Trip to Tonga: Part 1

A few weeks ago, Susan and I went on a family vacation with her family to the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga. Before this trip was planned, I never even knew there was such a place as Tonga! Hey, I like to blame it on my American upbringing, but the funny thing is that we Americans hear about Fiji all the time and Tonga is practically next door to Fiji. What's up with that? It's a curious phenomenon for which I have no explanation...

Susan's parents decided that they wanted to rent a sailing yacht for a week to sail around Tonga and bring the family along. So, with much planning and intra-family-communication (which I blissfully delegated to Susan) a vacation plan was devised and off we went! In all, there were eight of us, me, Susan, Susan's parents, her brother Joff, his partner Min, sister Michelle and her friend, Leah. Susan and I flew into Auckland the night before to stay the night at her parent's house before taking off with the rest of the family on an early morning flight to Nuku'alofa.

Susan's father, Gavin, picked us up at the airport and on the drive to their house, he proceeded to tell us about how the King of Tonga had actually gone to his primary school in Auckland and that Susan's friend's father had gone to school with the King of Tonga and that they still keep in touch. When this friend of Susan's family learned of our planned trip to Tonga, he told Gavin that he would contact the King of Tonga (King George Tupou V) and tell his Royal Highness of our arrival. So, reportedly, this information had been conveyed to King George V (KGV) and there was talk that perhaps we might be invited to dine with the King. Gavin then explained that the King resides on the island of Nuku'alofa, but our plan was to go to the Vava'u group of islands and we would only be taking connecting flights from Nuku'alofa to Vava'u. However, the rest of the family was staying in Tonga longer than Susan and I and we actually had planned to fly back to Nuku'alofa and stay our last night there before a morning flight back to Australia (via Auckland). So, Gavin suggested that perhaps Susan and I could be the representatives of the family to have dinner with KGV. Gavin is a couple years older than the King, so although he went to the same school, was not in the same class. However, he did have photos that he took as a child when the young prince came to Auckland to see the school prior to his attendance, which Gavin later showed us that evening. We were all quite amused by the idea of having dinner with the King of Tonga and wondered if anything would come of it.

We had a nice dinner with Susan's family and a couple of her school friends that she invited for dinner and then went to bed. We had to get up at about 4 am to get to the airport by 5 for our 7 am flight (ugh). Leah and Michelle are quite into gourmet cooking and Michelle pooled her connections to obtain export-quality meats to transport from New Zealand to Tonga. Not only did they bring meat, but a whole host of other goods (cereal, crackers, jam, honey, butter, etc) to feed eight people for a week. Luckily, Susan and I only brought one check-in bag between us, as we needed to check in another whole bag full of food (as did several of the others). After checking in our bags (and the airport customs hermetically sealed the meat box in plastic wrap), we then stocked up on duty-free alcohol to keep us in good spirits on our sailing trip as well. While we were wandering around the airport before our flight, Susan and I realized that we had forgotten to stop our mail delivery at home, so Susan thought of sending a post card to our downstairs neighbor to ask him if he would get our mail out of our pathetically small mailbox. I was skeptical, thinking he wouldn't get the post card from Auckland until after we arrived back in Brisbane, but she sent it (and, miraculously, it made it to Brisbane before us and he did retrieve our mail for us!).

Soon, we were on the plane to Nuku'alofa. Stay tuned for more...

For those of you who can't wait for the next installment (who know how long it could be, with my blogging record?), you can go straight to the photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/Tonga2008

T-Minus One Month

Travel distances from Christchurch, NZ

Yes, it's true. I'm becoming an accidental world traveler. I've never had a strong inner calling for world travel; yet, here I am counting down the days until I hop onto a plane to cross "the pond" to start a new life, starting with three months in Liverpool, England and then off to Melbourne, Australia in December 2007 and then... who knows?

My friend, R, is jealous of me because I've already been to more continents than her. She aspires to see the world, and her goal is to visit every continent (except, perhaps, Antarctica), while I've managed to visit more than her "accidentally"! Well, not entirely... but that's how it feels. In some ways, it feels like it "just happened" without any real intention of my own, except to be with the one I love.

So, I've found myself in a relationship with a world-traveling doctor from New Zealand. It's kind of fun to say that -- it sounds so exotic and adventurous. But, in actuality it's true... and it's the most efficient way to explain my situation. In New Zealand, world travel is a national past time. I suppose it makes sense, if you think about the fact that the country consists of a couple of small islands about in the South Pacific, with the nearest neighboring land mass (Australia) being some 2000km away . So, naturally, world travel is no big deal to the New Zealander because everything is far away from their homeland!

This is a bit difficult for us those of us in America to understand. Ours is a large country, with so much at our disposal that many Americans simply can't understand why anyone would want to live anywhere else. It is expansive, with every extreme of heat and cold, wet and dry climates, and a wonderful collection of flora and fauna. To show our love for this land, we've built wide open roads to drive our millions of beloved cars back and forth over it. I, like most Americans, have grown accustomed to all the comforts of our home: central heat and air conditioning, dozens of choices for any consumer product that one can possibly imagine, and a ravenous hunger to burn up as much petroleum in as many ways as we can. America fancies itself as the world police, with a government that stampedes the planet like a bull in a china shop. We are a young country with a short history and a big, fat ego. Nothing more than spoiled children. Yes, I am entirely guilty of being an American born into a world of convenience and competitive low prices for goods that I don't even need. And now I will see where it all began -- from where the Imperialists came to pillage and conquer foreign lands and then forced them to succumb to European ideologies. Ideologies that are due for a makeover.

I will only be a few short months in England. Once we move to Australia, I will find myself seeking not only new employment and a visa to allow me to stay in the country, but also a new spirit, a new mentality, a new paradigm that will allow me to keep up with the ever-ambitious doctor who already has her sights on Southeast Asia. So far, counting my own, I've been to four continents, two of which I've visited in the past year to be with my beloved Kiwi doctor. Who would've guessed I would end up in Africa, New Zealand, Europe and Australia in the span of a year? Certainly not me!

I was in dire need of a catalyst for change -- my life has been too stagnant for far too long. Mind you, I realize that going to England and Australia is hardly a far cry from the American way of life. However, for this American, who really never considered leaving the country (except for political asylum from our current "commander in chief"), it is a big deal. And, considering that my favorite Kiwi is not one to be "pinned down" to one country for very long, this is likely a mere introduction to a much greater worldly expansion for me. I can't wait to find out how I will "reprogram" myself in this new realm and to see what will happen next!

So, the intention for this blog is to write about my experiences, thoughts and ideas as I allow myself to plunge into this new expatriate lifestyle. It is for all my friends in the US who want to know what I'm up to. I hope I can keep up with it, to keep it interesting and useful. We shall see...