[The Life of Shaun #568] Aotearoa

I was disappointed by New Zealand. Or, more accurately, I was disappointed that I was disappointed by New Zealand. It's really not New Zealand's fault - I put too much hope and expectation on it to sort out all my angst in Britain. That's too much to ask of anywhere, and really something that needs to be dealt with back here at home.

The country as a whole is lovely. It is beautiful, its people friendly, its cities well-maintained, and there is an admiral national focus on wine, craft beer and a work/life balance. But as I approached each place with the thought, "Could I live here?", the answer was always no. I loved Wellington, with its craft beer and café culture, but nowhere else struck me as somewhere I'd want to go twice. Given that the next nearest travel destinations on Australia's boomerang coast are about a four-hour flight, and then Asia's outer rings about eight, no matter how nice Wellington is, it would be quite isolating living there. Especially when all my people would be 24+ hours away in Europe and North America.

This really shouldn't have been a surprise for a city boy in a sparsely-populated rural nation, but a little part of me was hoping to have a eureka moment, happening upon a place I could call home, a little liberal nirvana somewhere far away from Brexit, far away from Trump, far away from all the xenophobic, flag-waving populism that's infecting the Atlantic Anglosphere.

Midway through our trip, I fell into a bit of a funk as I realised that New Zealand would not be our Brexscape. If not New Zeland, then where? I came to the conclusion that my roots in London were deeper than I'd realised, and we're here for the haul, come what may. It was a tough realisation: that I am going to have to live here post-Brexit, live in this insular, little England, live with these people who're limiting my future opportunities, taking away my freedom of movement. I want to want to leave, but there's nowhere to go.

So here I shall stay, with my people and in my city. I still despise Brexit, but there's nothing I can do about it. So with the Where's next? taken out of it, I can come back to the What's next?. I still haven't figured that out. But at least now I know where it will happen.

Cheers,
Shaun


Pics and commentary here:

South Island
North Island