Happy New Year

At this point, I'm home, and have switched back to updating my other blog, Distances, instead of this one, which was really only intended to be a travelogue anyway. If you are coming to the Oz blog for the first time, I apologize for the messy nature of postings, upside down chronology, and loads of text. Your best bet is to use the sidebar on the right to navigate day to day, but note that those days only indicate the days I posted, not which days are described therein! I do hope to reformat the whole thing, add more pictures, and put things in a better order at some point. Meanwhile, what you see is what you get, but you may find Distances a better bet for regular reading. I don't intend to update Oz again. Happy New Year!

The last one

It's 9:45 AM Friday, 2 December 2004. I'm in Wellington. It's a beautiful day here, bright and sunny, blue sky. Had breakfast (yogurt with strawberries, then blueberry pancakes, cranberry juice, hot tea, and a handful of pills - vitamin, antibiotic, decongestant), and bade Mary farewell. She was off to do whatever it is she's doing in a school somewhere. Now I'm hanging out in my nightclothes. Been online for an hour, but need to get off of this in another ten minutes to shower, pack, call a taxi, and head for the airport. Finally coming home. To me, I'll be home "tonight". To most of you, "tomorrow". But either way, I hope it's with all my luggage and nothing but smooth and mercifully fast flights. I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, seeing people again, and even going to work on Monday. I want to implement all the ideas I've gotten from my two weeks in Australia. And I want someone to put aloe on my back where I can't reach!! Thank you to everyone who IMed and e-mailed me just to say hello or to provide moral support (or a check on my ethics!) while I was here. It's been great to be able to stay at least partially connected to home. Now all there is is three plane flights and 30 hours to Boston. With maybe a few hours of walking in Auckland in the middle of that. Talk to you SOON!! G'day from the land of kiwi (the fruit, the bird, the people, and the dollar)...

P.S. No hobbits to be found. :(