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No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem: Auckland, NZ
Hey there, friends!
I’m sorry I’ve left you hangin’ for all this time. I dove back into the life of school and have just resurfaced. Funny how as an adult you can easily invest 100% of yourself in school without a second thought or any regret for the late night bingers you’ll miss out on. Maybe it’s because you’re there because you want to be and hopefully you’re studying something you enjoy. At least, that was the case for me.
Ladies and gents, you are looking at a Trinity-certified TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) teacher. I spent five weeks in an intensive program and got my first taste of teaching. I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how naturally teaching came to me and how much I enjoy it. I say “so far” because I have commitment issues these days and am hard to please when it comes to the whole career thing. One thing I learned last year is “life is like a box of chocolates…” so don’t resist it.
I’m one of those people who has never known what I want to be when I grow up. I used to torture myself about it and wrack my brain about what my calling could possibly be. Now though, I’m okay with not knowing what is it I am meant to do, and I’m also okay with the idea that maybe I won’t have just one career; maybe I’ll have lots of them. I’m driven and hard-working at everything I do (no, this is not a cover letter), so why not do everything? My trip abroad opened so many possibilities for me that it’s really hard to choose just one thing. Why must I only have one when I can have them all? Clearly, my trip abroad has also warped my self-esteem. Regardless… I am Steph. Hear me roar!
New Zealand has been a dream and a home away from home. I lived on Elspeth and James’s couch for 2 months, and they quickly made me feel at home, as well as their warm, wacky friends. I didn’t do much trekking or exploring while I was here (one, I’d done it last time I was in NZ, and, two, I was knee deep in books and schoolwork), but I still managed to have some lovely times with the Auckland crew, and I am so grateful for their welcoming embrace. I will sincerely miss them (see you at Elp’s and James’s wedding next year!).
As much as I love my Auckland friends - old and new (Facebook official means REAL) - NZ is a place I’d have trouble living in full time. Kiwis (that’s New Zealanders for the newbies) have crazy accents, drive on the wrong side of the road, walk around barefoot EVERYWHERE (restaurants, supermarkets, the streets), and have an all around islander vibe which is great, but also incomprehensible for a native New Yorker like me. Yes, New York City terrifies me now, yes I’ve developed a phobia of responsibility and being rushed, but I still can’t let go of my ingrained anxiety and fear of everything that makes me an American. What do you mean I can grill in this public park? What do you mean I am free to roam and take my dog wherever I want? And don’t get me started on the cost of living. Granted the exchange rate is $1 NZ = $0.75 US, but what is this about $14 NZ breakfasts and $2 NZ candy bars. Don’t get me wrong. NZ has a lot to offer: mountains, lakes, beauty, nature, views that’ll burn your eyeballs, but it gets small, and a city girl like me just isn’t cut for it. I need to be able to go shopping at 8 p.m. if the desire to buy lavish, unnecessary things tickled me, and cities need to take WEEKS to get around by foot (NZ towns are so cute and quaint, but, really, with my American ADD, I need more. I need chaos. I need noise). Now that I’ve written it all down I hate myself a little bit. There is absolute nothing wrong with NZ. There is something wrong with me. So I’m moving on.
I head out to Sydney on Monday where I hope to get a job teaching English (to the foreigners, not the Aussies) and eventually find an apartment or room to rent out. I’ll be staying in a hostel until further notice. As James likes to say as he overtly tries to convince me to stay in Auckland, I’m off to the land of ALL murderous animal species: spiders, sharks, crocodiles, you name it. I will sleep with one eye open, and I will love every minute of it. Why? So I can tell you everything that’s wrong with it when I decide it’s time to move on.
Seriously though. I love it every day.
Yours self-righteously,
S.
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Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner
Hello, hello. Writing to y’all from the tropical city of… Mamaroneck, New York. Actually, it’s snowing out right now, and I can sincerely affirm that, no, I didn’t miss the winter. Some people enjoy the snow and like to retreat to the couch, by the fireplace, with a good book and hot cocoa in hand. I’m not one of those people. I don’t really see anything good about cold weather, wet clothes, and white streets. What I like is white sand, hot rays of sunshine, and cold, wild waves. To each his own.
So what am I up to these days? What is it like to be back, you ask?
I’ve been Stateside now for a month. I’ve seen my much-missed family and friends, and I’ve shared my tales and pictures with those curious - and patient - enough to ask. The novelty of my return has faded, and now it’s back to the closest thing to “normal” I can get to. My friends all work 9 to 5, Monday through Friday jobs, and they all live all over the place, some in Manhattan, some in Boston, and others a Greyhound trek or flight away. So what do I do now? As any other useful citizen would, I look for a job to make some money to live my dream. Thing is though, one of the reasons I’m going back to Australia is that there aren’t any jobs here and that minimum wage is something around $8 an hour. So I deal with the ups and downs of submitting resumes, going to interviews, and making peanuts, only to sit on the fact that I’m leaving again in a month’s time. Then again, I can’t very well sit on my hands for that long either, wasting away, watching the walls grow, while the rest of the world goes round.
I had my fair share of battles upon my return, convincing nay-sayers and conventionalists why moving to the other side of the world isn’t such a nutty decision after all. I’m 27, and yet I find myself still justifying my decisions and having to prove something to my friends and family. I’m not crazy, I swear. And to me, this all makes sense, so hopefully one day it will to you too. Truth is I’m living outside of the box, and anyone inside will see my plan as escapism. I wasn’t always unconventional, but that’s what got me on that around-the-world plane ticket in the first place: my breaking point. Like I said, I’m 27, and I’ve decided to live my life the way I want to, not the way I should based on what other people expect, which to some, in itself, is nutty. I’m taking this one day at a time, and I’m going to make the best of it because, really, you only get one chance at life.
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New Zealand: Go Big or Go Home
Last but definitely not least.
When I arrived in New Zealand, I knew I only had a month and a half to make the best of what was left, and I wasn’t about to hold back… on anything.
My first stop was Auckland, where I was reunited with an old college buddy, James. James and I have an interesting story: we met in Spain on spring break sophomore year in college and saw each other about three or four times after that. Four years went by with a Facebook poke/post/whatever every once in a blue moon, and then I wrote to him in 2010 to tell him I was coming to NZ where he had moved two years earlier. It was simple: he said, “I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow, but if I’m still here in 2011 awesome!!” Lucky for me, he was still around by the time my turtle and I made it to Auckland, and he picked me up from the airport. From that moment forward, it was sealed; we were still great friends, and we were going to have a great time. I slept on his and his now fiancee’s couch (shout-out to future Mrs. Elspeth Frascatore, doctor by day, kickass artist, pipe-smoker, pyjama-rocker by night), snuggled up with their kitties Nubs and Tubs.
[Funny sidenote about the kitties: one night, when the house was still and the streets of Auckland were resting, I heard a noise. It started on the porch. There was a bird chirp - a cry for help - and then a pounce. A primal struggle I was in no way going to interrupt. Tubs (or was it Nubs?) escorted its prey back into the house by the kitty door, and the murder proceeded in the kitchen. My greatest fear was that I’d have a dead bird laying on my pillow in the morning, the proud kitty’s trophy. When we woke up the next morning, there was a dead bird in the bathroom and feathers scattered throughout the kitchen. Birdie put up a valiant fight.]
My first weekend in town, James and I drove to Taupo for one of his frisbee tournaments. I was told there would be a Kiwiana-themed party, and we would have to dress up. He had me at “beer.” His frisbee buds are hoots of fun and mostly all fellow expats. Frisbee is their way to “work out,” but also to have fun and cut loose. I watched the games, cheering (and napping) from the sidelines. His friends are awesome and took me under their wings, even after James was out of town (much lovin’s to Emma, Adam, Davey Jones, James, Elliott, Jess, and the rest of the Taupo Hat crew).
After a week in the comfort of a friend’s company, I left James’s side to board the Magic bus, a backpacker bus that takes travelers all around the north and south islands of NZ. Much like the Baz Bus in South Africa, the bus picks you up and drops you off at participating hostels, and arranges daily activities if you so choose. My most memorable acquaintances aboard the NZ bus were the Lashtastic Six, which I’ll introduce in a sec.
After two weeks traveling around the north island (my favorite city being the windy capital of Wellington and my most memorable activity being the Tongariro Crossing on Mount Doom - a 19.5km hike across mountains, snow, crevasses, and a rainforest), I made my way back to Auckland to pick up my sister from the international terminal in Auckland’s airport. Because our silly motherland only offers 2 weeks vacation to even the hardest of workers, Delphine was only able to stay a week, but we made sure to soak up every second of our time together. We visited the city, sipped on local wines on the nearby island of Waiheke, and then made our way north to Peihia, in the Bay of Islands. We were blessed with blue skies and warm weather, perfect for beach-bumming, parasailing, and swimming with the dolphins (although I don’t recommend the latter to the weak-hearted. Think tuna caught in a net, drowned in freezing cold water). We treated ourselves to a beachside motel room, a week of adventure, and moments of pure enjoyment.
After my sister left the NZ summer behind, I made my way to the south island, where some of the coolest people were waiting for me to join their crew. Aboard the Magic bus, I met Nikki, Rob, Chris W, Becky, Will, and Chris L aka the Lash Crew (MAD SHOUT TO MY LASH KIDS!!!). We explored the icy crevasses of the Franz Josef Glacier, rented a minivan and drove to Milford Sound where we saw seals, dolphins, and views that would put Lord of the Rings to shame, and partied our booties off in Queenstown three nights in a row, shutting down the bars and making sure bouncers and bartenders alike knew who we were. Every moment spent in their presence was a blast, and they made sure I ended my trip with a BOOM BOOM BANG BANG.
My first day in Queenstown, an adrenaline bug bit me, and I signed up to do NZ’s highest bungy jump, the Nevis, at 134 meters. If you knew me before November, you’d know I’d never in a million years do such a thing, but yet here I am, having done it and writing to you about it. It was the scariest, bravest, and coolest thing I’ve ever done. And I’d do it again. As they say at Nevis, go big or go home… and I wasn’t ready to go home. My gal pal Nikki came along as my spectator, and little did she know I’d have her standing (shaking) right by me on the platform of a swaying structure hanging off a cable. She was quite the trooper for a girl terrified of heights, and the sheer terror in her eyes made me forget about my jitters; I was too busy trying to make her feel better to think about what I was about to do. I was pumped up on adrenaline, and the loud hip hop music had me dancing in place and excited. I may have been in some kind of unconscious coma, but I was cool as ice until that leap… The feeling I had the minute I realized I was falling, weightless, in the air is a different story.
My adventures behind me, I headed back to Auckland with my Lash crew minus two and started making plans for 2012. I applied to Edenz College to take the TESOL course, so I can teach English to foreigners abroad. After that, I’ll be moving to Australia for a year to find work and keep moving. I feel like I’ve got it figured out (kind of), but what’s most important is that I’m happy about my decision and really excited. So you see, it’s not the end; it’s just the beginning.
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Australia: If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them
I’ve only been out of Oz two days, but I miss it already. Mostly I miss the hodgepodge of funky travelers I met there.
I started my month-and-a-half stint in Oz in Sydney. I was there a week, at the bars every night, and having the time of my life every minute. Nowadays, it’s hard to meet a foreigner in Australia NOT traveling for a year and looking for a job - whether it be picking fruit, waitressing at a stripclub, or cleaning toilets in a hostel. And to tell you the truth, I envy them. My year is quickly coming to a close, and I’m looking for any excuse/plan to keep it going. These Oz dwellers seem to have the best of both worlds: a year to meet new people, enjoy new adventures, party like they’re on vacation from reality (which they are), AND work some sort of job they might not want in their motherland and yet love abroad since it feels unreal and still manages to pay the bar tabs.
I must admit that Aussies know how to party, although after 1 am the bar turns into a frightening nightmare of sloppy women and starving men. There is always something happening in Sydney, and I made sure to check my “Cheap Guide” every night to avoid paying the average $10 for a beer. After a week of non-stop partying with a group of English folk and my Canadian pool partner Matt, it was high time I took a break and headed “home” to the other side of Oz, in Jillie’s sweet embrace.
Ever since I met Jill at 2 am in the Warren Towers bathroom, brushing our teeth, we’ve been linked at the hip, so you can understand my heartache when she fell in love with Irishman Ronan and moved to Dublin. Now the economy is shite, there are no jobs, and they moved Perth. It was so nice to go to a piece of home and have an Irish good time on the other side of the world. We went camping in Margaret River, where we stalked kangaroos hopping about our site after dark - probably not the wisest of decisions - and sipped on Oz’s finest wines. During Jill’s work week (I don’t have such a thing), we’d meet up for lunch, catch up, and enjoy the comfort of our years of history. She’s my sister from another mister. Yes, it’s true she tried to convince me to move to Oz, and, yes, it’s true, I am easily convinced to try anything at least once. Oz 2012?! After two weeks in the best of company, including Jill and Ronan’s Irish expat clan, I was sad to go but eager to catch a glimpse of Australia’s infamous Great Barrier Reef.
I flew out to Cairns and moved into my dorm room at 5 am in a room full of booze-seeping blokes, landmines of clothing, and a howling snorchestra. Thankfully by morning, these monsters were replaced by Mark and Kasper, a couple of Danish guys on a long holiday. We had a great time sharing a glass of goon or two, free meals at The Woolshed, and the daily mayhem at Gilligan’s. I took a tour of nearby waterfalls on Captain Matty’s Barefoot Tour, where I met Canadian Raylyn who could hold her own as well as I could in the bar. And on one of the only sunny days I got in Cairns, I took a daytrip to the Great Barrier Reef, where I was left free to roam the underwater realm at my ease and to my immense satisfaction. There is nothing I love more than breathing underwater (and any girl who used to pretend to be a mermaid in the pool will empathize).
The place I’ll miss the most in Oz was my last stop, Melbourne. When meeting Australians, you’ll notice a clear rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney is crowded and very cosmopolitan, and Melbourne is a little more spread out geographically and has quaint cafes and more of a hipster vibe, as far as I can tell. It’s like the difference between Sex and the City and How I Met Your Mother. My hostel had a bar that I frequented daily, beer being the international ice breaker, as well as pool. Shout out to my boys Graham, Dominic, Rich, and Timmy. These fellows took great care of me, making sure to drag me to the bars until 5 am, luring me into a happy hour at 4 pm, and schooling me on the pool table. If I could take them with me, I would. Again, I’ve learned that it’s not really the place that matters but the people you meet. When you feel genuine excitement about seeing your crew, you know you’ve got it made.
Moving to Oz next year is a tempting idea. It’s hard to decide what it is I should do when I return, my end date creeping up behind me. I know that I’ve never been as happy as I’ve been this year, on the road, meeting the funnest and most diverse of people from across the world, sharing tales, nights, dancefloors, and dorm rooms. I find it hard to believe that there isn’t a way I can make this feeling last forever, that I can’t make my life out of this. It could all just be a dream, but if it is I don’t want to wake up.
