Dr. Gonzo’s been sold – handed over to a Kiwi girl about my age. Her boyfriend collects and rebuilds 1980s cars, and already has two cars almost identical to the Doc. After five days of stress and worry, I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. I watched him float off, out of the car park and down Quay St. in central Auckland – it happened too quickly to hurt, and the relief of finally having it done has been salve enough. In many ways, I feel as though my trip has been over since I left the South Island at the end of April. The intervening three weeks have been a long, drawn out leave-taking. Like saying goodbye at a bus station, when the tears have been shed and the hugs passed around, the traveler sits in the window and the friends stand on the curb, both waiting self-consciously for the bus to pull away and make the cut clean. Three weeks ago, the Doc and I had one last night of quiet, beautiful solitude on the shores of Lake Onslow in Central Otago. The stars, and then the sunrise reflected on the purplish water as I looked back on the flowing river of my own memories. I said goodbye. I boarded the bus that night, and tonight, finally, it will leave the station and I, the traveler, will be able to turn away from the window where my friends still mime gestures of love, and can point my eyes to the road ahead.

So long, New Zealand…until we meet again.

Here’s a brief sampling of the points of difference between Kelli and Susan…

Picnics: “What do you mean you don’t want to use my Swiss army knife to cut the cheese? I swear I rinsed it in the lake the last time I used it!”

Beaches: “UGH! This is – ew! Gross! My feet are SINKING! Bleugh! It’s like quicksand! Augh! This is disgusting!”
“Kelli, it’s SAND and WATER!”
“Yuck!”

Shells to Susan = beautiful treasure. Shells to Kelli = dead animal carcasses.

Susan staying in private rooms at backpackers for NZ$60 or less = huge splurge.
Kelli doing the same = roughing it.

Despite the differences, the trip was by all accounts a success. I ate out at restaurants and went shopping, Kelli went a day or two without showering and hiked up mountains; we each made sacrifices and stepped out of our comfort zones, and we parted at the Auckland airport on Sunday evening, still friends, still smiling.

While Kelli soared off into the darkening sky, I turned around and drove back to the city, my smile fading into an expression of determination and resolve. It was time to sell Dr. Gonzo. Insert ominous music here. This was Sunday. Since then, I’ve papered the city’s backpackers with fliers, placed classified ads, entered an online auction, called dozens of classic car clubs and spent three days camped out at a dim, depressing garage with other backpackers in the same dire straits. “We’re leaving the country in __ days. Won’t you buy our car?? Please? Pretty please?” They call it the Backpackers Car Market, but at this time of year, it resembles less of a market than it does a hospital waiting room. I sit in the uncomfortable chairs next to the half-empty vending machines, listlessly passing the time trying to read and losing focus, talking idly with other backpackers from Germany, Slovenia, Israel, Czech, Luxembourg, South Africa, Netherlands, USA, playing long, drawn out rounds of “Nominations”. We sellers sit near the door like starving lions, ready to pounce on anyone who walks in wanting to buy, growling territorially at each new competitor who drives their car or van into the garage, reducing our chances of selling our own vehicles by one more degree. The air is thick and heavy with dashed hopes.

Today is Friday, and I am still in possession of one “Reliable, Well-kept 1980 Toyota Grande – $1,000 O.N.O”. I love my car, but at this point I will be quite wrapped (Kiwi slang = excited) to see the back of it. The good side of the whole thing is that I’m getting to spend a week with Graham (my former boss from the Godley Resort in Lake Tekapo) and his wife and his wee dog. That fantastic Kiwi hospitality stays true, even to the end. It’s going to be hard to leave this country.

It’s been six weeks.  It feels like forever.  Long enough that this bizarre place has begun to feel comfortable and familiar.  Normal.  Just in time for everything to change.  The time period known as “winfly” (“winter flight” – six weeks during which the ice runway is built and town is prepared for the bustle of the summer season) came to a smooth but sudden halt early this afternoon when the first C-17 of mainbody touched down.  It circled once, a tiny black bird that grew steadily larger as it approached.  I stood with several others on Hut Point and applauded when the wheels made contact with the blue stretch of sea ice two miles outside of town.  The applause was both heartfelt and sarcastic.  We cheered the skill of the pilots and the excitement of watching planes land on a frozen ocean in Antarctica, and we grimaced as we thought of the one hundred souls who were about to be released on us.  One hundred people today, another hundred tomorrow…by Saturday our population will have almost tripled.  Life is about to get exponentially more interesting.

The night at the coffee house was perhaps a week ago; each night since has grown progressively brighter.  The continent awakes, gradually easing out of winter hibernation.  People are keeping track of “firsts”: first blue sky; first day of positive degrees on the thermometer; first time sunglasses are necessary; first seal sighted outside of town.  Among the firsts and the excitement, another population is counting the “lasts.”  The winter-overs, the last of the winter workforce, are saying their goodbyes, making their peace, preparing to reenter the world.  Some have been here for six months, others twelve, and a few awe-inspiring folks are tallying their fourteenth straight month on the ice.  I, the FNG, watch the behavior patterns and interactions, understanding only a fraction of the emotions that emanate from their faces in visible waves.

Winter, or the idea of spending a winter here is a compelling consideration.  I’m being seduced by the bonds that I see among the community of winter-overs.  Andre (a twelve-monther: http://mcpenguin.livejournal.com) has given me the singular, weighty blessing of being “A Groovy Person,” a distinction which acts as a passcode and allows me entrance to the winter-over clubhouse.  These kids rock.  If wintering in Antarctica means I get to hang with these guys and others like them for six solid months, sign me up.  They’re not friends; they’re family.  The love is a perceptible thing; it’s the sunshine that brightens the six months of night.  The allure of these relationships is offset by a certain sense of pain and awfulness.  These are not easy bonds to break, and as I’ve been told on several occasions, Antarctica is about goodbyes.  It’s hard to describe.  Although, I don’t feel that I have the right to discuss the pain of separation.  I’ve been here for a mere six weeks.  The sadness I felt today as I watched the first twenty departees board the bus to the runway is laughable when I see the tears, the embraces, the brave clasping of hands.

I seem to be living a life of extremes.  It is exhausting.  Joy to sorrow, contentment to anxiety, calm to stress.  Each day runs the gamut.  One day feels like four; a week is a lifetime.  It is fitting, however, to live this way, in this place.  There’s a sticker sold in the shop here that reads: “It’s a harsh continent.”  Yes.

And so: SUSAN’S LAST WEEK IN NZ WITH LUMIR (the clip show!)

Picnicking at the Rakaia Gorge!  Being late (and slightly tipsy) for work!

Camping in Home Sweet Home (Lumir’s car – complete with curtains and double mattress)
Part One: parked on the side of a gravel road miles from anywhere, atop a hill overlooking an enormous river valley, Mt. Sunday (aka Edoras in LOTR), and surrounded by the Arrowsmith Mts.  In the morning, sleeping in, then crossing creeks and climbing barefooted to the top of Mt. Sunday!  Sitting on the land where Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and the rest stood above the plains of Rohan, and broke Wormtongue’s poisonous web of words in LOTR: The Two Towers.
Part Two: on the edge of Lake Coleridge, the full moon flirting with us from behind immense, fast-moving clouds, feeling the wind rocking us, as strong as if stirred by the wings of an albatross, attempting to lift the car off its wheels and hurl it into the stony shore.

Lounging in the outdoor hot pools at the Methven Resort (where I worked in the restaurant), doing handstands, drinking wine, trying to make ourselves sink to the bottom where we held bubbly conversations, in depth.  Fleeing the rain that ended the hot pool party around 2 AM, taking shelter at the lodge with hot chocolate and LOTR: The Return of the King, only to fall asleep in front of the fire.

Last day skiing on the mountain!  With my own personal photographer, no less, making me feel like a professional.  It is such a treat to travel with a photographer, someone who appreciates the landscape on the same level as I do, but is able to actually translate the joy and wonder generated by the scenery into his frames.  Plus, it means that there are now quality pictures of me in NZ!  “Finally,” you say.

The day before I must leave: we cross a river and climb to the top of a ridge near Mt. Hutt, wandering, exploring, enjoying the fact that it is winter and it is 45 degrees and sunny.  We hike in jeans and warm fleece tops.  Searching for a different way to climb down, we find a wee creek, falling gently down a rather steep slope, overgrown and ostensibly impenetrable.  It’s the ultimate Kiwi bush walk.  Tough, tricky, and FUN.  A sampling of verbs: jump, swing, hang, crawl, slide, squeeze, stretch, reach, slip, grip, rip, fall, pull, work.  By the end we are bruised, wet, muddy, sporting leaves in our hair, scratches on our hands, and grins on our faces.

Later that night.  Curry and a jug at the pub with an assortment of friends close and casual – it’s my last night, and this is way better than packing.  Live music, cheap beer, and all the excitement of things to come.  I don’t sleep much that night.

On the road again…a long, rainy day drive north from Methven to Picton, where I must catch the ferry and begin to say my goodbyes to the country I’ve come to love.  A lunch stop at the beach, a wooden swing, and one last night of camping in Home Sweet Home, on a hill in the Marlborough Sounds…

One night in Wellington, two nights in Tauranga with my Kiwi family (Jasmine, Dan, Corrine, Kirstine and the rest).  Tomorrow, Graham (from Tekapo) and a free night in a fancy hotel, and the day after…home.  See you soon.

I’m going!

I’m going to Antarctica!!

::unintelligible shrieks of joy and amazement::

Oh, wow.  Wow, wow, and yes, wow.

Life, at the moment, is so good that it hurts.  So good, in fact, that you see I write it out in plain English, without fear or superstition that I might somehow jinx my good fortune.

Jenny has been fantastic – supportive, excited, helpful and somehow as proud as if she were my own parent.  I think I have learned a valuable lesson from the several weeks of stress and secrecy leading up to now.  I should have given her a lot more credit.  Everything, everything is falling into place.  My time in NZ has been a study in serendipity, and it would seem that the Great Antarctic Adventure is getting off to a start just as fortuitous.  I’ve found someone to store Dr. Gonzo for me for $1/day, indoors, out of the elements.  He’ll be here waiting for me when I get back!  Knowing that I don’t have to say goodbye to him is incredibly reassuring.

Lumir, my photographer friend, has come to spend my last week with me, helping me pack, making me laugh, accompanying me to Christchurch to sort out plane tickets and other details, helping me work around the backpackers, cooking, feeding me wine, taking me camping, taking pictures to document all the excitement, and generally making my last week a real cracker.  And, the best part – this isn’t my last week in NZ.  I’m coming back!  I’ll finish in Antarctica in early December or early January, have a happy reunion with the Doc, and essentially pick up where I’ve left off.  Lumir will still be here, as will Moni, the Beveridges, Angus, Jim, the Wellington crew, and the whole gorgeous country.  Going to Antarctica isn’t a huge, scary change – merely a detour.  A scenic excursion of sorts, a temporary holiday from the holiday.  An extremely lucrative detour: full pay and benefits, and minimal expenses for six months = money in the bank to fund further travels!

A question has been raised about my intentions…what am I running away from?  I realize that this all began as a sort of gap year before having to make decisions about careers and life and such, but what started as a trip, a holiday, has morphed, slowly but completely, into life.  Simple as that.  This is no longer a break before real life…this is my real life.  This is what I want to do.  See the world, soak it in, drink it up, live.  I am happy.  To settle, at this point, would be a lie.  I don’t mean to say that I’m never going to grow tired of being rootless.  I will.  But not yet.  If I’m running from anything, it’s a life of stagnation, routine, of two weeks of holidays a year, commuting, paying bills, working for the weekends.  Why should I follow that path?  I only have one opportunity, one life, and while that sounds dramatic and perhaps a bit morbid, it seems ludicrous to spend even one moment doing something that isn’t fulfilling, something that doesn’t make me happy to be alive and grateful for each breath I take.

The hardest thing is knowing that some of you will not understand.  You, all of you, are immensely, hugely important to me.  You are the pillars that hold up the framework of my life.  And yet here I am, choosing a lifestyle that is going to take me away from you all for an indefinite length of time.  Because NZ, and now Antarctica, are just the beginning.  Lumir, ever the philosopher, says (in his delicious eastern European accent) says, “Hey man, that is the Tax.”  It’s the price of living a dream.  The cost is dear, measured in heartache and homesickness, but right now, it is worth it.

On to the business end – I am coming home!  I land in San Francisco on Monday, July 24, and (pending making arrangements with Beeker), will be flying into Manchester shortly thereafter.  I’ll have about two and a half weeks at home, and I want to see as many of you as humanly possible!  I leave again for Christchurch and then the Ice on August 14th.  It’s going to be short – but sweet.  I’ll keep you updated.  I love you, I love you, I love you, I CAN’T WAIT to see you.

Yahoooooo!!!!

I was surprised to arrive and meet Darryl, the American.  However, he turned out to be precisely the frat-boy/traveling partier I’ve come to NZ to get away from, so I wasn’t sad to see him leave a week into my stay.  But, the bubble has been burst – it seems there are Americans in NZ after all!  After four months of meeting everyone but, I’ve learned to listen for the accents over the breakfast buffet or as I’m taking wine orders during dinner.  It’s always an interesting moment, when either the guests or I can’t stand it any longer and have to find out: “Excuse me, but may I ask where you’re from?”  I’ve met quite a few west-coasters, and one memorable Rhode Islander.  There are Americans here, but they’re not backpacking.  They’re typically middle-aged, well-to-do pseudo-adventurers on three or four or five week vacations.  Most hire cars – I meet very few on the organized bus tours, which puts them a step ahead of the hundreds of Korean and Japanese tourists we serve every week.  The Asian tours are only as long as a week or so – land in Auckland, fly to Christchurch, ride a bus to the Milford Sound and Queenstown, stop off in Tekapo for lunch, then on a plane from Christchurch to Auckland the same night.  Proper whirlwinds, these are.  I can’t imagine taking such a trip and calling it travel, but the tour guides and bus drivers I’ve spoken with say that their clients have a blast.  To each his own, I suppose.  The Americans, however, rent cars, as they like to do things their own way, on their own time.  True to form, I’d say.  Still, five weeks?  I maintain an impressed and interested front as I talk with them, and wish them happy travels, but this, too, seems pale and unexciting compared to the lifetime of a year that I am spending here.

It is quite satisfying, though, to stand and converse with a fellow countryman, thousands and thousands of miles across the world, and to enjoy the sensation of meeting someone with whom I share a background, culture, and history.  The Americans recognize me as one of their own – they spot the accent and ask endless questions about how and why I am here, what I’m doing and where I’ve been, and often leave tips: a sort of acknowledgment of our commonalities.  The million dollar question, though, is “What do your parents think of you being here?” One man, a Mr. Dunn from Rhode Island, seemed to take special interest.  Questions about my accommodation, my expenses, my safety, my ability to travel and communicate with home, my career path, my connections he asked.  Long after he and his wife had finished dinner, he returned to the bar, where I poured him Johnny Walker Black on the rocks and listened to his concerns and ideas and questions in between clearing plates and resetting tables.  By the end of the night he was a bit drunk - more on self-important generosity and the thrill of benefaction than the whiskey – and offered – no, insisted – that I meet him in the morning to use his satellite phone to call my parents for free.  And when he got up from the bar, he announced grandly that he was leaving my tip under his glass, despite my assurance that tipping is neither required nor expected in NZ.  On collecting the glass, I was shocked to also collect a bright pink NZ$50 bill.  “It’ll help with the rent,” he had said indulgently when he pulled out his wallet.  Partly, this was fantastic.  It would indeed help with the rent, and the upcoming inspection for my car.  But a curious twist of distaste settled in the back of my throat, and I lay awake that night wondering whether or how to give it back, before deciding that doing so would likely offend him.  His intentions were good, kind, and helpful, but I wonder whom he was thinking of, me, or him, when he selected the lavish pink note instead of the green ($20) or the blue ($10).  It’s a queer sort of feeling to be on the receiving end of that kind of giving.  Guests from other countries, though less likely to leave tips, are equally intrigued by my accent and the story of how I came to be working here, in Lake Tekapo.  My favorite thing in these encounters with Kiwis, Aussies, Europeans and others is the Accent Guessing Game.  Some are spot on – “American?”  More often - ”Canada?”  Once I served a couple who were convinced that I was a Kiwi, and on another night I couldn’t contain my disbelief when a couple from Oz (Australia) said I talked like a Texan, but the best, and most unexpected is, “Irish?”  This is the guess I hear at least once a night, making it the most common response, and one that gives me no end of pleasure.  Irish?  Reckon this means I can stop worrying about feeling as if I’m wearing a huge sign that says “GW-Loving American” on it.

The real excitement, and the thing that’s made Tekapo feel more like home, has been moving out of the cold, dirty staff quarters and into a bright and cozy flat with Anja.  We live in a three bedroom holiday house (like a seasonal condo at a ski area up north in NH), a ten minute walk from the hotel, with three rooms downstairs and an open concept second story with the kitchen, bathroom, and living room.  It’s clean, it’s warm, and it’s all ours.  It’s my first real apartment!  The best part of it, though is the sundeck and the glass sliding doors that keep the lounge filled with heat and light nearly all day.  The view from the deck is what I love the most.  To the west, a wicked (if a bit distant) view of the Southern Alps.  To the very near east, the mountains of Burke’s Pass.  The alps are usually snow-covered, and as the best spot in the house to see them is the upstairs toilet, I often spend a bit longer than necessary sitting on the pot in the mornings, just staring out the window.  The mountains to the east are like the edge of a large, rocky bowl separating Tekapo from Fairlie and all points east.  What fascinates me about them, though, is the way they hold the clouds.  These thick, white, fog-like clouds condense and collect on the other side of the pass, filling up the earthen bowl until they begin to overflow and spill into the Tekapo valley like a waterfall or the wraith-like tendrils of liquid nitrogen.  On my mornings off, I spend hours curled into the couch in front of the large sliding door with my cup of tea, reading and watching the clouds spill over the pass.  It is, I’ve learned, immensely satisfying to live in a place this beautiful for a long enough period of time to begin to know the landscape and the weather patterns, to be able to recognize landmarks, little valleys and hills and mountains, to wake on sunny mornings and be able to accurately guess whether it’s snowed in the peaks at the end of the lake during the night.

In my spare time, I read.  I hike, a little, when a recently pulled muscle in my leg isn’t holding me back.  I’ve visited Mt. Cook (the tallest peak in NZ) twice, once with Anja and once on my own to do a steep but rewarding hike to the Mueller Hut.  The last hour or two was spent in the clouds, canceling any opportunities to see Mt. Cook from somewhere other than ground level; I could only hear the ice calving off the sides of the mountain in front of me rather than see it, but this was still a new and terribly humbling sensation: hearing and feeling something moving near you like a roll of thunder or the sound of an eighteen-wheeler moving at full speed, but not being able to see where it’s coming from.  We’ve had a few days of Indian summer (apparently not unique to New England), where I’ve lain outside to soak up the heat against the cold of the nights.  Went biking along the edge of the lake with Anja, and even attended a Catholic mass at the Church of the Good Shepherd (do a Google Image search) – perhaps the most spiritual experience I’ve ever had in a proper religious setting.  Every other night after work I usually stroll across the driveway to Moni’s flat.  We share a love for Bombay Sapphire and can usually find something to argue about over a couple of drinks.  Other nights I drink tea or hot chocolate with Anja in the cozy warmth of our kitchen/lounge and munch on whatever dessert we’ve managed to snag from the buffet (creme caramels, ice cream, fruit salad) or found left behind in one of the hotel rooms (fruit, milk, cheese, the occasional half a bottle of wine).

For the last few days, I’ve been catching up with old friends – Anne and Kathrin!  They are, sadly, less than five weeks away from their return flight to Germany, and have begun making their way north to Auckland once more.  Stopping over in Tekapo for several nights, they were a more or less permanent fixture at my and Anja’s place, baking bread, hanging laundry to dry across our bedroom, telling stories and reminiscing with me over our last five (five!) months in NZ.  I had this past Tuesday off, and we celebrated with a fantastic luncheon; Stephen came over to cook us a long-promised meal (spinach and mushroom risotto with greek salad), and the Germans and I tackled dessert: homemade ice cream.  Though the recipe was entitled “Easy Ice Cream,” we soon learned that “easy” is only the correct adjective when the ice cream is prepared in a kitchen equipped with an electric or at least manual blender.  Though, we also learned that it is, in fact, possible to whip cream and meringue egg whites with only a whisk and a couple of forks.  All it takes is determination, the correct stance, and people to relieve you when  your arm feels like it’s going to fall off  And about sixty minutes.  This, we decided, was a dessert that we earned.  Apple, cookie, and mango ice cream, hand whipped, hand mixed, and all-natural.  Mm mm mm.  I need never buy ice cream again!  I haven’t slept much this week, between early shifts and wanting to catch up with A and K, and this weekend looks to be equally jam-packed (going south to Queenstown with Moni for a day and a half), but it’s been a good one.  It is very strange to think that I was with these two girls the beginning, when we had no idea about NZ, where we’d go or what experiences we’d have.  Departure, then, was a distant and impossible event – and yet here we are, saying goodbye to each other with hugs, sad faces, and words of encouragement and friendship, after what surely couldn’t have been more than a minute or two.  Am I that close to being home myself?  Better not blink…