese using the signs at the airport (didn't work).
Oh by the way, you might feel I'm rambling on about nothing here, and I might be, but obviously I'm using this as a kind of diary, too.
(double by the way: if you switch the i and the a in 'diary' around you get 'dairy', which New Zealand has a lot of - talking about the cute little shops selling all sorts of stuff that seem to pop up at every corner here. Kind of missed them.)
The flight from Shanghai to Auckland was very pleasant, too, as right away I made friends with one of the stewards. I know what you're thinking, but nope, he was 50, had an awesome moustache and didn't seem like the stereotypical steward at all. Anyway, when I asked him about a vegetarian meal we started talking while his colleague got one and somehow he seemed to think I needed to grow bigger and stronger, resulting in him giving me two meals everytime it was mealtime and also coming along in between to bring me extra snacks and drinks and stuff. Pretty good actually; it made for a very enjoyable flight.
I didn't get the chance to say thank you when I left the plane, so awesome steward, wherever you are, thanks - my tummy and I appreciated it a lot.
In Auckland I was picked up by my close friend Alex; people who read my blog back then might remember him - he's the carver and (not anymore) magician. "People who read my blog back then", sounds pretty much like I'm pretending to have a fanbase or at least loyal readers. Mum, if you're reading this, please do not be tempted to comment that you're a loyal reader, we all know you are.
Alex was accompanied by his buddy Bashir, whom we spent the day with in Auckland. I had to have some Pineapple Lumps, a Cookietime! cookie and a nice and cold Bundaberg Ginger beer straight away, and so we did. Oh sweet life!
Jim and Heather Galt, whom I stayed with the first three months of my exchange year, picked me up at night and took me back to their house. So good to be back! I even got the same room as I had back then. It's all very home-coming-like indeed. On top of that, Jim and Heather now call any male visiting friends their 'lost boys'(a term taken from Peter Pan), which adds to the general feeling, haha.
So that's half a novel on how I got here...what have I been up to so far? It's been 9 days and I've mainly used the time to catch up with friends and take it slow. The last few months have been pretty busy and I've been going pretty strong, only now do I realize how good it is to actually take little time-out. It's like leaving the stress from the Netherlands behind and picking up 'my other life' here again for a few weeks.
When I walked through Hamilton on the first day, I was randomly recognized by friends in a shop twice, good to see I've not been forgotten, haha. I also visited Helen, the older lady at Casabella Lane (which is where Alex and I used to busk) who owns the antiques store Casa Manana, and she recognized me too - we had a lovely talk. Passing by the dance studio I ran into Karl, my former dance teacher, and we went for a pleasant drive.
Following that talk I've also gotten back into dancing while I'm here. Unfortunately I dropped out of dancing in Germany and didn't find time in Amsterdam yet, but it's really great to be back on the floor and shaking off the dust. So much fun! I only wish the old dance-gang was still there, but they're not. Karl, the dance-teacher at Planet Dance, is still there though and happy to have me back, I think.
Up 'till now I've caught up with the Waikato Sunrise Rotary Club (still meeting at Sunrise, hence the name, 7 in the morning, why would you do that?), went to my buddy Rinaldy's birthday, caught up with Bahram, Parham and Adam - they were the core of our gang back then, too. Missing Rajah and Rory, but will see them when I'm up in Auckland next week.
I also spent a day with Danae, my Kiwi (host-) sister and her mother Libby as well as Libby's man Tim. Lived with them when I first came for three months as well. They're all doing well and it's good to be arond them once more!
I've also done some backyard Archery with Alex, his brother Aaron and Bashir as well as some Drift Kart Racing last night - first time and didn't go too bad actually! Quite fun once you get a feel for it and stop constantly spinning around your own axis at every curve.
Alex has this awesome Orange tree in his garden which I'm very jealous of as the oranges are just so delicious...probably ate one too many yesterday, felt a little sick (Alex warned me that I would, haha), but they're SO good!
This morning, the Hamilton Lake Parkrun was on and I went again - did it for the first time last week after Alex Galt
(Hamish Galt's brother - Hamish lives at his parent's house again, so we're having a good time together, eating bacon 'like in good old times' - it's an injoke, don't think about it too hard, and yes, I am fully aware that it's stupid to make injokes and mention they're injokes on a public blog. Still I did. Now you can go like "No he didn't!" and I'll be like "Yes he did!..." anyway.)
so, after Alex Galt mentioned the Parkrun. It's a 5km run around Hamilton Lake. Apparently Parkrun is on all around the world - just runners meeting up at a certain time and taking a timed run. You can register online and all sorts of fancy stuff.
Did a good time of 23:40min last week seeing that most go for something like 30minutes, did better this week with 22:30min.
I've actually been running nearly every day here, it's good and the air is easy to breathe.
The air and the stars! Air is just so much cleaner here, feels so good, and the stars shine ever so much brighter at night - you can see a lot more of them over here.
Obviously, the country being beautiful hasn't changed. There's still as much green as there was and the people are still as amazingly nice and easy going as they were. I love how everyone genuinely asks how you are or how strangers randomly start conversations. Remind me to take that feeling and attitude back to Europe again. This whole country is really easygoing and that hasn't changed since I was here in 2010/2011.
A thing that has changed is that the Euro to NZ Dollar ratio has gotten a lot worse for us. When back then 1€ was about 1,80$, it's now only about 1,35$. Pity, as it effectively makes my trip more expensive. Oh well! Totally worth it
Talking about expensive stuff, my shopping today was expensive, too, although that was my purely my own fault. After Heather had kindly taken me into town the other night I promised her to buy her a chocolate for that and soI did - only when I strolled the supermarket I came across all these awesome NZ-things I really liked that I hadn't had in a long time! Soooooo I bought some of them, making my shopping 30$ more expensive than intended to, but at least I'm satisfied. Took a fair bit of self-discipline to not buy all the sweets that I would have liked to buy.
Of course that meant that dinner had to be cheap, so Hamish and Joel (a family-friend who's staying for a while, too. Another 'lost by' so to speak.) and I got some stuff from a cheap-ass take-away. Lots of fries, a burger, a kumara fritter and a potato fritter (fritter = deepfried, kumara = so-called sweet potato) cost me something like 4€. Which is probably why it all tasted about the same.
So what's going to be on while I'm here? On the 9th of August, I'll give a show at the Basement Theatre up in Auckland. I'll also lecture at the Shore Magic Club on the 12th of August and stay with Richard Webster - the palm reader who supported me while I was here and whom I learned so much from over the last years - for the time. There was as show for in Hamilton on the 26th of July, but it was cancelled (much to my annoyance) while I was on the plane. Fortunately, Jim helped me find another venue and we'll still put on a show in Hamilton on the 22nd of July, so just before I leave to get back to Europe.
Catch up with more friends, too. More dancing. Do the Tongariro Crossing and possibly visit Hobbiton again (although thise whole country is Middle Earth, really). Just take it slow and chill. Maybe a roadtrip down to Wellington, Rotorua, Palmerston North.
So yeaaaah, I guess that'll do for now - I've already taken way too long to write this 'short update' (at least that's what I planned for it to be).
Sometime these days I'll upload some photos, but for now - more important matters await and a true gentleman can't be late for a date.
You take care,
See you soon and all the best from NZ again,
Timon
on the 21st of July 2011 I left New Zealand to return home after my exchange year had ended. You know, finish school, pick up life with family and friends again, that kind of stuff. On the 21st of July 2014 I boarded a plane back to New Zealand - and here I am again, picking up life with friends and families over here.
(Fun Fact: When I left Germany in 2010 for my first visit to New Zealand, I also left on the 21st of July. Lucky date or something.)
Now, first and foremost, I'll have to thank my parents: without them I wouldn't be here today. I'm not talking about the fact that they, like, made me - although that'd be technically and biologically and whatever correct - but about the fact that they paid my flight. When I graduated from highschool last year they gifted me a return ticket to New Zealand on a date of my own choosing. So thanks so much! It was the best gift you could have ever given me. I love you guys.
Although I'm using the summer vacation in the Netherlands to be over here, it doesn't really feel like 'going on vacation'. It's more like a mix between homecoming and déjà vu. Homecoming because there are lots of close friends to catch up with, déjà vu because...well, I've been here before, right? Walking the old places brings up the memories again really easy - like the supermarket, as you'll see shortly.
The flight over here was pretty good, I was pretty lucky actually. On the first flight - Amsterdam to Shanghai; my parents kindly drove me to the airport, although I now live in Amsterdam, which is awesome by the way, but I digress - I was randomly seated in the "Economy Comfort" class instead of Economy, which meant more food, more drinks and most importantly more leg space. My two neighbours made good use of the 'more drinks' option.
To my right, I had Jean-Claude, something like a car-engineer from Shanghai working in France. Apparently he loves beer, or maybe he only drinks it on flights like people who don't like tomato juice but drink heaps of it with salt and pepper on flights. Why do people drink so much tomato juice on flights? I'm guilty myself, but why? Probably it's to answer deep questions like this that I chose to study philosophy.
To my left, I had 'the nameless guy'. He owns a beer-factory and apparently it's the most popular beer in the west (or south? same difference.) of China. I guess he got sick of beer as he was constantly enjoying red wine on the flight. Fair enough.
Seeing that I don't drink alcohol, I drank in the rich Visuals of the movie-screen on the plane instead watching several movies. How typical, right?
Touching down in Shanghai was a little annoying for several reasongs:
Firstly, my luggage was meant to be checked through to Auckland, NZ, immediatly, but arriving at the gate I heard that I needed to get my luggage and check it in manually, which meant walking a looooooong way back, trying to get back into the arrival hall, getting my luggage, walking the loooooong way again and checking in.
Secondly, the airport was empty. 'The nameless guy' had promised me lots of cheap massage parlours at Shanghai airport, but I found not a single one. Shanghai airport is pretty weird and pretty sterile.
That's why I tried to get onto Facebook, or Google, or Youtube with my laptop and that's also where the third reason for being annoyed at the airport comes in: seemingly China blocks all of those and a lot of other websites. In the end, it pretty much became a matter of waiting for the plane and trying to teach myself chinese using the signs at the airport (didn't work).
Oh by the way, you might feel I'm rambling on about nothing here, and I might be, but obviously I'm using this as a kind of diary, too.
(double by the way: if you switch the i and the a in 'diary' around you get 'dairy', which New Zealand has a lot of - talking about the cute little shops selling all sorts of stuff that seem to pop up at every corner here. Kind of missed them.)
The flight from Shanghai to Auckland was very pleasant, too, as right away I made friends with one of the stewards. I know what you're thinking, but nope, he was 50, had an awesome moustache and didn't seem like the stereotypical steward at all. Anyway, when I asked him about a vegetarian meal we started talking while his colleague got one and somehow he seemed to think I needed to grow bigger and stronger, resulting in him giving me two meals everytime it was mealtime and also coming along in between to bring me extra snacks and drinks and stuff. Pretty good actually; it made for a very enjoyable flight.
I didn't get the chance to say thank you when I left the plane, so awesome steward, wherever you are, thanks - my tummy and I appreciated it a lot.
In Auckland I was picked up by my close friend Alex; people who read my blog back then might remember him - he's the carver and (not anymore) magician. "People who read my blog back then", sounds pretty much like I'm pretending to have a fanbase or at least loyal readers. Mum, if you're reading this, please do not be tempted to comment that you're a loyal reader, we all know you are.
Alex was accompanied by his buddy Bashir, whom we spent the day with in Auckland. I had to have some Pineapple Lumps, a Cookietime! cookie and a nice and cold Bundaberg Ginger beer straight away, and so we did. Oh sweet life!
Jim and Heather Galt, whom I stayed with the first three months of my exchange year, picked me up at night and took me back to their house. So good to be back! I even got the same room as I had back then. It's all very home-coming-like indeed. On top of that, Jim and Heather now call any male visiting friends their 'lost boys'(a term taken from Peter Pan), which adds to the general feeling, haha.
So that's half a novel on how I got here...what have I been up to so far? It's been 9 days and I've mainly used the time to catch up with friends and take it slow. The last few months have been pretty busy and I've been going pretty strong, only now do I realize how good it is to actually take little time-out. It's like leaving the stress from the Netherlands behind and picking up 'my other life' here again for a few weeks.
When I walked through Hamilton on the first day, I was randomly recognized by friends in a shop twice, good to see I've not been forgotten, haha. I also visited Helen, the older lady at Casabella Lane (which is where Alex and I used to busk) who owns the antiques store Casa Manana, and she recognized me too - we had a lovely talk. Passing by the dance studio I ran into Karl, my former dance teacher, and we went for a pleasant drive.
Following that talk I've also gotten back into dancing while I'm here. Unfortunately I dropped out of dancing in Germany and didn't find time in Amsterdam yet, but it's really great to be back on the floor and shaking off the dust. So much fun! I only wish the old dance-gang was still there, but they're not. Karl, the dance-teacher at Planet Dance, is still there though and happy to have me back, I think.
Up 'till now I've caught up with the Waikato Sunrise Rotary Club (still meeting at Sunrise, hence the name, 7 in the morning, why would you do that?), went to my buddy Rinaldy's birthday, caught up with Bahram, Parham and Adam - they were the core of our gang back then, too. Missing Rajah and Rory, but will see them when I'm up in Auckland next week.
I also spent a day with Danae, my Kiwi (host-) sister and her mother Libby as well as Libby's man Tim. Lived with them when I first came for three months as well. They're all doing well and it's good to be arond them once more!
I've also done some backyard Archery with Alex, his brother Aaron and Bashir as well as some Drift Kart Racing last night - first time and didn't go too bad actually! Quite fun once you get a feel for it and stop constantly spinning around your own axis at every curve.
Alex has this awesome Orange tree in his garden which I'm very jealous of as the oranges are just so delicious...probably ate one too many yesterday, felt a little sick (Alex warned me that I would, haha), but they're SO good!
This morning, the Hamilton Lake Parkrun was on and I went again - did it for the first time last week after Alex Galt
(Hamish Galt's brother - Hamish lives at his parent's house again, so we're having a good time together, eating bacon 'like in good old times' - it's an injoke, don't think about it too hard, and yes, I am fully aware that it's stupid to make injokes and mention they're injokes on a public blog. Still I did. Now you can go like "No he didn't!" and I'll be like "Yes he did!..." anyway.)
so, after Alex Galt mentioned the Parkrun. It's a 5km run around Hamilton Lake. Apparently Parkrun is on all around the world - just runners meeting up at a certain time and taking a timed run. You can register online and all sorts of fancy stuff.
Did a good time of 23:40min last week seeing that most go for something like 30minutes, did better this week with 22:30min.
I've actually been running nearly every day here, it's good and the air is easy to breathe.
The air and the stars! Air is just so much cleaner here, feels so good, and the stars shine ever so much brighter at night - you can see a lot more of them over here.
Obviously, the country being beautiful hasn't changed. There's still as much green as there was and the people are still as amazingly nice and easy going as they were. I love how everyone genuinely asks how you are or how strangers randomly start conversations. Remind me to take that feeling and attitude back to Europe again. This whole country is really easygoing and that hasn't changed since I was here in 2010/2011.
A thing that has changed is that the Euro to NZ Dollar ratio has gotten a lot worse for us. When back then 1€ was about 1,80$, it's now only about 1,35$. Pity, as it effectively makes my trip more expensive. Oh well! Totally worth it
Talking about expensive stuff, my shopping today was expensive, too, although that was my purely my own fault. After Heather had kindly taken me into town the other night I promised her to buy her a chocolate for that and soI did - only when I strolled the supermarket I came across all these awesome NZ-things I really liked that I hadn't had in a long time! Soooooo I bought some of them, making my shopping 30$ more expensive than intended to, but at least I'm satisfied. Took a fair bit of self-discipline to not buy all the sweets that I would have liked to buy.
Of course that meant that dinner had to be cheap, so Hamish and Joel (a family-friend who's staying for a while, too. Another 'lost by' so to speak.) and I got some stuff from a cheap-ass take-away. Lots of fries, a burger, a kumara fritter and a potato fritter (fritter = deepfried, kumara = so-called sweet potato) cost me something like 4€. Which is probably why it all tasted about the same.
So what's going to be on while I'm here? On the 9th of August, I'll give a show at the Basement Theatre up in Auckland. I'll also lecture at the Shore Magic Club on the 12th of August and stay with Richard Webster - the palm reader who supported me while I was here and whom I learned so much from over the last years - for the time. There was as show for in Hamilton on the 26th of July, but it was cancelled (much to my annoyance) while I was on the plane. Fortunately, Jim helped me find another venue and we'll still put on a show in Hamilton on the 22nd of July, so just before I leave to get back to Europe.
Catch up with more friends, too. More dancing. Do the Tongariro Crossing and possibly visit Hobbiton again (although thise whole country is Middle Earth, really). Just take it slow and chill. Maybe a roadtrip down to Wellington, Rotorua, Palmerston North.
So yeaaaah, I guess that'll do for now - I've already taken way too long to write this 'short update' (at least that's what I planned for it to be).
Sometime these days I'll upload some photos, but for now - more important matters await and a true gentleman can't be late for a date.
You take care,
See you soon and all the best from NZ again,
Timon
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
