Down to business in Wellington

At some point during each and every vacation, people get tired of living from suit cases, staying in expensive places, staying in places that they wished they had spent more to not stay in, eating out, cooking in borrowed kitchens, etc. They wish they were home so that they could bask in the drudgery of daily life, sit back, enjoy a good beer, sleep in their own bed, and not be expected to do anything—no expectation to have fun.

Now, if we still had these things, and on a predetermined date, we would be brought back to them, I guarantee you that travel weariness would have taken a lot longer to set in. Sadly, I think both of us are ready to be done with the vacation phase of our trip, and we haven't even been to see the South Island yet.

Don't get me wrong, travel weariness is not the same as homesickness. With homesickness you feel bad even if you have no rational reason for doing so. Travel weariness is simply the desire to veg-out or maybe remember where you are when you wake up in the morning.

Far from bummed out, our trip from Tauranga back to Wellington was a pleasant reminder of what we like about NZ. We showed up at the airport and had a nice conversation with the Turkish counter agent. We payed for the overage of our baggage and sat down at the café at the Tauranga airport. The airport felt like a small-town airport despite Tauranga being over twice the size of Missoula.

A group of schoolboys came in—wired from plastic bags full of the spoils of Easter—and their chaperone told them to go outside as to not bother the other passengers. So, they went outside at sat at the picnic benches separated by a lawn and a four foot chain link fence from the runway.

They announced that we should all board, and so we just walked out the door and up to the plane. There was no security screening. We got onboard the plane, and in a few minutes we were whizzing down the runway, with people leaned over the fence and waving to us. I'm sure that security is tighter if you are flying out of an international concourse, but it was nice to get a glimpse of a society that isn't afraid of itself. And you can feel it, that at all levels, kiwis are not destroying themselves psychologically from within the way that I feel the US is.

So here we are back in the bustling but homely (that's homey, not ugly, for you non-kiwis) capital. We're glad to be here, but nevertheless tired of travelling. We'll be staying at a bed and breakfast for a few days until we can find something a little cheaper and a little longer term. I'm actively submitting CVs now, and once one of us has a job here, we'll be looking to find and furnish an apartment.

I'm still keeping an eye out for positions elsewhere, but at this point, Wellington seems like the place. Also, we had our immigration interview last week while in Tauranga. Our friendly immigration agent, based in London, called and asked us a series of questions about how we were finding life in NZ and what we knew about various cultural aspects. I feel very good about the meeting. He told us that they would be making a decision soon and that we would likely hear back within a week. The three outcomes are: 1. application denial (i.e. we go back to the States, lick our wounds, and find jobs there.) 2. work permits 3. residency approval.

Application denial seems unlikely at this point, and while residency approval would be much more convenient for us, long-term work permits would allow us to meet most of our objectives. Our fingers are crossed. We'll keep you posted.