. . . I swear: these moments within days within months become a motion blur within my memory now because they pass so fast.
Nearly a year ago, I was prepping to spend all of March in New Zealand. For 30 days, I busted around in my crazy purple and green campervan, circumnavigating both islands and skirting birds while recklessly driving on the wrong side of the road.
This is the first in what will be a continuous series of recap posts, where I will finally post photos and words from my travels on that trip. And just in time, too, as I’ll be gearing back up to return again in April.
I know! – I know. Quelle pathétique, and how stupid. Alas, c’est la vie. I’ll never not be a procrastinator, it seems.
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(29 February 2016)
7:45p – Tarmac at LAX, which was a maze and a nightmare – Perhaps befittingly, my New Zealand travelogue begins with the image of Bilbo and Gandalf plastered across the neighboring plane out my window in seat 58K.
(2 March 2016)
8:56a – Auckland, New Zealand @ Jono’s in Mount Eden – Hot and cold faucets are opposite here, so my daily N Zed life began with an amused chuckle, washing the scrambled residue of breakfast eggs from our plates at the bottom of the sink. The air is moist here, on the other side of the world, and it reminds me of Martinique un peu. There is familiarity, though, in Jono’s curly mop and the scented hint of autumn on the air of the cool, cloudy morning.
(3 March 2016)
8:51a – Auckland, Mount Eden – Mornings are one of my favorite parts of travel. We each have our AM routines, resplendent in their variation and monotony, and a ‘good morning’ is one where the coffee is hot, the air is cool, and we awake with just the right amount of time to appreciate each part.
Traveling takes that routine and adds new flair to every aspect that is familiar. The coffee is from a different French press. The birds and bugs – vibrating awake to rise with a surprising staccato as the shadows slide down unfamiliar boughs, roofs, and walls – have different pitches and calls than at home. There’s still bedsheets and showers, and yogurt for breakfast, but its sweet flecks of date, cacao, and chia twist the first hours’ regularity in such a nice, tasty way, eaten from a tiny, unanticipated spoon beneath the lid.
. . . I am someone who loves awaking early to the charms of a slow morning. And a slow morning somewhere new is the most incredible drowsy hour to savor the delightful unexpectedness of a new place.
2p – Tyler Street, Downtown Auckland, with lemon, sesame, and poppyseed gelato – From: Malborough Street, all the way up and down Great North to Karangahape Road, to: all the way down Quay and back, past the jaunty yachts and park, down Te Wero Bridge where everyone mingled in the sun over oysters. I walked for hours and started to get hangry, but – too hot for anything to seem appetizing – I kept on, grouchier with every step. Finally, I picked a place purely on name and was utterly relieved to rest at a cafe with an open-air window in the shade. And that is how I find myself sitting near the bottom of the world (sipping watermelon soda and scarfing fresh fennel salad with shaved zukes, cukes, radish, chive, and summer tomatoes in a creamy dressing), warm and content, even though its winter in my bones and my heart thinks on Farmer Roy, who taught me to love fennel in the first place, and who is . . . 6,000? miles away.
Solo travel is peaceful and invigorating in a strange way, especially for someone so people-intent, like me.
. . . My inclination to document and photograph is as all-consuming as it is excessive. Strap in, my loves, there are many, many, many New Zealand posts to come.
– SAW
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