Ode to Christchurch, ode to New Zealand

ODE TO CHRISTCHURCH

Dear Christchurch,

When we first met, it wasn't exactly love at first sight. We were on our way to beautiful Arthur's Pass and didn't take the effort of  exploring you, staying in one of your not so pretty suburbs. 

The second time we made acquaintance was on a Saturday evening. It was the middle of summer and we were planning to have a nice evening out and enjoying some cold beers and terraces packed with people. The only thing we found however was emptiness, destruction and ugliness. We were quite shocked, not only to find that there was almost nobody out in your streets, but even more to see that four years after the massive earthquakes that killed 185 people, you were still in ruins. 

We saw your once beautiful cathedral, half of it destroyed. We saw huge buildings, ready to be demolished. We saw cafes that still had glasses and plates on the tables but had been closed for four years. We saw more gates, cones and fences than we have ever seen before. More than half of your centre had turned in to temporary parking lots and some of the suburbs had entire streets, including all the houses on it, wiped out. 

It seemed like the earthquakes had just happened a couple of months ago, not four years. We were determined not to spend any more time than necessary with you and left for the beach the next day. 

Two months later we had to come back to you. Since we have our flight to Bali today at your airport, we had no choice. We made all the preparations to sell Willy, but still didn't like you at all and fled to the lovely Banks Peninsula to go WWOOFing for two weeks. 

Last week we came back for the fourth time. We needed time to sort out some stuff (selling the car, sending camping gear and warm clothes back home) and that meant we had a lot of spare time to fill up. And that's when we slowly started to fall in love with you. 

It takes quite some effort to look past the depressing scenery that is still all around. But when you do, you see and feel a whole new energy bubbling up. Some buildings are being rebuild, streets are fixed and there's a wonderful new cardboard cathedral. But it's the street art, from tiny stickers to huge murals, and the little projects (vegetable gardens, book exchanges, shopping malls out of containers, food stalls in caravans, tiny parks) all around that make you a nice place to wander through. 

And as always it's your people. The ones that stayed and still love you, although most of you is simply gone. Fellow travellers usually hate you and want to leave as soon as possible, just like we did the first three times. But the people that live here come up with some fantastic initiatives and see that there's some great opportunities when rebuilding you. 

Two of those people are Eroica and Greg, our peaceful, generous and fantastic couchsurfing hosts that took us in their lovely home after saying goodbye forever to our beloved Willy to ensure that our last days in New Zealand were going to be some of the best. 

So, Christchurch, thank you for a more than interesting end of our trip here. More than that: thank you for making us feel at home in a (be it somewhat extraordinary) city again. We'd love to come and see the new you in a couple of years. 

ODE TO NEW ZEALAND

Yes, New Zealand, we heard you think: "What about an ode to me, you ungrateful little dorks!"

Well, the vast majority of this entire blog has been an ode to you. It's pretty obvious we quite enjoyed our five months travelling all around you. We probably don't even realize how much you changed us. And we probably don't realize how much we're going to miss you when we get on that plane today and a huge culture shock awaits us. 

We're very grateful that you taught us to be more environmentally aware. You showed us, day after day, why we, for example, don't use conventional deodorants, cosmetics and cleaning products anymore and why we will only buy vegetarian, mostly organic food and will be happy to pay a lot more for that ("it's what you put in and on your own body, for god's sake!"). Through your stunning scenery and wildlife, you made it clear to us that it's actually a good thing to be a little paranoid about every single thing we buy or do and trying to find out if it's ecological, organic, sustainable and ethical. 

You also taught us that we will just have to cope with the remarks ("you don't know what you're missing" - we know very well what we're missing, thank you) and jokes ("I made you this delicious sausage!"). 

Thank you too for learning us so much about history, plants, evolution, being simply happy, gardening, meditating, being flexible, cars, birds, social issues, preserving food, being patient, organics, relationships, permaculture, politics, inner peace, lifestyles, life and lives, living from day to day, how people work and especially about how we ourselves work, on our own and as a couple. 

We'll be back. 

"All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle that is taking place every instant." 
Henry David Thoreau - Walden