I'm far away now. Weee!

So, news flash, it is summer in New Zealand. Muggy, wonderful with tropical flower-smells drifting through the air and soft grass, and all that. Dry hills. I mean, I knew it was THE END of summer, but the freezing San Francisco wetness before I left made me pack scarves and wooly gloves and many layers.
Everyone here is from the ice. Or, maybe I shoul say, The Ice, and everywhere we go there are more people who have just flown in and are wearing shorts and seeing the night for the first time in 6 months. They all seem sweet and happy so far and of course Mykle and I, as a social couple, have been doing a lot of Hanging Out. Everyone I meet is flush with having money and a flexible ticket and it seems the future is open before them. They are going to Burma and Cambodia and Russia and biking around New Zealand, and the possibilities are endless (something I only pretend to know anything about).
It is beautiful and I feel like I am on some kind of vacation. We went to an AMAZING bar last night with a view of an industrial-docked bay off the balcony, and green hills beyond and an incredible decorating style that involved red-quilted walls, stools made out of rebar, lamps made out of dollheads and lit-up headless mannequins. Basically, my paradise. Except for; drinks are expensive.
The people are very friendly and not too concerned with our presence. Maybe living in a beautiful climate like this makes you laid back and happy- like Santa Cruz except for the pissed-off localism I have all too frequently indulged in. One of the bad things about growing up in a tourist-town is that when YOU are a tourist in a tourist town (I rather think that NZ is a tourist ISLAND) you feel horribly self-conscious. I try to fight this feeling, but sometimes it creeps in.

It's wonderful to see Mykle by the way. I feel like he was never gone. It's like he took a crash course in this kind of language called "Antarctican" and now has long conversations that I don't understand, but I don't sense any gap in time. Two ends of time are neatly tied, strangely. You were right Michelle, there was a small symphony orchestra playing when I saw him after getting off the long long plane-ride (not as hellish as I thought it would be because I slept), but the instruments were baggage carts and screaming wee children, and escalator noise. AND there he was, dressed exactly as he had been at the airport in October(and every day of our relationship), not really smiling, with facial hair EXACTLY like Wolverine, and I saw him and it was Good.