On Christmas night, we left Los Angeles bound for New Zealand. In 2005, we traveled here with David’s mother and his brother for three weeks. We spent one week on the North Island and two on the South Island.
We fell in love with New Zealand then, and Googled how to apply for citizenship and everything. But we came home and resumed our lives, and the memories of it faded. It was striking enough, however, that it was the only thing on our Round the World trip that was a repeat of somewhere we’d already been. But we knew we liked it there; we remembered that much. We had an adventurous flight, with a long layover in Fiji and a missing bag that we were reunited with in Auckland. It was a shaky beginning, but even before the plane touched down on the tarmac we remembered.
As we got below the cloud cover on our approach in Auckland, and saw how green and unspoiled the land was, it all came flooding back to us. We remembered how beautiful it is here, and how much we didn’t want to leave when we were here the last time. The air smells sweet, the people are lovely and friendly, and despite being halfway around the world it feels like home. Some beautiful, idyllic version of where you want to put down roots and grow. We’d remembered that we loved New Zealand, but that memory had become an echo of the memory. We knew we loved it, but had stopped remembering exactly why. We regret only planning on spending two weeks here. We hope it will be enough to carry us through until our return.
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