Tag: life

New Zealand, New Mike: Living in Wellington one month in…

So we are now officially a month and a bit into my stay at Wellington. A couple weeks of fun in Auckland and now adjusting to living in a city versus simply traveling. The fact of the matter is… It can be a bit boring to talk about! This trip is very much a personal journey, one where I’m learning to adapt and make appropriate adjustments to my life. I’m learning to take things less seriously and just simply be. Which is a story I’ve told a thousand times before but one that’s always worth telling.

A journey of self discovery

So I’ve been learning a lot about myself on this trip. What I like, what I don’t like. And I’m learning to relax. The hard reset is in full effect. I don’t have to do anything here. I can just live and adapt. There’s no rush to be anywhere and I have become reinspired to improve my life. I went to church (once) and have been going to ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) meetings on a consistent basis. I’m also trying this new thing where I take full responsibility for my problems and don’t play the blame game. It’s been a while since I’ve lived on my own, so it’s been a big adjustment getting into the swing of things on this trip. No money? Get a job? Need to save money? Don’t eat out. Buy secondhand, don’t buy new. Learn to sew instead of throwing away clothing. It turns out, a lot of basic necessities and skills I need to simply survive as a human being I am simply lacking, so I am slowing leveling up my skillset. It’ll take work but I’m up for the challenge.

Living vs. Adventure

So it turns out if you’re living in a foreign country, you can’t travel all the time! I am grocery shopping, I am going on swims, I am going on hikes. Wellington is absolutely beautiful and the city is fantastic. The activities I enjoy, I can do for free. There’s been a live concert series and night lights in the botanical garden for the summer, so it’s been something to do while I pass the time.

Coffee culture is great and I only had coffee a couple times! I’ve opted for a thing called “freeze-dried” coffee which is cheap and not too bad. I’ve been to the bars and they’re also fun! A lot of the bars have live music, so I’ve been doing some dancing as well. I’ve also been spending a lot of the time with the British since my arrival and have learned of wonders such as “marmite” and “beans and on toast”.

No Money, No Problem

My first job will be this week and it’ll be a casual job for a Foo Fighters concert! I was sick for a week so I was unable to apply for other roles. Since office work is hard to find with it being the holiday season, I’ve opted to send out applications to restaurants and work there while I wait. I spent a lot of time in the US obsessing over money so here I’m trying to relax a bit more and just have faith that it’ll all work out. Rent is cheap and I’m in a nice area (beach 20 minute walk, next to the city center, and hiking 7 minutes away), so I can’t complain. Basically all I want is to watch concerts for free, get free or discounted meals, and maybe do some catering work so I can get fed gourmet meals.

Still Figuring it out

So this travel series is a little different than when I was in Germany. Germany I traveled every weekend, ate delicious food, and had a lot to talk about. Here, not so much. It is a quiet, simple life where I lay on a beach without sunscreen and burn myself to a crisp. I’m starting to do more writing related activities outside of my blog so it’ll be interested to see where those go. Right now, I am reading a draft for a book and am hoping to write a review for it here on this very blog. It’s nothing crazy but it’s a start after 10 years of blogging.

And that’s a wrap! Unlike study abroad, this isn’t the most flashy trip! I picked a place to live and am living. Once I get a bit more established, I’ll write guide articles on how to navigate traveling abroad! I’ve done study abroad and now I am living abroad, so I am gaining a lot of knowledge on this subject. Cheers!

New Zealand, New Mike: Expect the Unexpected

So when I left the United States, I was in a fantastic spot. I had a job that paid ok, I was in a relationship, paid off my student loans, ran a half marathon, and was spending most of my time with friends. Now that I’ve had a month in New Zealand, how am I doing? Well…

Things unplanned

So for this trip, I had spent a year planning. I asked myself if it was feasible and figured I could make it work. It is a growth opportunity. My biggest oversight was that it is the holiday season. I wanted a year of two summers and a year where I could celebrate Christmas in the Summer and New Year’s Eve in a foreign country. And… It was fine. It was nothing crazy and honestly it would have been better to have spent that time back home. I could’ve had an extra couple months to nurture my relationship and I think the holidays are always better spent with friends and family. That is the difficult part about this trip, being completely on my own. It does not matter how much charm you have in this world, it is hard to completely uproot everything and take a risk. Good decision? Bad decision? Impossible to say. Everything has a trade off, last year I did not expect to be such a good year for me but it was. So to leave that behind was difficult but New Zealand is a once in a lifetime opportunity. So we’re here now. My biggest obstacle has been everything is closed for the holidays, which has made finding work extremely difficult. So you take an already big change and add sitting around in a foreign country for a couple weeks while eating into your savings and it can add a bit of stress; I’ve been mostly holiday on this holiday working visa and my hope is in a month I’m a bit more settled. Hence, if I could do it over, I would have left mid January; a chapter turning in a foreign country sounds great on paper but it’s a lot messier than you’d expect.

Looking Forward

So this year is going to be a year of looking forward. If the last few weeks have taught me anything, it’s that I have a lot of insecurity. What better place to work through my insecurities than abroad? I’ve had to adapt and life seems to be moving forward, slowly. And hindsight is 20-20. A “proper” relationship was new to me before I left, so I shouldn’t be too hard on myself if it ended so that I could pursue this dream of mine. My birth defect hasn’t bothered me too much since I’ve been here but if I take photos I tend to get really self-conscious. This will also be a year of not being too hard and just going with the flow so we shall see how that goes. I just need to have faith in the decisions I make and not so worried about making the “wrong” choices.

Dumb Things I’ve done while I’ve been here

Speaking of not being too hard on myself, I thought it’d be fun to go over some really stupid things I did.

  1. The first would be taking my phone out in the middle of a rainstorm! Guess what happened. The charging port got water damaged! And thus I got to watch my phone’s battery drain as I got ready to hop on a 12 hour bus ride from Auckland to Wellington. The good news is I was able to barely make it to my address. I bought a wireless charger to keep my phone going for a bit longer and then I officially retired my phone after purchasing a new one. The bad news is I had to buy a new phone. And it was the Fan Edition of the Samsung Galaxy S23, which basically means it is prone to scratching, which I learned the hard way. Albeit, the scratches aren’t horrible but I went a week without a screen protector and even being careful, scratches were unavoidable. If I could do it over, I’d buy the S22 and go with a lower data phone plan; I lose the special contract bonus but in the long run it would’ve been a better deal.
  2. I drank too much in Auckland. And by drank too much, I mean a lot. I spent with reckless abandon and that cut into my savings like there was no tomorrow. I also ate out quite a bit, which did not help my wallet. It was fun but I wish I had done a little more planning into doing more day trips and maybe only eating out once a day rather than twice a day.
  3. I kept my phone plan with an international add-on. Seemed smart at the time. Keep the phone plan and worry about cancelling overseas. Not so. It would have been better to have transferred my number to google voice and just relied solely on wifi to access the internet. A vacation, international plans could work just fine, but living abroad I should have done a bit more planning as it could have saved me a headache when I got here. I had to buy a vpn to access google voice and then port my US number from Verizon and even now I do not know if it’s fully cancelled as it is a lot more difficult to call overseas than at home.

Insights Gained

A few key takeaways from the trip so far:

  1. No plan is perfect, so don’t fret if the plan changes
  2. Don’t dwell and always ask for what you want, you won’t know if you don’t ask
  3. Be proud of the decisions you make and there are no wrong choices
  4. Believe it will all work out
  5. Be grateful of every moment you have, life is about doing, not thinking.

The Goal

The goal is to find myself. Even when I was doing well this last year, I felt like something was missing. And while my last couple weeks have been far from perfect, that is exactly the point. I have spent so much time trying to make my world perfect that I have forgotten how to simply live and experience life. So for better or worse, I am here now, on the road less traveled, and I can only hope that will make all the difference.

Expect more articles on the way. My writing has slowed down as I take an easier approach to life but I’m sure I’ll have plenty to talk about such as my visit to the shire and what it’s like living with a bunch of other people. Stay tuned and as always, thanks for reading!

Rubberband: A poem by Mike Cole

We were born as a rubber band

And for a while, the universe kept us together.

But as time moved, the rubberband began to get pulled.

Each pull, stretching the rubberband evermore.

So in opposite directions we went until the rubberband reached its end.

And it snapped us back together for one last dance.

But it was too late, for the band had aged and when it snapped us back, it broke,

Flinging us among the stars

Journey’s Beginning: There are no ends

We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.

Orson Welles

The Beginning?

So here we are again, at the beginning. Or is it the end? I am trying to find myself. My decisions, my choices have led here to this moment. And I am proud, but I am also broken. I have held the world on my shoulders for too long and it has left me hollow, an echo of my childhood self. The kid who dreamed, the kid who sang, and the kid who never gave up. The kid who wanted the world to be a better place only to watch his heroes die and the shadows infest the very flame that burned so bright.

The Cycle Ends

To be fair, the last ten years have seen tremendous growth in my life. A lot of tough choices and no easy answers. I understand myself and know I cannot exist as I am. I came back home and said goodbye to my Dad as alcohol consumed him. My once hero became my sparring partner and truth be told I’ve been lost without him. In another reality he never touched a bottle and I could spend this portion of my life asking him advice, having him guide me in an uncertain world. Instead, I can visit his grave and hope he is watching over me. My questions are told to an urn as I slowly lose my mind.

As I prepare for New Zealand, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my friends. Beers on the weekends, game nights, and running. I’m grateful that I’ve nurtured these relationships over decades and have the capacity to create new ones. I’ve been treating my working visa as if I’m on my deathbed and it’s made me appreciate what I have all the more.

What I’ve been missing in my life has been hope and love which has proven to be my undoing. When I was younger, I wish I had appreciated the love I had, because I never realized that one day it would be gone. I was reminded the other day what it means to still have a heart that beats and as I feel the blood slowly come back into my body, I leave my life in the hands of the fates. I want to believe it will all work out as it was meant to even as I watch my once safe world crumble before my eyes. Life is tough but worth living.

The Cycle Begins

This chapter of my life is about finding myself and perhaps even building a new fire from within. New Zealand is my hard reset. It has forced my hand to lay a foundation of success. I have a long ways to go before I’m ready but everything is in motion. I have sacrificed pleasure for the past 6 months to have enough money saved up to pay off my student loans. We are here; after this month they will be gone. Now my focus has shifted towards personal finance; I don’t just want to survive, I want to thrive. I’ve started looking at credit card usage, have been investing for the last year, and am planning to get a second credit card before I head overseas. I’ve cut subscription costs since the pandemic and now only have what I use on a consistent basis. The other path to success has been focusing on my skillset and knowing my value; versatility will be king if I am to spend the next couple years traveling. New Zealand, Ireland, and Japan is my current three year plan; when I next arrive in the US, I will be a different man.

For my US send off and to end my twenties on a high note, I opted to run a half marathon. Since I started my training back in April, I can now run 13 miles with relative ease and the next couple months will be focused on getting faster. Physically, I feel better than I did when I ran cross country and it seems fitting that as I get ready for the next decade, I reconnect with an activity that has given me so much joy over the years.

Living my Dreams

Since an early age, I have wanted to travel and experience the world. I achieved this dream when I did study abroad in Mosbach, Germany. This time, it’ll be New Zealand and it’s all on me. Housing, Work, and a one way plane ticket. What better way to spend my first year as a thirty year old? As I get closer to October, the more excited I become. And what’s even better is I’ll finally get to write about travel once more. I’m also planning to bring my camera, so I’ll be trying to get out and take as many photos as I can while I’m overseas. Just me, in a land of strangers. It’s just what the doctor ordered and it’s one of those few moments in life that just makes sense. While I can take a small breath with my student loans, these next couple months will be crucial. I am focused and I am motivated, so bring it world.

And that’s a wrap. If you had asked me a year ago that my crazy dream of traveling and living abroad once more would become reality, I would have wondered if it would ever work. Does lightning strike twice? Apparently it does. So this year will be a busy year! Luckily, all I need to blog is a computer and an internet connection! Cheers to the future and get ready for more travel content as I prepare for my trip!