The day I left London my good friend Simon gave me a departing gift that would keep me occupied for the long journey home. A 1,300 page history of London! By my calculations this should take about 3 years to finish but the more and more I read it, the more intrigued I get, and in turn the more I read. The history of this city is nothing boring and is easily filling the 1-1,300 page gap. From getting conquered in time before Christ by the Saxon’s, to conquering nations of their own….this city has seen it all. The book is a series of fictional stories following six families and their decedents through the generations from the cities’ humble beginning to its present day significance. It also  features a pub called the George that started as a brewery in the 1100’s and is STILL in use today! I know, I went there. I only wish I could have known the history of the streets I was walking for those two months (some of them built by the Romans, who invented stone roads)

Back in Welly for the moment and moving on soon.
Wow it has been a long, long time since I have actually wrote anything up on this. It makes me feel so lazy when I look at this page…well calling it lazy is a bit harsh because I do sometimes update the header picture or very occasionally update with a video, but alas, I have realized I am just not a writer. I have tried to keep a daily journal where I would jot the tid bits down at the end of the day but it turns out to be a bit of jotting once every other month. And I’m always loosing the damn thing.

This sort of reminds me of when two old friends reunite after a long absence and begin to delve into each others lives once again…you and I are, at this moment, doing the same. It is just completely one sided and when everyone (if anyone) will read it, it will be not until the next day or week or month. But in a way, we are now being connected once again.

If you are not my parents or my brother or sister…you may not know a whole lot of what I have been up to this past year. Like I before mentioned, I am not a writer so it is hard for me to write what its like living in another country for a year of my life. Its hard to put down with clarity the strangeness, excitement, beauty, and unfamiliarity’s of this place. There will most likely never be a book published about my travels, only a hand full of pictures and a few tapes worth of video clips that express some of the places and people along the way, but in no way, shape or form will it capture the emotions, thoughts, and even growth of a person. I do feel that New Zealand has changed me. I don’t know if it would have been any different if I would have ventured to another place but I don’t care, I like what has happened here.

- Sublime landscapes do not introduce us to our inadequacy; rather, to touch on a the crux of their appeal, they allow us to conceive of a familiar inadequacy in a new and more helpful way. Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically introduces viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.    – Allan de Botton The Art of Travel