I made it to Fiji around 5:00 in the
morning yesterday, when everything was still dark. Even so, it was
warm – when I stepped off the plane, it felt like I walked into a
greenhouse full of potatoes, the air was that moist and earthy
smelling. Right away, there were two choices: a lineup for those
people making a connecting flight, and one for those leaving the
airport.
I went right, with those leaving the
airport, for three reasons. The other line was long and congested; I
had a four-hour layover, and so it would be nice to step outside, see
the sunrise, and kill an hour or so; and I really wanted a Fiji stamp
in my passport, let's be real.
By the time my Air Pacific flight to
New Zealand was ready to board, the world around me had burst to
life, and as soon as I took my seat, the Kiwi next to me shook my
hand, introduced me to his wife, and pointed out where they stayed in
Fiji as we took off. By the time we arrived in Auckland, a few hours
later, he gave me his phone number and told me that he was going to
be out of town for a while, but here's when he'd be available.
Meanwhile, a huge granite statue of a dwarf (I guess that's ironic)
greeted passengers as they arrived in New Zealand. I don't know where
I am, but I'm pretty sure I'm in
the right spot.
Customs was effortless, and SWAP
arranged transportation to the Base Auckland Hostel by way of the
Airport Express. The drive in was not unlike that initial drive
through the English countryside almost a year and a half ago, and not
just because we were driving on the left and through roundabouts;
everything was brand new and had a sense of freshness, familiar and
yet totally new. Before long, we pulled over onto the busy sidewalk
of Queen Street, and with just a backpack near bursting, I was off
again.
Base is something I've never heard tell
of before now – it's a hostel chain.
There are a bunch of them throughout New Zealand and Australia, and
this one at least has a real hotel feel to it. For one thing, my four
person room (that I shared with three girls, further confirming my
theory that I must have
run several orphanages in my previous life) is on the tenth floor.
There's also a backpackers bar in the same building, not to mention a
huge lounge and reception area, multiple TV rooms, and a pretty big
kitchen. It's not the starlight room at the Ritz or anything, but
it's a big step up from some of the dingier places I've laid my head
down in the past.
So, I
dropped my things off, fully convinced that I had beat jet lag
because I slept nearly straight through on my flight to Fiji, I hit
the streets of Auckland just as the rain started. Fortunately, the
heavens only opened up for a few minutes, and the sun came out in
practically the same breath. I caught my first real glimpse of the
Pacific Ocean (turns out it is big
and blue, like the Atlantic) down along the waterfront area of
Waitemata Harbour (City of Sails is an apt nickname), and saw huge, contorted trees that came straight
out of (don't say Lord of the Rings,
don't say Lord of the Rings)
a fairytale in Albert Park. From either vantage point, it's never
hard to spot the Sky Tower, an observation and telecommunications
spike that looks more than a bit like the CN Tower in Toronto, and
has the distinction of being the tallest free standing building in
the Southern Hemisphere. Oh, and because this is New Zealand,
obviously you can bungee jump off of it.
There
are a lot of things going on in this city, New Zealand's biggest
(though not its capital), but it's still just a city. I didn't come
here to go to malls or see crowds, and so it's no wonder that
everyone who has been to New Zealand says to spend the time that you
need here, but to get out of Auckland as soon as you can. That might
be a bit harsh, but I don't think I'm going to spend too much time
here just the same.
Alright
then . . . where am I
going to spend my time?
That's
the tricky part, that's the thing that's been on my mind in the
months leading up to this trip, but now more than ever. I had a lot
of things that I wanted to do, a lot of places to see, but now is the
time to start making logistical sense, and to start figuring out how
I'm going to get around, what kind of job I'm going to look for, how
long I want to stay in any one place, and about a hundred other
little things like that. Just from looking over the pamphlets in our
hostel over breakfast, I could see that this is a country for
travelling backpackers, and because there's a huge demand, there are
a huge number of competing options. And as great as that is, it's
pretty overwhelming too, especially when you factor in all of the new
culture shocks being thrown at me (it's not as bad as if I ended up
in India somewhere, but words mean different things, the grocery
stores have weird and unusual things in their aisles, and I can't
jaywalk anymore because a car driving on the left will probably sneak
up and squash me), and the fact that I was, in fact, still pretty jet
lagged.
I said
I came to New Zealand through SWAP, which is a Canadian group with
connections in a heap of countries worldwide. The partner
organization here in New Zealand is IEP, and they're the ones running
the jobbanks, resource centre, helping with bank accounts and tax
information, and giving about a dozen of us a welcome session. We had
that orientation later this morning, and that only heightened that
overwhelming feeling of being in over my head. So many websites aimed
at finding jobs, and even then so many different kinds of jobs, each
offering a very different kind of experience. I wanted to pick fruit
for a while, and that was about all I planned – I don't think I
want to look for any position longer than a month, but then do I
really want to live out of a backpack for 7 months, and never be able
to do a decent grocery trip because I'm constantly in motion? There's
good and bad to each option, and there are dozens and dozens of
options.
You
have to crawl before you run though, so before I even let myself get
stressed about mapping where I'm going to be in a week, I thought
about today. The four of us from the hostel, all in the program, went
to the post office to submit our forms for an IRD tax number, so that
we can legally work in New Zealand. They were expecting the IEP crowd
there, and told us to come back in half an hour – by then, they had
processed our forms, and we walked away with a bank account at
Kiwibank as well. It was almost too easy, and about 45 minutes later
I had a Samsung phone that I got on sale at the Warehouse, a retail
chain here Down Under. That was pretty simple too, though I haven't
been able to get it to send a text home yet.
For
supper, myself and Joyce, a gal from the Netherlands who's on the
same soul-searching no-plan adventure as me, went to New World (move
over Tesco, I have a new foreign grocery store) to pick up something.
We had good intentions – let's make this as Kiwi as we can, buying
lamb chops and some kumara hash browns (that's a New Zealand sweet
potato). When we got back to the kitchen, we found that most of the
pans were missing handles, there was no oil, the hash browns went
from being patties to being minced flakes of something,
and I caught a dishcloth on fire. In spite of all of those things, it
ended up being pretty good.
And
now, here it is, New Zealand on a Friday night. Last night I was jet
lagged, and maybe I still am a bit, but I'm also ready to forget
about making big plans and how I'm going to fit everything in, and
just worry about the here and now. Right now, my big concern is that
this is a working vacation, and the second word is just as important
as the first. I think it's time to visit that hostel bar I talked
about.
Cheers,
rb
No comments:
Post a Comment