Home

"Home is where your heart is." "Home is wherever I'm with you." "Home is where you hang your hat."

The dictionary describes home as a shelter which is the usual residence of a person family, as well as the place in which a persons's domestic affections are centered. I'm going home this week, to my US home. It is exciting, and a bit weird feeling (a good weird) all at the same time. In my head, sometimes I forget that time has not stopped while I have been away, that the children in my life will have grown, and that my family and friends have carried on with their daily lives while I am off adventuring.

Since I am now living in a country that is mainly populated by westerners, it is easy for me to blend in, at least until I start talking. With the help of my flatmate (who is undoubtedly far more stylish than I am), I have acquired enough clothes from this hemisphere that I am able to not look too American. And New Plymouth is a fairly tight-knit community, so I often run into familiar faces around town. But once I start to talk, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that I have come from afar. My friends here joke that one day they will teach me how to speak correctly. I have made a few attempts at a kiwi accent, much to their amusement. Closest I can really get with any specific words is "awesome" and "awful", which sound more like "oar-some" and "oar-ful."

Once I do reveal my foreign-ness, top question is always "where are you from?", which occasionally is phrased as "where is home for you?" In the technical sense, home is Missouri. But, home is also New Plymouth, New Zealand, and Kumamoto, Japan, and Nagoya, Japan. Home is Kansas City, where I lived after college (well, technically Olathe, but that is possibly being overly technical haha), and home is wherever I can visit my parents and siblings.

Last week, I was trying to explain to a friend here how you can be torn between two places, or even three. I feel that it is something which can only be completely understood by those who have experienced living abroad. Some of it has to do with reverse culture shock (which I will be experiencing in a different way than ever before, as I'll be going from winter to summer!!). Another aspect is knowing how to share your experience with those you love. Since they could not see the sights with you and enjoy the experiences, you want to tell them every little bi about your adventures, but the photos never seem to do the scenery justice, and the stories you tell are only good to the your listeners the first ten times you tell them :)

This trip home is exciting more than anything. It has been a year since I have seen any of my family except my brother when he visited earlier this year, which turns out is a very long time to go without seeing those you love, even when the time has absolutely flown by. It is also exciting because my sister is getting married :) :) :) And it is exciting because I will get to share a piece of my American home with some of my Kiwi family who will also be visiting the US (they flew off today, slightly jealous that they got a head start!). Lastly, I am excited because at the end of my two week visit (which I know will be far too short), I get to return to my NZ home. Last week, immigration kindly granted me a 6 month visa to continue working here (gotta be honest, I was hoping for a year, but we will see what else the future holds), so I will be returning here just in time for dress rehearsals for Phantom of the Opera!

Well, now that I have re-read this and am about to hit the bright orange "publish" button, it seems like it is quite rambly (just made that verb tense up), but I feel that those of you who have traveled, and/or lived in other places, especially other countries, understand what I might mean when I say you can have many homes. I try to avoid going off on too many tangents in these posts, but as I am prepping to time travel and take bits of my life here to share with those "back home," I thought I would share my thoughts with you my dear readers :)

This is a song that was played at least on a weekly basis at my apartment in Vienna. Five American girls sharing life in Europe, knowing the time would be all too short but that we would always have the bond of that wonderful time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjFaenf1T-Y

Behind the wheel

Awhile back you got to hear about my first driving experience on the wrong side of the road. Then you heard about the 1500 kilometers I drove in a week with my brother. My photo filled post of the South Island road trip was an overview of the sights we saw, but now I would like to share a bit of what the driver gets to see as he/she cruises along.

As luck would have it, they speak English here, so reading road signs was not a problem, other than occasionally wondering how to pronounce names. But saw a few fun ones that we thought were photo worthy.

My daddy's name :)

One of the gentler curves I drove around...at a snails pace

Wesport!!! Been there :)

Lucky for us it was not frosty

My momma used to live in Charleston!

 These are just a couple examples of the some of the colorful vehicles we saw out on the road. I think one of the rental companies sends their customers off in these. Our brown Toyota looked rather dull in comparison.

Bridges are cool. When they are not on the edge of a cliff, or seemingly too narrow for your car....or train tracks. Best bridge of the trip (and we quickly lost count of how many we drove over) by far was a one way bridge that is for both cars and trains all at once. Vehicular traffic from one direction yields right of way to traffic coming from the other way, and either direction yields to any trains in the area. The train tracks run right down the single lane, so you're literally driving on the train tracks, yikes!

This was not the narrowest bridge we drove on, and also appeared quite
sturdy in comparison to a few, but we thought it was cute :) we being me....

I suppose this is technically more of a guardrail along the edge than an actual bridge, but it is one example of a point in the road where you have a sign instructing you to yield to oncoming traffic....except the road is windy/curvy so you actually have no idea whether there is any oncoming traffic, so you make a go for it and hope for the best.

I was serious about the train tracks!! This was outside Hokitika.

New Zealand is a gorgeous country. Everywhere you look there is something beautiful to see. And yes, I do know I have said that before, and posted heaps of photos to prove it, but here are a few more. I would like it noted that I did not take ANY of these photos. Instead, I enjoyed teaching little bro the art of quickly snapping a good shot before it disappears.
One thing that I enjoyed about driving so far was the different terrain we got to see. In on a couple hours of driving time, the scenery could change quite a lot.

Around Town

So I got to thinking the other day that from the bits and pieces I manage to get on here, all my dear loyal readers must have gotten at least some small idea of what I get up to in the Southern Hemisphere, but that you likely have little idea of what my daily life is like. So, I made some time on a lovely sunny day and went about town to take a few pictures to show you.

My commute to work:

My street :) The sea is on the other side of the trees

Down the walkway towards City Centre

Cut across the lawn or carpark to the bus stops

Finding yummies:

Freshworld seems to have the best/cheapest produce,
 and I enjoy that it's right next to a very nice butcher shop for fresh meat

For everything else, Pak 'n Save is cheapest,
Burger King just inserted itself into my picture ;)

Good spot for a quick/yummy/affordable snack

Best sushi in New Plymouth :)

The walkway (which you have probably already seen endless pictures of but oh well):

Low tide, the sand is not visible once the tide comes in

The port is just around the bend, between the
beach and the rocks in the distance (called the Sugar Loaf Islands)

One of the rigs that's always offshore

Wind Wand

Spots around town:

One of the historic buildings

Old hotel

Brightest building downtown, soon to have a new restaurant
opening up inside, name of "Mexico", but I'm not holding my breath for stellar
Mexican fare, as I have yet to find any here :)

The music store that I end up at on a very regular basis :)
and two doors down is the dojo

Cool coffee shop

The "mall", although I'm told it's not really big enough to be considered a mall

Two of the churches I've performed in

Devon Street, the main street through town