My feet were shackled inside boots for 25 consecutive hours, my rations were sporadic (and at times unidentifiable), and an entire day was stolen from me.

I signed up for this. 😊

Greetings from the Southern Hemisphere and the other side of the international dateline! After a brief stay outside Seattle (at what I considered jet lag base camp), my kind friend awoke before dawn to bring me to the ferry at 4:30am. I ensured that any observant citizen (i.e. anyone with sight) could identify me as a tourist by donning the Tourist 7.0 uniform: the double backpack frontsie-backsie look, complete with loose items dangling by caribiners from the outside. An hour by ferry, half by foot, half by train, and finally the interminable (23 hour) sterilized life inside airports and airplanes.

I packed my bags with the anticipation of camping, hiking, writing, churching, and wintering for the next 6 weeks. As such, I felt like I had a satisfactorily small assemblage of my earthly belongings at the onset of the trip. However, crossing the equator appears to have caused some sort of gravitational and mass-volume disturbance, because I now feel that all of my possessions since age 12 have been repeatedly crammed into my overflowing 60- and 12-liter backpacks. This feeling was further exacerbated when I finally reached New Zealand soil.

New Zealand is afraid of soil. And insects. And anything else that is remotely suggestive of harboring creepy crawlies. In all my former traveling, never before have I been greeted on the tarmac by customs agents with insecticide who fumigate the airplane cabin before allowing anyone to deplane. When going through customs, my boots were inspected, and my tent was removed for laboratory decontamination (literally; taken hostage behind locked windows and secret hallways and all). This in itself was quite the debacle, as I had packed my tubular backpack with the most needed items at the top – my tent (and in particular the its pegs/stakes) was deep in the bowels of my pack, requiring me to unpack a disproportionate amount of items in order to access it. And, as all tightly-packaged items are wont to do, the removed items expanded into Nope-sized goods that I had to string from the outside of my bag so that I could rip it apart again in the dark of a super-heated hostel room, while attempting not to wake my as-yet-unseen bunk mates.

My body was rebelling against me from travel hour 21 of 25, refusing to consider any food edible, thrumming out songs of discontent between my temples, and generally threatening to crumple my legs at any given time in a strange sort of bodily temper tantrum.

After 4 hours of fitful sleep, a hot shower (hallelujah!), bag reorganization (umm, just a lot of fistful cramming), and another shuttle ride, I was back at the airport. It seems that once you’re in New Zealand and de-buggified, you’re no longer a threat. I had nary an X-ray, canine, or visual lookover before boarding my flight. 🤷🏼‍♀️

So good morning and happy Sabbath from above the mountainous clouds floating over New Zealand! 🇳🇿 I can’t wait to tell you more about this country… including its pristine, native-bugs-only flora and fauna. 😉