Recalibration

After a long but relatively easy journey involving a car ride, three planes, a van, and a walk through town towing some extraordinarily cumbersome luggage, I arrived back in Wanaka on Saturday afternoon. Despite my best efforts to force my body to behave appropriately for the time zone, it's been proving somewhat stubborn, which though frustrating is not all bad.

Sunday morning, I awoke quite early and had the great fortune to watch the sun rise over Lake Wanaka from a perch above town. There are some places whose beauty simply defies both description and, oddly, our own recollection. I recall having gone to the Grand Canyon with a couple of buddies after college and being a little overwhelmed and quite surprised by my reaction. All of the exposure to the Grand Canyon in film, on television and in the press over the course of our lives really didn't adequately prepare us for the vastness and true beauty of the place. Similarly, over the past year I've described this area to many people in glowing terms which I'm sure sometimes sound a bit overly enthusiastic. I was pleased to find on Sunday morning that my reaction to the landscape here had not dulled at all. It is more beautiful than one can imagine and definitely effects the mid-set of all who spend their time here.

Of course, there are little things that make the transition to being here entertaining. I do think that at this point I can look in the correct direction at traffic in order to cross the street without getting creamed. It has not taken me long to be able to catch up to and understand the incredibly fast speech of the Kiwis, though it does occasionally leave me feeling like a hick. Notably, however, while making dinner last night I turned on the oven to heat up some garlic bread and set it at 250 degrees. That would have been perfect at home, except that this particular oven is calibrated in Celsius. Let's just leave it at the fact that it was, err, crunchier than I intended. Not an impressive start to a season of cooking big family dinners for myself and my housemates, but entertaining nonetheless. I think I'll adjust.