It is April 10, 2012.
On this date in 2008 I went to the post office with Joyce (my home stay mum), watched her sort mail for only a moment before she arranged with a coworker to cover for her while she shoved me out the door. The Invercargill airport still makes me laugh. There is no security. Only one flight comes in and only one flight leaves. Only one departure is ever listed on the screen. It was a tiny plane. So tiny I half-expected the lady at the desk to tell me to load my own luggage in the belly of the plane like we packed school busses for orchestra adventures in junior high. Come to think of it, I think that bus might have been bigger than this plane.
 |
| Air New Zealand (actual size) |
 |
The terminal/lobby/drop off/anything
that involves waiting room. It's all the same room. |
With my
nose squished against the small window I watched as the people and houses and land markers I had grown to know all rapidly shrank. The sheep pasture, th
e college, the cemetery all shrinking like the toys that grow when
 |
| World's classiest water tower |
wet but shrink when dry...but on a much larger scale. One of the taller buildings in the town (what I would call the world's classiest water tower), the very same water tower that still proudly stands near Queens Park, didn't seem quite so tall anymore (but still every bit as classy). The last identifiable object - the last memory I have of Invercargill - is the yellow roof of
PAK'nSAVE, my favorite Kiwi grocery store. It's where I bought meat pies, food for tramping (that means backpacking), locked my bike up and bought pawpaw fruit and proceeded to eat it in the car park (that means parking lot), and really learned to use New Zealand coins. That yellow roof was traceable for only a few more moments, after which the view below switched from land to ocean to an endless and uninteresting blue. I withdrew my nose from the window.
I still have a grocery sack from PAK'nSAVE.
I can't seem to part with it. Silly, yes. I finally broke down last week and actually used it for function. I have a lot of souvenirs from New Zealand, but perhaps this grocery sack means more than just a grocery store, and perhaps even more than my experience in New Zealand. Perhaps it is a subtle reminder to PAK my life with memories and experiences nSave them. (And yes, I am fully aware of how corny that is.) But pack and save I will.
P.S. I just Googled the Invercargill Airport. I was mistaken: they have more than one flight. But I do find it entertaining that distances are listed in nautical miles on the site. Is that standard for all airports?
