3 Nights Left

The cicada will sing us to sleep tonight as we seem to have one hiding in our room. We have just 3 nights left in New Zealand. The time has flown in some respects and yet it felt just right in other respects. Tomorrow we check out of this hostel and check into our airport motel and we will spend the next couple days tying up the loose ends with the sale of the car and closing our bank account. We've sold the main things we wanted to sell and we've even found a couple little souvenirs to take with us. Every time I wandered a souvenir shop though, none of the trinkets could really encapsulate how I feel about the place. None would even come close. I've actually been fairly melancholy about the fact that we're leaving. I certainly feel a connection here that I'm not ready to let go of. But, plans have been made and we'll stick to them. It will give us time to think more about our vision for our next few years.

We've decided to wait until we've been back to BC before we make any decisions about whether to move here or not. Since we've been away for a while, we reckon we should do a more recent comparison before making any big decisions.

We checked out the NRL game this afternoon and found that we both like Rugby Union just a bit better but it was good to see live anyways. The Warriors were defeated but they were playing last year's league champions.

It's been nice to be settled for the last several days and not have to pack up again everyday. Dustin got out for one last surf yesterday with the guy who is buying our car. The spot was quite rocky but surf is surf. I walked down to this part of town called Newmarket which is mostly shops but it was quite lively since it was Saturday. There was this fashion show event outside but it was raining so the models had to carry umbrellas. It was only entertaining for a short time so I browsed some of the shops around it and walked back up to the hostel. We really enjoyed ourselves at the TV show taping on Thursday. We watched the show on Friday - it's a half hour show cut down from about 3 hours. We reckoned they left out some really funny bits but I guess it's tough to balance overall and to choose what will be most funny to most people. There's this comedy fundraiser for Christchurch that's happening Tuesday night. I'd really like to go but our motel is near the airport which is like 30km out of the city and I don't think the bus service will be too great coming home mid-week later in the evening. I'll have to look into it.

So it's now just a month until we touch down in Vancouver again, nearly 9 months after we left. It's always interesting to come back and see what's changed since we've been gone! Oddly though, I am more excited about the flights than the return. I can't wait to see what movies I can watch and what we get to eat! haha. I've already been nostalgic for NZ even though we're still here. I guess it's knowing that we're leaving and knowing that we won't be able to get Sunday Roast (the crispy bits in the bottom of the pan) flavoured chips, and that we won't be able to experience the relaxed easy going manner of the lifestyle here when we've left. I think overall we've left with a very good impression of the country and we feel like we've literally seen all of it! (Ok, technically we haven't but we've covered so much of it that it feels like it!)

I don't think I'll write before we go and not sure when I'll post next but it will likely be somewhere in Western Australia!