24 November 2007 - You can't go home again?

Well I've been here a week but only now have had space enough to record anything about this visit.

I was met by Mum&Dad at Auckland Airport around midnight, and was taken back to my old room where I last slept as a teenager still in University. There were differences of course. I never had a duvet with pixies and fairies on it before, the books on the shelves were not mine and my treasured curtains were gone.

It was definitely a return home. There was a big basket of my favourite NZ food goodies, and a welcome envelope with $20 for my lunch inside. Even the cats got into the spirit of things and left a mouse in the bathroom for me! (Poor mouse)

A few hours later I woke to walls I'd wallpapered myself, and sun streaming in the window (it rained within 2-3 days as expected). A breakfast of feijoa cereal, treetomato, strawberries and yogurt made the short sleep more bearable.

Dad had left me with the keys to his car, so I drove to work down roads I used to walk to school. At the office _ was greeted my familair faces. I've been all over the world and lived in more than 10 different countries, and in two weeks I will help move boxes out of the same building with the same people I unpacked boxes with, a mere 13 years ago. It's been all very surreal and quite grounding. In some ways it's like I never left. Trees have grown taller. There's a shopping precinct where I used to store all the pumps and valves for work and Wendy's is not the only place to eat in a 10 mile radius. But mostly this week has been a great long trip down memory lane. Even my phone number is familiar - just two digits off the one they gave me in 1994.

Tomorrow I may be able to finish early (the job is still just starting) and find salsa. We'll see. Wish me luck.