Since coming back to Wellington after going down south over Christmas I’m back to hostel life. The lease expired on my house, but it’s not actually too bad despite the shared dorm situation. The room I’m in is with others who are staying long-term. As far as dorms are concerned, it’s nice and quiet.
If I really wanted to, now I could do bed to work in fifteen minutes. I will never beat my personal best of doing so in less than 3 minutes, but it’s nice not having to faff around with the buses. The hostel also has a cinema with reclining seats(!) and movie nights most nights – my favourite movie so far has been Parasite.
Before I went to the South Island I applied for a visa which, if approved, would allow me to stay in New Zealand for the next two years. After those two years I could apply for residency. I had to chase up my application with Immigration, and was told that my application wasn’t successful.
Last week I hit my 4th year being abroad, and I’ll be back in the UK at the start of May. The plus side is no winter for me until November. I’m working pretty much part time for the next three weeks, and then off on my travels again.
I’ll be heading to Christchurch, then working my way down the Mt. Cook area until arriving in Queenstown. I’ll then fly up to Auckland, spend a couple of days there, and ending up up North in the Bay of Islands for a week or so.
When I’m finished in the Bay of Islands, I’ll head back to Auckland for a night. Afterwards, I’ll be hopping a plane to Mexico to go around Central America for a little over a month. It looks like I may have to apply for a new passport in the near future as I’m running out of pages.
In May I’ll have to make actual grown up choices and set myself up for living in the UK on a permanent basis, which’ll definitely feel strange. Unless I change my mind in the meantime, I’ll be moving to Bristol as it just seems pretty sweet. It won’t be too different to what I’ve been doing the past few years – moving somewhere new, getting a place to live and a job. This time I’ll have to take it more seriously though, as I don’t have a temporary visa.
Later on in the year, or early next year I’m intending to book up a trip to Iceland, which is where I want to visit the most in Europe. I would also like to make it to Greece, Turkey and Morocco over the next year or two, but will just have to see what happens.