Believe it or not, I am writing to you from New Zealand! Yes, I got here eventually. I'm still settling in and starting to figure out what happens next, so I'll leave kiwi stories for future emails. But I'm here and I'm ok.
My fortnight in Oz was fun, despite a constant struggle with culture shock. I had great giggles overhearing Oz students' perspective on Europe (incl. that Strasbourg is the headquarters of the EU), enjoyed shouting at Ozzie politicians, and tried desperately to find somewhere to eat that wasn't westernised Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian, Chinese or Japanese (succeeded eventually).
My time was shared between Melbourne and Adelaide.
Melbourne's a lovely, VERY British city. Art galleries and shops saw most of me. I even got involved in a piece of art where visitors are invited to construct buildings from white lego to add to a lego cityscape. It kept me happy for several hours but they refused to give me a cut of the artist's commission. Dammit.
I also discovered Aussie rules football and had a great afternoon cheering on the North Melbourne Kangaroos playing Fremantle in an excellent game.
Adelaide was festival time. Skipping between the Adelaide Fringe (second biggest after Edinburgh) and Womadelaide (World music festival) I had 4 days packed with arty stuff. Big tip if he comes back to Edinburgh this year: Tom Crean, Antarctic Explorer. Really excellent.
My flight to New Zealand was made interesting when, the day before I was due to fly out, a plane took a nose dive instead of taking off at Dubai airport. The airport closed for the rest of the day, causing total havoc for Emirates flights. But the wonderful airline that they are, they'd moved me on to an Air New Zealand flight before I even found out my original flight was cancelled. I still got to Auckland on 13 March AND got a longer lie in. Score!
For now, I'm going back to giggling at the kiwi accents on TV before heading into Auckland city for a scout around.
It will please you all that, after 6 months in balmy, tropical (if not always dry) climates, I am now shivering with cold and no longer able to wear my flip flops/thongs/slippers/jandles that I've practically lived in for the past half year. Booh. And it's very rainy and windy too.
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