It has been a strange week here in Auckland.

I arrived a week ago today, my head swimming from the overnight plane ride across the international date line. I was planning to ge things sorted out here as fast as possible -- attend my required orientation, maybe spend an afternoon sightseeing -- and then head south, covering 1500 miles by bus, train, and ferry in under a week, to arrive in Winton, about 40 km short of the southern coast of the South Island.

So I got my phone working, sent a text message to my hostess Kathie in Winton, bought the bus pass, scheduled the train ticket, called the cab to get me to the train station, and was eating a hurried breakfast on Wednesday morning when I received a phone call.
"Don't come!" said Kathie, "It's still winter here! The weather's miserable, we've nothing to do, we're sitting around staring at our navels." Her farm grows market flowers. This year, it's still snowing and the flowers aren't up yet, so there's not much point in hiring farm help until spring finally appears.

So she said to aim for arriving around the 10th or 15th of October, instead of the 25th of September. So I have two or three weeks, not quite enough time for me to look for a "real" job, but too long to indulge myself by spending money freely in tourist fashion.

I've been meeting various interesting, and not-so-interesting, people at the hostel, and trooping out with gangs of them to see pieces of Auckland.

The first afternoon, when I thought I was leaving the next day, I decided to see the Maritime Museum, since Auckland calls itself the City of Sails, and one of the guys from the hostel had spent 15 years as a sailor and made an entertaining companion. Best 6 hours I've spent here yet.

The next day, I felt I should take advnatage of the exchange programs' office here, but a group of young people from America and Denmark had little difficulty convincing me to come on a city hike instead -- up to the top of Mt. Eden, the tallest volcanic cone among the many that dot the landscape, and less than half an hour's walk from our hostel. We ended up rambling all over, enthusiasticaly accosting an avocado tree that was innocently standing beside a mini-market (they seem to be called dairies or Superettes here), eating lunch in a mediterranean cafe, closing down the Auckland Museum (which holds at least 3 sold days worth of artifacts, engaging natural history and science-learning exhibits, and a sobering war memorial, as well as some very quirky exhibits about fashion and the New Zealand experience Then and Now).
We walked back to the hostel by way of the university campus, and a lovely arboretum-type park; not exactly a linear course, but a much better experience of Auckland than a computer terminal would have been.

But soon my young friends' comments about "weird rain!", and fervent desire to make their own attempt on the avocado tree with a stick, despite the patent reluctance of the fruit to bend within knocking distance for any of the previous attempts started to pall. The day was well worth while, but I could tell that if I spent too much longer immersed in that crowd, I'd get more irritable and less satisfied on a fairly steep curve.

So the next day, when I got the call to cancel my train trip, I still didn't join them on their excursion to Waiheke Island. Instead, I spent the day working up a CV (curriculum vitae, like a resume only a bit longer, as near as I can tell) for job-searches,
and taking care of a few other items of personal business, such as setting up an NZ bank account.

Taking care of business, doing something useful, felt good. I'm hungry for that again. Since I'm only in town briefly at this point, I considered volunteering somewhere to build a few contacts for later sumer job applications. I offered to help stuff goodie bags for the exchange program staff, and got offered a day of paid work on Monday instead.

I also went to movie night (Whale Rider, recommended), and through a series of generous coincidences, won a free bus pass called "East As," local idiom roughly equivalent to BFE East, or As Far East As ... Anything You Care to Imagine. So, that might neatly solve my question of what to do with two weeks.

But ...
North is the Bay of Islands, where you can swim with dolphins, weather and feeding cycles permitting (they don't put you in the water if the dolphins are feeding, or, presumably, if anything is trying to feed on the dolphins.) And the Ninety Mile Beach. And the subtropics. It's been lovely, rainy spring weather here, like Oregon's, but that doesn't keep me from realizing the advantages of soaking up a little sun before I send myself south into the end of winter.

So I may try to go north first, and then east.
I've gotten myself a WWOOF membership, to allow me to volunteer on farms and sustainable-living communities as I travel, sparing some of the expense of hostelling without being quite as exposed to the elements as camping at this season would involve. I still hope to find some sort of steady, reasonably lucrative summer job, maybe in a city, but preferably more rural or wilderness. I'm checking the hostel boards for postings.

The hostel holds a mixture of young people escaping between school and a "real job," families on a low-budget holiday, older couples and retirees enjoying their well-earned leisure, and a fair contingent of "people like me." These come in all ages, shapes, and sizes; a few are Kiwis, most travellers; but they are in the midst of reinventing themselves, and keeping a weather eye on the world while they do it. They are interested in a wide variety of things, have lots of experiences or stories to share, and tend to enjoy appreciating a few good things, rather than indulging to excess.

Robert (the sailor) had his heart broken by a (female) fellow sailor, took himself home to South Africa, built a house, and then played golf for over a year. He seems to have taken off traveling again in response to family pressure to get a real job, settle down, do normal things.

Myumi is in her late 40's, has worked 6 years as a hospital junior nurse, but is quitting that job because she has been assigned on a mental ward for the last few months and it's exhausting. She has two daughters, has been married and divorced at least once. She's thinking of re-training again, this time as a elder-care administrator, and is in New Zealand to study English. (And, presumably, to get a memorable break from her ordinary worries.) She returns to Osaka tomorrow.

John trained as a palynologist? Environmental geologist? Paleo-botanist? He specializes in spores, in any case, and it's fascinating and informative, but not terribly lucrative, work. There are about six in the entire country of New Zealand. For creative and practical employment, he's become a specialist in environmental building. After straining his neck in a variety of ways, he is resting at the hostel and selling his car in Auckland, before flying back to Wellington.

Dave from Birmingham, UK, is on the cusp between frat-boy indulgence and middle-management cynicism. He's taken time off to travel, and contemplates returning to his hated sales-and-stocking management job, but on his own terms. He floats between the crowds of bar-hopping students, and the wandeing travellers' conversations in the lounge and dining room, probably most intent on chasing tail.

Shannon has been teaching Mandarin in Taiwan. She's floated between jobs and professions, hopes to find what she wants, or at least find out what it is. She's here to study English in an immersive environment for three months. (John and I both agree, her English is quite good already, including fluent use of idioms such as "not bad," but she wants to improve it.)

Sun has felt this part of the world calling him for some time. (He also believes bulls attack him because he is a Taurus, but eats beef, and they consider that a betrayal; but I suspect his flapping of his arms while approaching cattle in pastures may have more to do with it.) His search has him ricocheting between cynicism and naivete, as well; or perhaps it is just that his critiques of corporate culture and his own friends are informed by much diferent experiences than mine. He has worked insurance, concessions; has been on top of the Sydney Opera House; has been escorted through airports at a frenzied pace to catch the flight he has placed all his hopes on.

Linda is not looking for a way home. She is looking for home. Her family in Iowa is not where she wants to be; her experience teaching English in Korea has left her with no interest in living there; she wants to settle down in Wellington and see if New Zealand might be for her. She, too, floats between the crowds of jabbering youth, and the slower conversations of the job-worn.

I feel a stronger connection to Robert, to Myumi, to Shannon. More shared expressions of hope, of searching, of being torn by the desire to find something better, and the fear that we may not find it, or recognize it, or hold onto it when it's there for us. I think these three people also share a tendency toward compassion, and appreciation of other people and the great wide world. Skill-collecting, a taste for languages and concepts; enjoyment of experience, and moderation, and health.

With Linda, and even more so with Sun and Dave, the connection is imperfect. Companionship is enjoyable, but there is something in the way they reject their past, or the way they approach their future, or perhaps simply their greater interest in city life, which alienates me. I think my yearning for the natural world makes me less appreciative of city-lovers at this stage; perhaps that's one distinction.

John and Linda are the people who I get to consider seeing again in New Zealand. Both will be in Wellington by the time I pass through there; I suspect Linda would make a good flat-mate or hostess for a few weeks or months; she has a restfulness and decency about her. I don't think she would become as intimate a freind as Melanie, my last housemate. But I can hardly expect that, with limited time to know people here; I had better have the resilience to enjoy acquaintances, and rely on my old friends at home still being there for me when I need that intimacy again.

I could work with, and learn from, John, since both his lines of work are on my list of appealing career options. I hesitate mainly because I suspect him, also, of chasing tail, and I'm not interested. I am sensitive to having my tail chased by relative strangers; perhaps sometimes oversensative; but then, maybe my sense is accurate and more men than I'd like to believe it of are tail-chasers.

Ironically, if I had exchanged information with Robert the Sailor, I would probably be putting off making contact. But since I didn't, I hope to run into him again. Would I like to meet him again while he's in New Zealand? Or would I avoid him, since he's wishing for a woman and I'm not currently inclined to be her? With no prospect of meeting again except by chance, I can remember the afternoon I spent with him as the best conversation I've had here; and his flattery, charm, and attention as welcome courtesy, and not as a threat to my own course. There's something safe about men who are not available, or are deeply and generously available for only a short time.

I liked hearing his dreams, castles in the air; I don't think he's ready for them to come true yet. But I hope he gets there.

You ladies out there, be good to him this time.

I could write more, about today's lovely hike -- hiking is called "tramping" here -- on Waiheke island; about grinning into salt spray on the ferry over there; about finding work, and looking for more; about other people I've met; about rambling late-night conversations and their effect on my mornings. But I feel the topic sprawling underneath me, and it's time to quit for now.