surreal arrival
Auckland New Zealand
Friends are at the airport to meet us. Little people have grown big. Babies have turned into toddlers. Apart from that, it seems we haven‘t even been away. This feeling of *did it really happen?* will surface frequently over the next few days. Everything seems so normal, and apart from a bit of vegetation growth in our newish subdivision (and significant weed growth in our garden!), everything seems unchanged. As we drive home we notice houses still sport for sale signs, traffic lights change predictably, there are corner dairies and advertising signs we can understand, it is humid, sticky humid. We are in a van with seat belts and carseats, we have muffins from a friend for afternoon tea (thanks Heather), and our first BBQ for dinner (thanks Grandpa). The pohutukawa are in flower, as are the agapanthus plants. We find a handful of strawberries in the overgrown vege patch (ERgirl3 doesn’t know the dangerlessness of New Zealand and warns concernedly, “Mama, be careful of snakes”) – no snakes here, but ah yes, it really is summer. It is still light at 9:30, and after enduring darkness by 4:30 for the past couple of months, we will find this little factor takes some adjusting to.
We walk through the house. Apart from a few random pieces of furniture, it is empty. There are no books on the usually-overflowing shelves, no pictures hang on the walls, there are no creations scattered around the floor, no smells wafting from the kitchen. It doesn’t feel like home. But then again it does. In fact, in some ways it feels like we just popped out for an hour or so. It’s another one of those surreal moments, and we thought we were finished with them!
Have we really been round the world? Did we really dine with family in Malaysia and set off lanterns into the dark night sky in Thailand and pick up the book we sponsored in Laos and visit an orphanage in Cambodia and sleep in four beds on a boat in Vietnam and climb the Great Wall and train across Russia and fight German bureaucracy in order to spend five months living in a motorhome and clamber over castle ruins and swim in the Mediterranean Sea and walk around the Coliseum on a stinking hot day and retrace twenty-year-old steps in Krakow and make friends in Romania and experience Istanbul??? Did we really? Standing here in our empty dining room, it already seems a distant memory, a dream.
We have been, we have returned, but we have not stopped. It is time to move on.
a whole bed each!
Tags: 2008/09, children, postcard: New Zealand, quote
rayres
Welcome Back Ayres Family. That instant surreal did we ever leave feeling is my LEAST favourite bit about having travelled.
Looking forward to catching up soon. Enjoy your settling back in time.
Much love
K
welcome back home to little NZ, A family!