All good things must come to an end. We're sitting in a Burger King at the Auckland airport, waiting to board our flight to San Francisco in just under 2 hours. Today has been a bit of a culinary disappointment: in addition to eating BK as our final NZ meal (we can't find anything else in this terminal), our favorite Japanese restaurant in Queenstown was closed for the NZ Labour Day holiday, robbing us of one last taste of very good, and very cheap (relative to Ohio) Japanese food. Bummer. From here it's 14 hours to San Francisco, an 11 hour layover (enough time to visit my father), and then 6 hours to Ohio. 

I'm happy to be going home, having experienced all of Queenstown that I care to experience, but I'm also saddened to leave. Our trip has had lots of ups and a few downs, and in the end I feel transformed by our journeys here. NZ has helped me define who I am, who I want to be, and how I want to interact with the world around me. I feel whole, yet paradoxically I feel as if I am leaving a little bit of myself behind at the same time. I guess that's the mark of a great vacation, to return home changed for the better by your experiences, with no regrets... only a list of things to do differently the next time you return.

My immediate future lies with my home and career in the US, but I feel buoyed by the thought that my long term future will bring me back to the land of the Kiwi.