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Final reflections from an antipodean romantic hopeful

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Water is the great leveller. It finds the balance, where it needs to be. Flying over Amsterdam I could see that the edge between land and water has been blurred. The distinction simply isn’t valid here. It makes a mockery of tides and of our fear of sea level rises, but I think the Dutch must be falling over themselves to avoid it.  I flew over fields of colour while arriving in Holland, thinking about returning in some small way to my homeland (well - one of them, the most recent - my Irish, Scottish, English, Danish, French and German relatives arrived in New Zealand some 150-200 years ago). Here’s something I wrote a few months before departing on my travels: “Thinking about why I want to travel - it’s not about the beaches, we have them here. It’s culture. Ancient ruins, history, artefacts, art, and divinity. Why do I need that? Because in New Zealand we are still young, fresh, ignorant of our forebears, where we come from, and therefore, of what we are. I need to see, smell, t...
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The homecoming

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Coming home is indeed sweet. After a bout of homesickness in the last few days of my trip, I was ready to fly the dreaded 24 hour journey back to Wellington and see my family, cats, colleagues and friends. The flights were long but helped a little by having a man from Wellington seated next to me. We chatted a lot about Wellington, its troubles and its hopes. We went through security together and it was nice to have met someone who had also been travelling the last three weeks around Europe (and in his case, North Africa) and coming home the same day. I see him sometimes walking past my window and we’ve said hi on the street. I arrived home to a messy, overfilled house and cats who had missed me, and their routine. The kids came over a few hours later and it was back to busy life. This last post has been difficult to write because I have been getting straight back into everyday life, at work and at home, sorting out some logistics, and procrastinating also. I’ve needed some space from ...
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Rotterdam

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I decided not to sleep in Amsterdam, but instead, in the larger port city of Rotterdam. For a few reasons: it appealed more (cheaper hotels, a higher chance of seeing a drum n bass gig, more harbourside spots to admire, less tourists, and recommendations from people I met in Noordwijk and Leiden). Either way, Amsterdam is only a 20-minute train ride away, and the airport is in the middle. And I could always change my mind. Holland province is amazing in that multiple cities are within a short commute of each other. Imagine having Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and maybe Hamilton all within a short train ride, or even a bicycle ride, of each other? Spoiled for choice - Dutchies in this northern province can choose to reside in one city and work in another, and it has quicker travel times than we have between Wellington city and the Hutt Valley or Kapiti. So I packed up ‘little blue’ and headed across the road to the station. The trains left every 30 minutes. My hotel was a ...
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What’s in the little blue suitcase?

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  This blog is called Traveling Light for a few reasons. One of them is literal - I’m going overseas for three weeks with carry-on luggage. Who does that? Turns out, a few people I’ve met at airports and on planes who think the same way. Why? Because it’s so much easier to traverse countries (and customs/security regulations) with less.  I packed light on purpose. I had been gathering together the perfect ‘capsule wardrobe’ for months before this trip. Collected minis from my dermalogica skincare routine, planned for the weather (Springtime - much like Wellington’s mild), limited my expectations of lavish glamorous nights out, no beach attire as I was going inland, predicted that I’d be walking on cobblestones for most of the trip, etc. Experience was at the forefront of my mind when I planned the contents of ‘little blue’. Not my usual anxiety of worrying about what could happen. Probability wise, I wasn’t going to be meeting anyone ‘special’ whom I didn’t already know. I wan...
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