I fell in Love…

May 22
I met Sexy Man at the Salmon Farm Café, a lovely little café enroute from Queenstown to Franz Josef. It was a cold and rainy, miserable day weatherwise. And this little café, like the one we’d stopped at previously, had a lovely fire going in the fireplace. I headed straight for it as I was feeling quite chilled. It was one of those days where you feel it right into your bones and you have a hard time warming up. In front of the fireplace, there was an armchair and a lovely couch. Sexy Man was sitting in the armchair just beginning his salmon lunch and I went and sat down on the couch. Naturally. How could I not? Couch…fireplace…perfect combination. We subsequently struck up a conversation and had a nice little chat, as you do here. He’s a nomad, traveling in NZ at the moment by car, originally from the US, teaches Outdoor Education and lives on a boat now docked somewhere near Fiji…or maybe it's Guam…that he’s going back to soon. He’s definitely of the Nature Tribe! He was interested in my trip and asked me many questions. The question that caught me off guard the most was, had I fallen in love this year? Apparently I blushed as I answered, “Yes, in many different places, in many different ways.”

I’ve been thinking more about that question since it was asked. And it seems appropriate that since I’m coming full circle to think back and reflect on the things I have done. I have fallen in love. The world is such a beautiful place. I love New Zealand, the diversity in landscape…not unlike Canada but all concentrated on a much smaller scale. I fell in love with the atmosphere, the people you meet on the bus…or in cafes by fireplaces…it’s like a little club, the stories you share. I fell in love with the penguins and the cold, spectacular ice of the glacier. I fell in love with the barren landscape of the outback, the colours and the vastness and the family our little group created. I fell in love with the class and sophistication of Sydney and the way you could enter a completely different and foreign world while scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef. I fell in love with the African way of life because it’s so different from anything that I/we are used to or know. I fell in love with the birds and lush vegetation, the animals, the beauty of the people. I loved Moshi, the comfortable autonomy that I experienced there. After having learned so much about how the society and culture works, I could feel comfortable and safe there on my own. I fell in love with the exotic and ancient worlds of Turkey, the smells and the sounds. I love the ancientness and wilderness of Scotland, the purple heather on the moors and the constantly changing weather. Well and then there’s Paris, of course. I just love Paris. And Dresden and Berlin too.

I love the hospitality and grace that so many people have shown to me, the friends and family all over the world. I could not have experienced the world in the same marvelous way without them, whether they provided refuge, or tour guiding or family time or all of the above.


Coming full circle is hard. It’s cool that I’ll have literally traversed around the globe (although if you look at it on the map, it looks like I’ve hardly been anywhere at all!). It’s cool that I’m meeting people again at the end stages of my trip that I first met near the beginning. But it’s also hard. After having fallen in love around the world I’m coming back to where I started. I’m working on how I might incorporate all of that into being back at home and what that means for living well. So I think it will all be ok it's just a little hard getting there.

By the way, Sexy Man drove off south in his car to Wanake. I got back on the bus and continued north to Franz Josef.