The Write Way Around: Traveling Tales

“You have to see this. It’s nuts,” my older brother Michael said to me after coming home from school one day.

We went over to the Ikea computer desk set up in the corner of his room. I must have been 15, which would have made Michael nearly 18. He turned on the colossal of a monitor we had back then, booted up the tower, and we waited as the computer loaded at a glacial speed. He kept talking to me about this thing from New Zealand called the Haka, a Maori war dance that the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team preforms before a game. He just kept telling me, “You have to see this. You have to see this.”

I really don’t remember whether YouTube was a thing then, but we somehow watched this video online, and as we sat there, and I remember Michael saying, “Look at that guy’s face. Look at them sticking their tongues out. It’s so intense.”

The All Blacks players looked like they were under a trance, possessed almost as they started performing this tribal-challenge ritual.

The captain started screaming, walking amongst his team, with some players stretching their tongues out as far below their chins as they could go. Their eyes were wild and fixated, their necks twisting and turning in every which direction. The whole while they’re screaming a Maori chant, slapping their tree-like thighs, stomping their feet with such power I imagined the stadium was shaking. They were pounding their chests and slapping their forearms so that you could hear the sting, strength and force of body-on-body contact. If you haven’t ever seen this ritual performed, it really is something worth seeing.

Watching the Haka with my brother Michael was one of the first things I really learned about New Zealand culture. Slowly I started learning more, all of course rugby-based information as my brother became more serious about his career.

And then one day, when I was traveling through Singapore about four years ago, I met a couple of British girls named Amy and Nadia in an internet cafe who were backpacking around the world. They were heading on to New Zealand, and I was sitting with them on the computers as they planned their trip, telling me about the glacier hikes they wanted to do, the adrenaline-packed activities and the diversely lush landscape that made New Zealand the setting for the Lord of the Rings films.

It was in that moment that I decided I wanted to go to New Zealand, that I was going to be hell bent on getting to that end of the globe so that I can relish in the sights and fresh air of what looked and sounded like was one of the world’s most beautiful countries.

I’ve talked a little bit about things that make me most nervous about this upcoming trip, but with all that’s been coming into fruition for the past week or so, I’ve been getting more excited with each day.

One of the things I am looking forward to most while I am traveling New Zealand is meeting new people. I feel almost like I have forgotten what it’s like to backpack and be a backpacker, and though there is a part of me that is quite enjoying being a presentable woman, getting dressed in cute outfits and feeling, well, attractive when I get ready to go out on the weekends, I feel like it won’t take long before I slip back into the carefree lifestyle that comes with backpacking.

It’s been a while since I have felt truly reinvigorated, and from what so many of my friends tell me about New Zealand, I think that if there is any country to make me feel light again and to complete me, it will be New Zealand.

I have a lot of professional opportunities that I am excited about, from hotel reviews to activity reviews, and I recently was presented with an opportunity to be a resident expert for a popular New York-based site that wants me to write for them as I travel (and get paid to do it, so fingers crossed I pass the editing test!).

There are a lot of good things coming my way, and I am eager to get my business and portfolio growing and starting that challenge off with traveling New Zealand.

And as terrible as this sounds, I am really also excited to go sky diving, which is something I have never done before but that I’ve always reserved for for traveling New Zealand. The opportunities to go are limitless, and now it comes down to deciding which place I want to do it in. I’ve tossed around doing it for my 27th birthday, but there is another activity in the works that I might choose to do instead, even though the thought of it absolutely terrifies me. Nothing like scaring yourself to death on your birthday.

I’m also praying every day that when the time comes to explore the Milford Sound, God grants me a rain-free day that’s overridden with sunshine and a stretches under a placid blue sky. I truly feel like the exploring the Milford Sound will be what revives me and makes me feel like I’ve come full circle, like things will make sense again when it comes to remembering who I am and what I want out of life as a whole.

Maybe that is putting too much pressure on it, or maybe to some people that might sound so cliche – the idea of finding yourself while traveling. I would not say that I am looking to find myself on this trip, but I do think that I am looking to finally wake up and stay that way.

My brother and sister-in-law went to New Zealand in 2011 when Michael co-captained the USA team in the Rugby World Cup, and they spent some time traveling through the country after. All they can talk about is this little beach in the South Island called Nelson, a place that easily stole their hearts. I can’t wait to go there and feel a little piece of my family there with me.

To keep it short, since I think this is getting long, other things I am looking forward to about New Zealand:

• The Culture. One thing I learned quickly while living in Australia was that the aboriginal culture isn’t really one that was celebrated, where as from what I have heard and read about New Zealand, it seems like the Maori culture bears a strong presence through the islands. I am excited to learn about and experience the richness of it.
  

  Bay of Islands. North Island

• The landscapes. It may seem really generic, but they filmed Lord of the Rings in New Zealand for a reason. It’s a country where you can go from surfing to skiing all in the same day and in the same place. I just imagine it to be a country that’s ridden with all sorts of dream-like scenarios when it comes to experiencing and taking advantage of the outdoors. I don’t consider myself a hiker, but I can’t wait to explore the landscape.

Hiking Franz Josef Glacier. This could fall under the landscapes/activities, but it’s too good to that happen. I have never hiked a glacier before, and it has been my second dream activity (next to sky diving) for when I am traveling New Zealand.

• The people. By now, I’ve worked with heaps of Kiwis having lived in Australia for two years, and I’ve also met a fair amount of Kiwis on my travels throughout the years. Many travelers learn that Australians are notorious for being friendly, and the same is said about the people from New Zealand. Though this may be a generalization, I feel like I’ll come across a lot of happy and warm locals throughout the four and a half weeks that I am there.
• Channeling my inner daredevil. I haven not done anything remotely scary since living in Europe when I went canyon jumping in Switzerland back in February 2007 (wow). As I have said, I always wanted to sky dive, but I feel like that “Do as the Romans do”saying comes in to play when visiting New Zealand. It’s so well known for its adrenaline-filled activities, from white water rafting to bungee jumping to luging. I need to make a lot of them happen.
• The accents. When I first got to Australia and met people from NZ, I assumed they were just from way far out in the middle of no where, which would have explained why they sounded so different. Their accent is a little sharper, higher and shorter, not as deep as that of an Aussie. I actually can’t wait to be surrounded by it.
• Spending my birthday. Eventually I plan to do a post about my birthday celebrations, but I have been planning to spend one birthday of my 20s in NZ for a very long time, and I am about to cross that off the bucket list.
• Feeling grateful. I think I am going to walk away from NZ with a renewed sense of how grateful I truly am at the end of the day to do what I am doing and seen all that I have seen.