I see my trip less as a vacation in which I try to see and experience as much as possible, but as a journey to myself. That’s why the people I spend time with are more important to me than the place I’m in. Sometimes that person can be myself. If I can choose it, then it is preferably a quiet place in nature. If it’s a city, then with little traffic and lots of greenery. Places where I can retreat to switch off.
People make a living selling bags of potato chips in the congested streets. Hordes of young men wait all day for the red light of the traffic lights to earn their living. I guess there’s not much room to escape this life, to maybe one day sit on the other side of the Uber window and with a guilty conscience keep refusing the snacks on offer.
Somehow I slipped into a lifestyle here that suits mine. You don’t rush, time passes without paying much attention to it. The clocks tick differently here than in the Western world. Just because there is a timetable doesn’t mean it will be followed. We’re in an Uber. We’re stuck in traffic. According to the timetable, we’re already late, but nobody cares. The bus is also late.
I have to admit that I didn’t really pay attention to money since I didn’t have a strict budget. Certainly you can make the TA much cheaper than I did by eating less in restaurants, sleeping less in beds and hanging out less in cafes. In general, New Zealand is very expensive. I was surprised how quickly I had high costs.
Soberly, cities don’t really know what to do with me, except to shove things in my mouth and let me run aimlessly through the area. They try to stress me out with their noise and hectic pace, which they haven’t succeeded in doing very well so far. When I think back to how I was doing just two weeks ago, I have now ascended to the spheres of a champion.
