put your clock back for the winter; home again

oriental bay, september 2012

It seems that no matter what time of your life you're at, you will always get asked one particular question over and over again.

In your last years of high school it's, what are you going to do when you finish seventh form? At uni, what are you going to do when you finish uni? When you plan to move overseas, what are you going to do when you get there?

When you return home, the magic question has turned out to be, how does it feel to be back?

It's inevitable and hard to be annoyed by, but I have found the answer to this question a lot less straight forward than in the past.

At school, the answer was, I'm going to go to university.
At uni, the answer was, I'm going to get a job.
When I planned to go overseas, I'm going to get another job.

This question has the word FEEL in it. FEELINGS. It's a lot trickier and harder to pin down than I first thought it would be.

Two obvious things to say are, it's small and very expensive.

I'm still getting used to being out and about and seeing someone I know on the street or on the bus or in a bar. And I don't even have to know them, just seeing someone I recognise. A friend of mine referred to these people as "cameo Wellingtonians" which I think sums it up pretty nicely.

And expensive! A few days after I arrived, I paid $8.50 for two eggplants because I just picked them up without even looking at the price. UK produce is reasonably priced all year round because they import so much stuff. In NZ I'm definitely going to have to get used to buying produce seasonally.

It seems to be mainly food. And books. The price of books in NZ is obscene - thank goodness for my Kindle and for the Wellington Central Library. Other things - a gin & tonic at the Matterhorn, a taxi ride from Courtney Place to Miramar, a black cardigan from Glassons - all seem to cost what I remember from 2010.

So, after six weeks of being back, those are my two main observations of my home city. Mostly though, it's really nice to be home.

long haul flights; a necessary evil

On Sunday 19 August, I arrived back in Wellington after two years, two months and 24 days of being away. I know these numbers because I had to fill it in on my New Zealand arrivals card. That's a really long time. 816 days, in fact. (I know that number because I'm a nerd and needed to work it out.)

It has to be said that there is absolutely nothing good about long haul flights, except for the relief of them being over.

We didn't start off very well - last Thursday we flew from Berlin to London, and that night I probably could have drunk less cider so that I would have felt less hungover before I got on a ten hour, fifty five minute flight to Hong Kong the next day. We tried to tell ourselves that the best kind of hangover day is watching movies and being fed, and that's pretty much what a long haul flight is, right? But it's not quite that straightforward.

We flew British Airways and they were a bit shit really. Surly flight attendants, terrible food and really small entertainment screens. I didn't sleep one wink, which isn't British Airways fault, but didn't make for an enjoyable flight.

When we arrived in Hong Kong, it was six thirty in the morning Hong Kong time, but our bodies thought it was midnight. We had a twelve hour stopover in HK and had planned to go out in to the city for a bit. The reality was a bit different. The thought of going out in to 32 degree heat after no sleep wasn't overly appealing. We also hadn't done any research so weren't even sure what we'd be going out to see. All in all, the thought of dealing with immigration, a foreign language, crowded streets, heat and a lack of a plan, was all too much for us and so we stayed in the airport.

Which was super boring. We had lunch, we sat around, we tried to nap, we used the free wifi. We paid 150 HK dollars each for a shower (£12, NZ$24) which seemed exorbitant but was money well spent. After the shower, and a Red Bull and some Pringles, getting on to the next plane to Sydney didn't seem too awful. And then we discovered that the plane was half full. We were in the middle section of four seats and no one else sat with us, which made the flight way more bearable. I could spread out over two seats and actually managed to sleep. (For two hours, but I was pretty happy with that.)

Plus, the flight from Hong Kong to Sydney was an hour and a half shorter, the flight attendants were way more upbeat, the food was better, the entertainment screens larger - an all round more positive experience.

And once in Sydney, it was all downhill. The stopover was an hour and a half - significantly shorter than twelve hours - and then the flight from Sydney to Wellington was just over three hours. It felt like no time at all.

We flew in from the south, and when the plane landed, the flight attendant said "to those returning to Wellington, welcome home" and I burst into tears. I blame the sleep deprivation. The cheerful guy at immigration was a huge improvement on the sour reception I always got coming back in to the UK after my holidays. And then being greeted by my mum and little brother made the whole horrible experience totally worth it.

And now; Wellington. The extreme jetlag is making coherant thoughts about how I feel about being back difficult, but hopefully one day soon.