Thirty days, and counting

Ok, so we're almost at the one-month-remaining mark of our time in New Zealand. We're in Christchurch now, on the south island, and just got back from a trip to Dunedin (sea lions, Larnach Castle, yellow-eyed penguins), Queenstown (a killer uphill walk leading to views of the mountains/lake), Fiordland National Park (Milford Sound), Franz Josef Glacier, and Puzzling World in Wanaka (Dre had a particular interest in the large labyrinth and puzzles there, and aptly described it in a postcard to his brother as a "geek paradise"). So, all in all, a good week.

We live in a house with three other girls, two from Korea and one from Japan. We're planning a potluck-style Thanksgiving dinner with them, and are going to try and scout out a turkey tomorrow. Maybe it will be a cornish-hen Thanksgiving, we'll see. I've decided that I will allow myself to eat poultry only on Thanksgiving (henceforth branding myself a "flexitarian"), but after that it's back to vegetarian business as usual.

I've been reflecting a lot on our time here, and my initial reason for suggesting to Dre that we do this: To see something different. After we had decided to come to NZ, a friend of mine who had spent some time in Thailand said, "You see, for me, that wouldn't be different enough." I don't know why, but that sometimes pops into my head. Different enough. True, there are a lot of aspects of life in NZ that prevent us from feeling like fish out of water (ie, language, government structure, to name a few). I don't know how I feel about that yet . . . I suppose I am just so grateful at this point to have had the opportunity at all.