How Do You Like New Zealand

“And, how do you like New Zealand?” I still get asked every so often. It is one year now since we left our well-established environment in a small town in Germany, where we had been living for the last 10 years, to seek a new experience in Thames, Coromandel, New Zealand.
I smile, a bit incertain....
“Wherever you go, you'll carry yourself with you” someone had emphasised before we left...
I think of my struggle at work, of the struggle to help our children to catch the right train...
I think of my health problems, which haven't changed... I think of the effort the different language gives me... I think of my desire to feel at home, understanding and understood...
a different society...
I see the friendly eyes of the person opposite me, the raised eyebrows full of expectations...
“Yes, we like it”, I say, noticing my voice quavering a bit, and then I feel the strong urge to convince my counterpart that I mean what I'm saying, unable to see the expression of my own face. I guide my thoughts out of the anxious rooms in my heart, to the sea, to the beautiful forests, the gentle hills, and our new friends. “We really like it... well, we came to experience something different... and that is what we do... but it is good”.

Some Pictures of our Social Life here - and Thames Street Impressions

Bare feet at Wintertime - real Kiwis are tough!