Not So Glamorous
Six months and thirteen hosts later, I find myself back in Wellington with a map of the North Island spread across my lap marking destinations and locations of my travels. I have come full circle around the North Island and cannot help but be contemplative as I muse about who I was when I first flew into Wellington, these familiar streets and destinations once places I got lost (read my first entry "Never Assume"). I remember getting off the bus in Otaki and literally being gawked at while mistaken for a movie star. My host greeted me questioningly as he eyed my purse and sunglasses asking, "Are you sure you are ready for this?" "Of course!" I quickly responded, exhilarated by everything new and toting a bit of hidden Alaskan pride about survival skills. But really, I had no idea what would happen, where I would go or what I would learn. Only the unknown awaited me and that probably frustrated and scared me the most. Now with so many experiences under my belt -- from prying brake boosters out of Mercedes cars to mixing hominy slop for pigs -- there is a certain pride beginning to accumulate in my demeanor despite flaunting purple stained fingernails from aphid juice remnants. I noticed it when sitting in a Martinborough vineyard having long chats with the owner about his time protesting Apartheid in South Africa as he poured me another free glass of wine "because I was a local." Funny enough, at the exact same moment I also encountered an American pair on a two week holiday strutting in for a wine tasting (my first encounter with American tourists since leaving Los Angeles). Dressed beautifully and eager to fit in as much cultural experience as possible for their precious two week excursion, I paused my conversation with the winemaker, sat back and let them have their wine moment. Some fleeting small talk, a sip of sweetness and they were on their way to the next goal and agenda while I went unnoticed in the corner with my wind tussled hair gently braided by my German friend and fellow WWOOFer, working on how to say "I ate Weet-a-bix with bananas and apples" in German. I marveled at this American whirlwind couple, a brief reflection of my own travels last year when I whisked through NZ encapsulated by adventure and controlled by the calendar. It was a striking contrast and made my transformation into this far less glamorous, but far more enchanted, individual all the more poignant. I suppose the transition is complete. I have no schedule, no plan and this is acceptable if not expected when mingling amidst the traveling crowd of NZ. Was I ready for this? No. But I have learned to relax in the unknown for the last six months and I am finally comfortable with it. What will happen next in the South Island? I'm not sure, but no worries, I am in no rush.
