![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This was mostly written on the train on Friday, and has been patched up in short bursts since. It's very long - medals will be awarded to those who manage to wade through it - and even then I've missed huge amounts out...
So... left the UK at the end of January, and flew out to New Zealand. It took me four flights and about 36 hours to get to Wellington (that's what you get for buying cheap tickets from STA :), thus more than doubling the number of planes I'd been on in my life, then Felix met me at the airport and drove me across the city to his family's home.
I spent the first day or so there recovering from a long flight, then went off by myself for a ( whistlestop tour of the South Island. )
I flew back up to Wellington, to spend some time there, and to be in the Geiringer family production of Alice in Wonderland. ( Which was fantastic. )
After that, Felix and I rented a car, and spent nearly a week driving ( up the the North Island to Auckland. )
I've been worried about getting repetitive in my comments; the trouble is that the whole country is beautiful, and in an enormous variety of ways. I have many, many good things to say about it, and would encourage anyone to go there for a holiday...
It's a friendly country. In many ways it appears startlingly unsophisticated, provincial, almost... I've found this hard to explain to people, and hard to justify, but it was what repeatedly struck me. It's as if it's decided not to go along the same route as Britain, and has benefited; it's stayed itself, and a lot of the things I'd regard as bad about progress are absent... few big cities, hardly any motorways, no culture of "we can't do that, someone might sue us". Yet in other ways it's very advanced - forward thinking environmental policies, and plans for conservation. I noticed a sign up marking the celebration of the centenary of Womens' Suffrage - in 1993. NZ women could vote from 1893... pretty revolutionary, for its time. I think it might just have its priorities right :)
So... left the UK at the end of January, and flew out to New Zealand. It took me four flights and about 36 hours to get to Wellington (that's what you get for buying cheap tickets from STA :), thus more than doubling the number of planes I'd been on in my life, then Felix met me at the airport and drove me across the city to his family's home.
I spent the first day or so there recovering from a long flight, then went off by myself for a ( whistlestop tour of the South Island. )
I flew back up to Wellington, to spend some time there, and to be in the Geiringer family production of Alice in Wonderland. ( Which was fantastic. )
After that, Felix and I rented a car, and spent nearly a week driving ( up the the North Island to Auckland. )
I've been worried about getting repetitive in my comments; the trouble is that the whole country is beautiful, and in an enormous variety of ways. I have many, many good things to say about it, and would encourage anyone to go there for a holiday...
It's a friendly country. In many ways it appears startlingly unsophisticated, provincial, almost... I've found this hard to explain to people, and hard to justify, but it was what repeatedly struck me. It's as if it's decided not to go along the same route as Britain, and has benefited; it's stayed itself, and a lot of the things I'd regard as bad about progress are absent... few big cities, hardly any motorways, no culture of "we can't do that, someone might sue us". Yet in other ways it's very advanced - forward thinking environmental policies, and plans for conservation. I noticed a sign up marking the celebration of the centenary of Womens' Suffrage - in 1993. NZ women could vote from 1893... pretty revolutionary, for its time. I think it might just have its priorities right :)
