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!