July 4: I don't do long goodbyes.

It’s the homestretch, ladies and gentleman. Tomorrow I’ll be leaving these two islands via jet plane and back in the states, and while there are a few things I’m looking forward to, there’s even more I’ll miss. Going to the beach, for one. Certain people I’m not sure I’ll meet again, some people I know I will. Karolina and Tasha, for instance, the two girls I met at the end of February. We had a mini reunion in Auckland, a few days before Karolina was leaving for Germany. I have spent a total of eight days with Karolina in the time that I’ve known her, and I was near tears the night before she left. Tasha is equal parts mother, sibling and playmate. I do love those girls, and believe I’ll se them again soon.
On my last night, Sarin, my Canadian compadre, took me to the Matariki festival. It’s the Maori new year, and a bunch of dub step bands were playing at Auckland’s town Hall. Dub step is the quintessential Kiwi sound, and it is five times better than reggae and about a million times more interesting than DnB. For the first time, I saw that faces of bands I’ve only heard the names of, and put faces to the songs I’ve heard in other people’s cars. As a thank you gift to Sarin, I gave her a lot of my junk that I felt to guilty to throw away. Also, I gave her a NZ greenstone necklace, which traditionally must be given, not bought for oneself. I think it’s every tourist’s dream, deep down, to be given one before they leave NZ, because it’s basically the best souvenir you can get. Unless, of course, it’s harvested from Britsh Columbia, as Sarin pointed out. Though I didn’t ask where it came from, I told her not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and just to like it. Which she did.
I wish I knew what to say about my experience. I wish I could look at the sum total of what I did in New Zealand, and say that the trip meant this or I learned that. I think everything I hoped would happen happened in the way I least expected. I fell in love, but with a man from California. I loved my classes, but made most of my friends from random run-ins with strangers. I went on amazing road trips, most often in the backseat of a strangers car. I made decisions and mistakes that I never thought I’d make. Writing about it was harder than I thought it would be, because I felt like two people: the girl writing back home and the girl making a new home. So I’m looking forward to talking to all of you one on one and sharing anecdotes and answering questions and explaining certain photographs, for the brief period of time that such things will captivate your interest ☺.
It’s been wonderful, weird, hard, ugly, beautiful, disturbing, unnerving, exhausting, rewarding, unique, exhilarating, and neat. Let’s do it again sometime.
See you soon.
Ems.