Alright, Already

It's 8:30 AM on Thursday morning here, and I've gotten up early to write this blog because it's been nagging at me so viciously for the last few days. It took me about a day to blow my new year's resolutions, but I am re-resolving today. I've officially got a clean slate.

Okay, okay! It's go day! Today is the day I've been itching for for the last two months. That's because today is the day we start TRAVELING! The adventure begins. (I know our adventure technically began four months ago, but once we got jobs and got situated here, things stopped feeling so...adventurous.)

I had my last day of work at Vangioni's on Sunday, and I definitely went out with a bang. I worked 14 hours that day - 8 AM to 3 PM and 5 PM to 11:45 PM. Yikes! But I hope I finally forced Steve into seeing just how very valuable I was - all of his poor staff had bailed on him this week for one reason or another, (familiar story, eh?)so I figured, heck, it's my last week. Ought to just have a big push before I go and do nothing but work!

I don't know why it's so important to me to leave jobs on positive notes. I guess it makes me terribly depressed to think of all the hours I've poured into something (even something that isn't meaningful or important to me) and think that those hours, my time, has not been appreciated. I've decided that's something I need at a job - a sense that my work is appreciated and valued. (And perhaps that is why I ran screaming from teaching. Those children did not praise me nearly enough.)

Anyway, the weeks of work following my Christmas vacation, Steve was unable to forgive me; my previous good standing with him was over. From the time that I told him I was taking those days off on, I suddenly could do NOTHING right in the restaurant. I was polishing cutlery when I should have been standing outside idly watching my tables. I was messing the till up (I wasn't). My mopping skills were inadequate. I feel like he went out of his way to punish me for taking that time, and though it made me angry as hell, it's over now. I'm still glad I took that time with my family. And Steve is a nice person at heart, I have to believe.

Monday night we had a large dinner party at Vangioni's with a few of my favorite Akaroa folks. Many of the attendees were fellow restaurant staff who had the night off, so it was such fun to get dressed up, take up a huge VIP table out in the garden, and act like real customers for a change! Have people wait on us! And eat filet mingon! Medium rare!

Bjorn had his last day of work on Tuesday, and his sweet employers, Ian and Deb, graciously invited us out to dinner with them that night, so it was, yet again, eating and drinking and eating and drinking.

The original plan had been for us to take off yesterday, but with all the going away partying, there was little time to pack. Yesterday morning after breakfast, we sat deliberating - to leave today or tomorrow? We had finally agreed that we ought to just leave as soon as we had our stuff together. (It would only take us a couple hours to get ready, we thought. HA!) But as soon as we actually started packing, I got really upset and emotional and said I needed one more day. I hate leaving anywhere when I feel rushed and disorganized.

And so we spent the entire day yesterday preparing ourselves for our trip. My motel cleaning employer, Bernadine, had given us some extra curtain fabric she had laying around to make curtains for Betty! When we finally got out to actually hang them, we realized we didn't have quite enough fabric. So we went down to Akaroa's Op Shop (opportunity shop, aka, thrift store) and picked out some old sheets to finish off the job. We then spent an hour sitting in Betty, needles and thread in hand, sewing our "curtains" onto little rings to hang onto the hooks that are already in the car.

Why curtains for Betty? Well, we are budget travelers, you know. And the hostels here are not nearly as affordable as they were in South America. So we are limiting ourselves to two or three hostel stays a week, which means, those other four or five nights will be spent in our sleeping bags! We will probably do most of those nights in our tent, but if we get into some strange territory, or if the weather is bad, we will have Betty as a backup. And we don't want people peering into Betty while we sleep!

Our plan, though, is to do a ton of "tramping" (what we call trekking or backpacking), so we'll probably be away from the car entirely for days at a time. In fact, we are going to kick off our journey with a two day tramp at Mount Somers, which is just an hour or so southeast of Christchurch. We are not going there directly today, though. After a leisurely breakfast, after packing the car and driving around Akaroa giving hugs to everyone we know, we will head to Christchurch to do a little shopping in preparation for our trip. We need groceries, for starters. And I need some better rain gear. And we need some hats to make us look and feel cool tramping around NZ. And we need a little notebook to start a daily log so we can remember every little thing we've done. This is going to be such fun!!!! Then we will drive to the Rakaia River, where Bjorn wants to do a day of salmon fishing. I cannot salmon fish, unfortunately, as I do not have the freshwater fishing license I need (saltwater is free), but I've created a few projects for myself (knitting, learning Swedisdh!) to work on while he fishes.

Despite feeling negative about work for the last month or so, I am feeling incredibly sentimental about leaving Akaroa. This has been a home for us - a wonderful home for us. And, despite my job, it really has been a perfect place for us to prepare for this next part of our trip. We have been able to save up quite a bit of money in our time here. Even though we've been getting paid very little, we have put in a few hours, and there is very little to spend money on here in Akaroa. So we have just poured everything into a little savings account, and amazingly, we have managed to DOUBLE the savings goal we set for ourselves three and a half months ago. Gooooo team!

The Banks Peninsula is breath taking. It's gorgeous and unique and its personality changes every day with the weather. I have loved exploring every corner of the peninsula, going for treks, taking photos, talking to the sheep, lazing on the beaches. I will miss my daily walk on the Woodills track, taking me through green sheep pastures and through forests, under cover of the funny kanuka trees. I will miss watching the ducks and the geese and the shags and the gulls and all the other flutting things belonging to Akaroa. I will miss Bjorn's lunch spot, sitting on the bench, watching the boats come in and out of the harbor. I will miss sitting on the front porch of our house, sharing stories about our day's work and enjoying the sunset. I will even miss my noisy roommates, who woke me up with their partying on a number of occasions.

Why is it that as soon as you leave a place, you fall in love with it? I suppose I have loved Akaroa from the beginning, but took it for granted a bit after it became comfortable, after I started being miserable at work. I've told Bjorn a few times this week that I don't want to leave, and he says, So you want to stay and work for another month at the restaurant? Ummmm, NO! I want to leave, I want to leave! But all in all, this has been a good place for us. I will remember it fondly.

Soooo, my dears! With any luck, we will be driving Betty out of here for the last time in a few hours. I'll send notes from the road soon! My gooooodness. I cannot wait!!!! Love to you all.