Seems like this blog, in one way or another, is doomed to always be a travel blog. Elsje and I are in Auckland tonight. We heard much negative about this place from many different sources, Kiwi and immigrant alike. First impressions? Awesome!! Ok it's grimy (or at least grimier than Wellington), like any city is, but I like that, it's real. We came up here because we are seriously considering moving here at the end of the year. Our initial excuse for making the trip was to check out the college of natural medicine where Elsje wants to study next year. The campus is in a beautiful and larny area called Grey Lynn, where everything's organic it seems. It's also crazy expensive apparently. But all that aside, both Elsje and I, after only spending a few hours here, feel as if this is the place we want to be, at least for the foreseeable future. For me personally THIS is what I expected to feel from New Zealand, what I've been waiting to feel. There is energy here, stuff is happening, things are moving! Cape Town has a potent and relentlessly restless energy that creeps into your bones - the only place I've ever felt anything comparable was in New Orleans - and Auckland has something of that trembling sense of anticipation, of possibility, but in a more manageable dose. I feel as if there is real potential for something to grow here, for us to make the kind of life we've been dreaming about. New Zealand is a weird place. Even after six months I still can't shake that feeling. It's so provincial in so many ways, somehow strangely backward and almost isolationist and yet there is so much potential here. It seems that many New Zealanders worry about their country, constantly comparing the economy to that of Australia and lamenting that 'we' aren't as affluent or obnoxious as Australians. I think I've mentioned this before, the fact that traveling gives you huge gifts of perspective and lessons in relativity. There is so much that is awesome here, so much that is weird and offbeat and relentlessly down-to-earth. I feel that there's so much possibility here, but so few have really grabbed it, like it's not in the culture, as if it's an unwritten rule not to. I realise that most of what I'm saying here is gibberish, but that's the effect New Zealand is having on me. I'm constantly bewildered by this place and its people, but in no way that I can pinpoint. I like that so much; it's difficult to get hold of. As soon as I do I'll let you know.
That's a point actually. We are staying in a place called Albany, which is on the North Shore of Auckland. Over the hill to east is Brown's Bay where you'll find upwards of 40 000 South Africans, which I find both disturbing and intriguing. It seems that Kiwis have mixed feelings about the 'Saffers,' who have in many ways made certain parts of the North Shore into a South African suburb. I don't really like that and I have no interest in living in a mini SA, but my point is that the South Africans have got hold of this place somehow, but in a typically South African way, that is, they've stamped their particular presence on a somewhat neutral cultural landscape and made it home, but, it seems to me, in the most functional and utilitarian way. I don't want to do that, I want to see what else is possible in terms of 'lifestyle.' We didn't leave South Africa just to escape the crime - though I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a factor - and to live the middle-class suburban 'dream.' It's too LCD. We didn't so much leave South Africa as come to New Zealand, it was more pull than push. And yes many expectations of this place were dashed, but thank god, because I think perhaps for the first time we are seeing this country and it's potential clearly. It feels like we are slowly - very slowly - learning New Zealand, exploring its smallness one tiny bit at a time and for the first time in a long time I'm excited again. :-)
- pics surely to follow...
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