why?

one of the questions that we've fielded the most, "why?", is really two questions: "why go?" and "why new zealand?".

the first steps that we took towards planning this trip are in answer to the first question - why leave at all? i think i can best answer this by explaining the context in which our discussions started. my childhood was spent bouncing between the washington, d.c. area and different cities in germany as a result of my dad's army career. fortunately, my parents not only endured this reality but embraced it, choosing to live off-base, send my brothers and me to local german schools, and spend holidays in neighboring european countries. though (since?) it has been 12 years since i last lived abroad, i have harbored a growing longing to try a new country on for size. so when bryan, coming home from spending time with a good friend, declared "aaron and i think it would be fun to live in another country for a year", we immediately began to think seriously about it.

now, to question 2: the next morning, a saturday, we headed to southdale library shortly after it opened to do some research. we knew that the amount of money that we could save in 10 months would not enable us to frolick unsupported around the country for a year, and so narrowed our search to english-speaking countries with the hypothesis that the ability to speak the language would make us more likely to find jobs. the uk was quickly ruled out, being far too expensive and having strict visa limitations, and any place in the americas was deemed too close to be a "great adventure" (more on this distinction later).

so our gaze settled on australia and new zealand. during middle school i had spent about a week in each country on a family vacation, just enough time to realize how inadequate a week really was. i can't pinpoint what it is that eventually led us to claim new zealand as our new home...memories of glaciers and waterfalls and bungee jumping sheep, maybe? at any rate, we're now planning to head to the land of the kiwis for lots of hiking and plenty of exploring.

the plan, stan.

In three months, we will have just wrapped up three weeks of packing and family visits and will be en route from Baltimore to Auckland, via Los Angeles. If all goes according to plan, we will arrive in New Zealand before 8 am on August 20th and be welcomed by a warm (unlikely), sunny (unlikely), beautiful (very likely) landscape. Depending on the extent of our jetlag, this first day could be spent energetically exploring the city or listlessly waiting on an amenable park bench for a reasonable hour to check into a hostel.

If all goes better than the plan, we will have met a nice couple on the plane who took a liking to us (as we reminded them of their early, world-traveling years together) and invited us to stay for a week or two in their sprawling beachhouse, from which point they will gladly shuttle us to the trailhead at Cape Reinga as soon as we have eaten our fill of their gourmet cooking. If I had the conversational abilities of my mother, this would be a likely scenario. (Un)fortunately, I inherited my father's genes on this one.

While originally I had planned only to blog while actually in New Zealand, as I am concerned enough about holding your attention as it is, the 90-day mark is revealing itself to be more meaningful to me than I had originally anticipated and I would like to share with you the final stages of our preparation process, should you have any interest.

If not, no harm done - simply check back in a few months and enjoy my posts from the much more enthralling southern hemisphere. You can expect to find detailed accounts from me on a number of exotic topics, including (but not limited to) sandflies, blisters, cutesy things said by my husband that will make you gag, and place names that will usually start with a w and end in an unpronouncable jumble of vowels.