The Getting There
Our time in Australia
The change at Abu Dhabi was fairly easy, we had to go through a security check but it was a bit unnecessary particularly since our bags went through the scanner but there was no-one looking at the scanner monitor! Our last flight was with Air Berlin 6 hours back to Tegel Airport, and despite how much I tried to get some sleep it was difficult and the flight seemed to drag out forever. Probably, this was the worst leg of all in my opinion just because of the time it seemed to take - but we had an entire row of 4 seats to ourselves in the middle so Sasha was able to stretch out and lie down. After what seemed an age, we landed at Tegel at 6am in the morning Berlin time, and watched a slow sunrise as we travelled back to the place where we were living. The last sunrise of 2016 - we got to see it, and we'd get to experience New Years in Berlin.
Summing Up
On the whole, the full 3 weeks were a bit of a tour de force really. On my way to Europe I'd stopped off in Abu Dhabi on the way for a few days, so I'd never done the much-heard-about experience of doing the trip across multiple planes in one go, which in both directions was quite exhausting - and I'd never been on large planes absolutely full before either (both my big planes on the way to London had been fairly empty). I think, but only think, the travel to NZ was the worst one because you were racing against the days and compressing the days into shorter ones - stretching the days out on the return journey seemed less painful and exhausting but boy did that last 6 hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Berlin feel like it took forever. Mind you the main Etihad flight on the way to NZ felt like it was taking forever too. You can do 18-hour flights now from Doha in Qatar to Auckland in NZ, the world's longest flight and after the Etihad flight I was thinking an extra 4 hours must feel like an extra amount of purgatory. But my cousin Ellen has done that flight and as she pointed out, after 14 hours whats an extra 4 hours vs having to fluff around at an airport changing planes and still have 3+ hours ahead of you?
The logistics and comfort of flying across half a planet (literally, half a planet) aside, we also packed in a lot during our 3 weeks in NZ and Australia. This was necessary to catch up with family and friends, but also get to see a bit of the respective cities and countries also. Interesting to me was how I easily slotted back into conversations with my friends, or how familiar and comfortable everything seemed being at Mum & Dad's place again - some things had changed about the house, and with my friends I suppose I'm not far out of contact over Facebook and other means so its not like we've been out of touch for 2 years. In all it was an enjoyable time but not a relaxing one and after going back to Berlin, despite the fact we had to dive straight back into work after New Year's Day (the 2nd isn't a holiday, believe it or not!) that was our chance to relax from the chaos that was the lead-up to December at both of our workplaces and then the holiday! Of course, we still travelled in January to a few places but these trips did have a fairly relaxing element to them also. Something for me to post about in due course!
One thing which I will note, is that according to the original plan for my OE was to try and stay out my 2-year Visa in the UK and then return home. I have had some fairly fixed ideas about how I would like to do that, some of them perhaps a bit fanciful but the upshot is going via America - from the UK, it doesn't really matter which way you go around the world to NZ, they are literally the other side of the planet away from each other and it takes the same amount of time. So had that happened, it is quite likely that after having departed from the UK mid-November, and then travelled across America for about 3 weeks and then I would have arrived back in New Zealand around the same time I did for this trip - except I would have been back for good, not for a week and a bit and then flying off to Australia. Peering out of the window seeing the Canterbury Plains, Southern Alps and West Coast pass by and disappear in almost the same exact manner that they did when I headed out at the beginning of my OE was a bit strange because I never expected to be jetting off again when I first set out on the OE - for so long, I had expected that I would only see NZ again at the end of the OE and I wouldn't be leaving in a hurry after I was back. Little did I know that not only would I be bringing back a girl with me to meet my family, but that I would be off again to meet hers and then back to Europe for the adventure to continue. Going to Australia, and then heading off to Europe from there - especially via Abu Dhabi - was also slightly deja-vu like since I had taken much the same route on my way over.
One last thing, was the feeling I noted walking down the street in early morning Berlin, towards the place that we were staying in at the time (and had been for a little while) - feeling like I was almost home again after a long weary adventure. After moving to Wellington from Christchurch, it had taken a good while before I felt like each time I flew back to Wellington I was going home. Despite getting to see the country where I grew up, the places that I love, the people that I love and have had so much fun with over the years, and despite the fact that we've never truly been able to settle in Berlin due to not being able to find permanent accommodation, I did not return to Berlin feeling homesick for New Zealand or elsewhere - Berlin was home. I really like Berlin, its not necessarily a place I want to live in forever but I've never really had a chance to know whether I felt like it might be "home" rather than just "I live there". Here it was - Berlin is home. New Zealand is home too, but I'm no longer a Kiwi away from home for a while and out of my comfort zone. For all the hardships and uncertainties we went through giving Berlin and Germany a go, we've actually made it here and what's more - for me at least, its home also.