16 August 2011

The Saturday before I left New Zealand dawned early for me. Considering I had gone to bed at 5am due to an unfortunate mix of energy drink and various different alcohols (never to be repeated), any thought of getting up before noon was unthinkable. Too bad this wasn’t going to be the case for me. My eyes popped open around 10am and I decided that getting my email was in order. I had sold my bed a couple of days beforehand and the lady who bought it was supposed to pick it up on Sunday. I received an email that said that she’d like to pick it up either in the afternoon on Saturday or on Monday instead of Sunday. We were about to get a winter storm, and her and her husband decided not to go away that weekend. Monday was too late for me, so I had to agree to Saturday.

I took a look around my room and realized that I had far too much to do, I had to get up. I hadn’t packed anything away, and I still had a bunch of crap lying around that I needed to decide what to do with.

I managed to get everything done by the time the lady came to take the bed away. And, of course, right after it was finished I really wanted to lay down for a nap!!
That evening, with a ton of crap in 4 different bags, I left for the flats on Whitehead Road. These are a bunch of flats in a condo style that happens to be where Josef was living when he was in New Zealand. I had many contacts there and decided that since the flats were fully furnished, I’d move there once I was bedless.
The only thing I needed to do was to compact all of my remaining belongings down to ONE bag that was less than 30kg. This was easier said than done. If you can imagine, 7 years of my life into one bag, it was a somewhat daunting task!

The weather was going to hell in a hand-basket; there was a polar front moving up the country and many places that hadn’t seen snow in years were being given a good dousing. If the mountain road between Hastings and Auckland had enough snow on it (which was highly likely, given its geographic location and past events) I would not be going anywhere, let alone Auckland to catch my plane on Wednesday.

I remained vigilant and kept myself updated with the weather conditions. I was supposed to be bussing up to Auckland to stay with a friend, Aaron, for the night before going to the airport on Wednesday. Luckily, there was a good break in the weather on Monday night and Tuesday dawned clear, even though it was probably 5 degrees C.

The bus ride started at 7:30 am and I arrived in Auckland at about 3:30pm. It was an uneventful journey and I listened to music on my iPod the whole way there.
Aaron picked me up and took me to his flat for the night. It was good times, even though he had a previous engagement to go to that night. Nevertheless, it was good to see a friendly face before leaving the country I have called home for 7 years.
My flight itinerary was as follows: Auckland to Melbourne, Australia; Melbourne to Dubai; and Dubai to Prague. On the first leg of my journey, I was sitting next to a very nice elderly lady who was going to Melbourne to visit her daughters and “to be a nuisance for a while”, which I thought was very cute.

A little about Melbourne: A city of approximately 4 million people laid out in a grid-like fashion. It was past sunset when we were flying in and it was easy to see pretty twinkling lights in neat rows with lazy looking highways meandering to and fro, breaking up the grid. Apparently, the public transport system is excellent with trains, trams, and busses. The lady also told me about all of the nice parks that are scattered throughout the city.

The plane landed, all passengers disembarked, the ones who were going on to Dubai got to walk in a circle: go through customs again, get re-x-rayed and then re-board the same plane an hour later.

Luckily, I had met a nice young (and handsome) guy from Madrid who was going home through Dubai. We got along well and spent a lot of time hanging out and talking about various things.

The 13 hour flight to Dubai was less than uneventful. There was a woman with her two young children in the row next to me who was having a challenging time trying to keep her 19month old daughter happy. I remember at one point, she handed her kid to me so she could use the toilet. Ah, never have I held a more unhappy baby! It was funny, though, because after another nap, she took a liking to me and would constantly stare at me and smile at the funny faces I would make.

Dubai Airport: This airport was a feat in human design, to say the least. It was a linear airport with upwards of 400 gates all lined up on either side the main thoroughfare. It had to easily span around 4km from end to end. The ceilings were very high, and the second story would house bars and restaurants randomly throughout. The ground floor was made up of Duty Free shopping. Anything you could imagine was there for the average passenger to purchase on their journey.

I spent a few hours walking the length of the airport with my new Spanish friend. We had a good time looking at a few of the shops and trying out the technology. They had on display, some pretty fancy mobile phones made of gold and worth thousands of dollars. Why anyone would want a phone made of gold is beyond me. Though, if you have a flash enough car, you are supposedly able to use the phone to unlock the car.
After he boarded his plane, I meandered back to where my gate was (about 1km away) and found myself following a couple of German guys up to a bar, and yes, they were also handsome. They gave me some smokes and bought me a beer. In return, I played a little bit of music on my ukulele for them. They thought it was a fare trade. They were working in Dubai as construction engineers and had been there for about 7 months. They told me that since it was Ramadan, even though they didn’t practice the religion, they had to adhere to the rules when in public. That means nothing goes into your mouth from sunup to sundown; no food, no water, no cigarettes. I believe they thought this a very bothersome practice. After finishing the beer, I walked with them back to their gate since it was in the same direction as mine.

I got to my gate about 2 hours before departure and sat next to a fellow on the ground. I asked him if he was going to Prague, and he said yes. We had been on the same flight from New Zealand. We had a good time talking about New Zealand and what we did there. Apparently, he had met Josef in Hastings in January. Talk about 2 degrees of separation!

We had to catch a shuttle from the gate to the airplane. I remember this wave of heat that hit me as I left the air conditioned comfort of the airport. It was an insane heat that just about slapped you in the face. It was 40 degrees C as we boarded the bus and then the plane. I was amazed at the people working outside and wondered how long it would take me to get used to the temperature. My gosh, it was only 10am.

From the plane, I looked out over the city. I remember when we landed in the pre-dawn darkness, I thought that Dubai looked like any other city, but as we left, I was able to clearly see the differences in the building structures. The normal housing seemed to be made of sandstone (not surprising) and the richer neighborhoods had manicured lawns of green grass and a pool. I could see the reasoning for having a pool in the back yard. The only thing that marred the beauty of the place was the thick layer of smog that hung about the city. It limited the visibility quite a bit and made the whole city look dirty with a brown-grey haze. I wondered if there was ever any wind that came along to blow the smog away. I bet that, if that happened, Dubai would be a spectacular place.

The flight was, again, uneventful. By this time, I had decided that Emirates must a policy to make sure that at least one male flight attendant is gorgeous. It always makes a long flight more pleasant when you can look at things that are pleasing to the eye!

Prague: Strangely, the first thing that I came across in Prague was officers who took a look at your passport as soon as you walked off the plane. Then they ushered you towards customs. My customs officer was having what seemed to be a very intellectual conversation with another officer in a neighbouring booth. He took a look at my passport, scanned it and stamped it without breaking the conversation he was having with his friend. I remember thinking to myself, “Well, that was easy.”

Grabbed my bag from the conveyer belt and headed outside to meet with Josef in the lobby. It was a happy reunion. From there, we caught the bus back to his village.

Up up and Away we go!

For those of you reading who need a small catch-up on things...

Started a vet job in January that would run for about 6 months or so. It was about 175km away from my home, so I'd commute there for the week and spend the weekends at home. That job ended in the beginning of July.

That's the first part of the story. The second part involves my current partner, who is Czech. He left New Zealand in April and the plan was to meet up again in August in Czech Republic. Here it is, August and guess where I'm heading?!?

Am I totally stoked? Heck yes! Partner be damned, I'm going to be in Europe for 3 months! How fantastic is that?

The road to this journey has been an interesting one. After a weekend with some friends in Auckland (Gus, Amy, Aaron) I made the decision to be in Prague in the next 5 weeks. This meant that I would need to sell off everything that I couldn't take with me, find some friends to look after the dog, and buy tickets. That was a lot to do in 5 weeks.

When I got home, I started cataloguing things to go onto Trade Me (like an Ebay website in NZ) and gathering price estimates for how much they sell for. For the next few weeks, there was a flurry of activity and I managed to make about $1000 off of all of my stuff. The only thing was that it wasn't in a huge lump sum, but it was enough to pay my rent while I wasn't working.

Special note: I was working 4 days a week with my job, then got dropped to 3 days, then 2 days... there wasn't much saving involved toward the end and I had to dip into my savings to stay afloat for the last month or so.

The last things to go were the bed, the car, and the stuff that was staying in the house that my flatmate wanted to buy off of me. After dropping the price on the car a few hundred $, I managed to get a nice $2300 for it, which was about $300 more than I expected to get. I also had to drop the price on the bed by about $50, relisted it on TradeMe and sold it within 2 hours of putting it up for sale.

The day I sold the car, I bought tickets to Prague (NZD$1700). Just in time too, because the day after, all of the prices were going up by several hundred dollars.

After selling the bed, bought tickets back to the States. Managed to find tickets from Prague to JFK (New York) for USD$576. Sweeeeet deal! That was all sorted. I also bought travel medical insurance, just in case I try to die doing something stupid - like jump from a train.

At the moment, my bags are packed and I'm ready to go. It's been a very good run for me here in New Zealand. I've met a lot of wonderful friends who I know will remain in my life for years to come. Alas, it is time for me to move on with my life and figure out what the next steps are.

Wish me luck!