i’m not trying to come out as a relationships expert (trust me - i’m not!) but i was thinking about my life here in auckland and had this metaphor in my head. it might be just me and my particular experience as an expat (i hate this word but i think i hate the word emigrant even more so it’ll have to do) and the several stages i’ve been going through over the last year or so.

when i first visited auckland (for about 3 months), everything about it was perfect and i just wanted to give it every little bit of my attention. i had my camera in hand at all times and would take the silliest photos of everything (bus stops, rubbish bins, phone booths, road signs, etc) just because they were different from home and, therefore, better. plus, i had a return ticket and knew i’d be away from it fairly soon so wanted to make sure i wouldn’t miss it.

i was going to leave it so i didn’t take it for granted.

a few months later, i bought a one-way ticket to auckland - that meant i still loved it. subconsciously, since i had given it such evidence of my undying love, i didn’t need to do anything else. our relationship was established and we were fully committed to each other. so the camera started spending its days in the bag. there was still a lot to photograph but what was the point? i wasn’t going to be away from it so why would i need still pictures of what i could see every day?

looking back, i think even the way i referred to it changed. there was no sweetness in the word auckland anymore. it wasn’t the place where i’d come to explore as a tourist. it wasn’t exotic and different anymore. it was the city where i was simply breathing and eating and sleeping and - this one was a killer! - working. it was home.

plus, i’d seen all the attractions. there’s not that many of them, in auckland (see, i wouldn’t have said this in the beginning!). museum? check. art gallery? check. sky tower? check. rangitoto? check. check. check. we’d gone in all romantic dates. we were done.

it’s been over a year now. we know each other well so i hardly ever remember to take photos of it. we don’t really have romantic dates anymore because we’ve seen everything together. i know that the city is here everyday when i wake up in the morning and it’s up to me, not to it, to decide when we stop seeing each other.

the city has seen me feeling happy, sad, sick and healthy and i’ve seen it in all seasons. all of a sudden, i’m not just thinking about it in a touristic sense (when the next art exhibit will open or what farmer’s market i’ll want to attend) but in a more political way (why won’t they have more buses going to where i live or why isn’t the inorganic rubbish collection done more often, for example).

things that i used to like about it are now just plain annoying (seriously, do we all need to live so spread out? and what’s with malls closing so early? wait… i never liked this one anyway). but it’s ok. the city knows i’m still here and i don’t need to express my love quite so much (being here is enough proof, right?).

i criticise auckland a lot because there are a lot of things wrong about it. so really, there’s no rational reason for me to love it. but i do. i don’t tell it very often and i’m always quicker to criticise it than to point out how nice it looks. i mean, why should i? i’ve been here for over a year so it should know by now.

oh auckland, my dear, we’ve become one of those couples…

• i’m still a bit shocked about the king of pop’s totally unexpected death. he lived a really tormented life, despite all the fame and money, so i guess we can always assume that he’s in a better place now (it’s in moments like this that religion comes in handy, right?).
• it’s still insanely cold in kiwiland (to the point where kiwis that would previously spend all winter wearing tshirts - aka c. - can now be spotted out and about wearing jackets (shocking, i know!) and even moaning about the cold.
• speaking of cold - i haz one. since yesterday. sore throat, sore muscles… you know, the whole combo. i guess this weekend won’t bring any adventures.
• still on the topic of boring weekends, aside from my normal 9 to 5pm job, i have a pile of words that need to be written before we leave for china on the 11th. i’ve been commissioned to write over 3000 words (divided i two articles), plus have a bunch of other projects on hold that i want to get done as soon as possible. so guess what this crazy 24 year old is gonna be doing this weekend…
• oh, yesterday i got some books that i had ordered last week, plus some bargains that c. picked up for me at whitcoulls. the pile of “to read” is getting quite big again.
• oh and i didn’t win $35 million on big wednesday, as i hoped i would.
• speaking of being poor, last weekend, my friend m. and i went “opshopping” and i managed to return home with a cute bag and a dress for just NZ$8 (that’s less than 4 euros, people!). so now, i am officially a fan of opshops (that’s what new zealanders call second hand shops, by the way).
• i suck at playing boggle but i really don’t suck at making cupcakes.
• i can’t wait for summer

that’s it. the weekend starts in a few minutes and i need to buy tissues.

polly evans has been keeping me company on the bus ride to work (and sometimes back home, if it’s not too dark or i’m not too tired to keep my eyes open). not polly evans herself, of course, but her second book, kiwis might fly, about the time she spent touring kiwiland on a motorbike.

i’ll probably tell you more about the book after i’m finished but today i just wanted to mention something interesting. when evans talks about waihi (a town that i’ve only visited briefly, with a quick stop at the martha goldmine on the way back to auckland from helping to clean a park near rotorua), she mentions a curious exhibit that you can find if you visit the local museum: human thumbs preserved in jars. why? well, why not, right? after all, this is kiwiland!

evans went on to explain what the exhibit is about: back in the old days of mining, miners had no pensions so they couldn’t afford to retire. the solution that they found - and that, apparently, became quite common practice - was to cut off their own thumbs so that they could be considered unfit to work and could get compensation from their company. bizzarre, isn’t it? but if you try to imagine spending a lifetime working in a mine and not having enough money to retire and spend the last few years of your life without having to dig for gold, maybe you’d be considering all your options too.

anyway, next time i’m in waihi, i’ll definitely stop at the museum to check out the pickled thumbs - it’s a little bit of kiwi history that should not be forgotten.

p.s. i was going to post a photo of the pickled thumbs but then thought it was a bit too gross so instead i’ll just link you to it here.

a total spur of the moment decision, after c. found cheap fares online. next thing we know, we had a booking confirmation for nearly two weeks in beijing. exploring the great wall of china, walking through tiananmen and the forbidden city, taking a gazillion photos of the summer palace and the temple of heaven (and everything else)… all this and more waits for us in a little less than a month. this, of course, and the promise of a hint of summer to save me from the freezing days we’ve been having in kiwiland.

the rough guide to beijing already has sticky notes marking must-see places (aren’t they all?). a mandarin phrasebook and a new notebook to write down my thoughts on beijing complete the “i-can’t-wait-to-be-in-beijing!” party pack.

before i start, a couple of facts:

• i don’t think underage people should drink
• i agree with a law that tries to prevent underage people from having access to alcohol
• i agree that if the law says that if you’re under 25 you need to show your ID to buy alcohol, you definitely have to do it

out of 144 countries surveyed, new zealand was elected as the most peaceful nation on earth. now this doesn’t mean we should all go leaving our doors unlocked at all times or anything like that. crime still happens in new zealand (and every now and then we hear about some really violent ones). but it’s a nice comforting feeling to think that you live in the most peaceful country in the world.

The Global Peace Index is published by the Institute for Economics and Peace with the Economist Intelligence Unit and is now in its third year. new zealand had ranked #4 in 2008 but reached the top spot this year, much due to the political stability it gained in November 2008 with the election of the National-Act coalition.

But that wasn’t all: the analysis was based in 23 criteria, including:

• number of homicides per 100,000 people
• ease of access to weapons of minor destruction
• likelihood of violent demonstrations
• respect for human rights
• military expenditure as a percentage of GDP

the ghost bikes project was started in missouri (usa) in 2003, to honour the memory of cyclists who were killed on the road. there are about 80 ghost bikes all over the world. new zealand has two of those bikes, in whangarei (a town located about two hours north of auckland).

this one was placed there in memory of travel agent and athlete Lynley MacDonald (1974-2008). 

Learn more about the ghost bikes all over the world by visiting the ghost bike project website.

it’s something that i took for granted for 23 years until i moved to auckland and had to realise that, no matter how advanced a city wants to be, if there aren’t enough tax payers and there’s a large area to cover, the public transport system is going to be crappy.’crappy’ is, indeed, a euphemism for the public transport system in bucklame. but like i said just a few words ago, it is understandable, considering that there aren’t enough tax payers to cover such a large area.  i know nothing about the subject, like 99.9% of people that have an opinion on something, but my guess is that it would be fairly easy to make some little improvements (more buses & better routes, please!). however, i do realise that a subway system is extremely expensive to build and auckland can’t afford do have one.

or can it? the discussion now seems to have been added to an official agenda to be discussed by authorities this week, according to stuff.co.nz. will auckland residents and visitors have access to underground transport in a near(-ish) future? my feeling is that nothing will be done about it because they’ll quickly realise that it is an unbearable expense at the moment. still, if auckland really wants to be a super city, it better live up to the title.

c. calls it the best business idea ever (and, don’t tell him i said this, but he’s right). by now, i’m sure most people have heard of it but that’s no reason not to mention it since i really believe kiva is one of the best things that have happened to the world lately.

the idea is almost too simple to be true but the fact is that it works. it makes every individual matter and gives everyone the opportunity to change lives. kiva is, basically, a micro-lending website through which people can load money to entrepreneurs in developing countries. their profiles are displayed on the kiva website, along with the loan details (how much, what for, etc) and you can choose to loan as little as $25. when the total amount is raised, the loan is disbursed to the entrepreneur and he/she starts paying it back. Kiva keeps users up to date with the loan status, through emails and whenever the entrepreneur puts a payment through, you receive a credit on your kiva account. you can then choose to either get the money or loan it to another entrepreneur. so you know all those times when you thought you’d love to help those who need but you can’t afford to spend money? well, that problem is gone. you’re not actually spending the money, you’re simply loaning it.

brilliant, right? c. and i joined kiva in january and we are still amazed at how fantastic it is. and the most amazing thing is the number of times that i find myself browsing the list of entrepreneurs currently raising money, click on someone’s profile only to find out that they’ve just finished raising the total amount. It really does renew my faith in mankind.

anyway, if you’re not a member of kiva yet, i really don’t know what you’re waiting for.

it’s only wednesday and this week has been quite the rollercoaster. c. was rushed out to the emergency room at 5am on monday with severe kidney stone pain (he’s had kidney stones for years and every now and then they decide to remind him that they’re there). after spending about 10 hours in hospital, with loads of medication (he was given morphine three times, to try to ease off the pain), he was sent home and booked for surgery for the next day. the nurses at auckland hospital were lovely and kept checking on him. the doctors also kept going in and he was never left alone or without news for very long.

the next day, he was also very well prepared for the surgery and even though he was told he would be the last on the list for the day, he was out of there by 4pm, with lots of recommendations. 2709 electromagnetic shock waves, he seems to be kidney stone-free for the time being.

the positive thing about the last couple of days is how impressed i was with the public health system in kiwiland. if c. was in portugal, he’d probably have paid an astronomical bill to the hospital (or he would have had to claim insurance) and he’d have had to wait perhaps months for a surgery (or go through private and pay another enormous bill). but no. there was no insurance claim to be made, no avalanche of paperwork to fill out and no money to be paid. not one cent. kiwiland seems to do a good job of looking after its kiwis. now lets wait for the medication to do the rest.