Kia Ora

Note: The date of this post is August 21, 2020. I’m still struggling to get the dates correct on my posts.

Sooo, where are the travel posts? That’s what I imagine someone reading this blog might be thinking; after all, I make it pretty clear in my About Me that I intend for this website to be largely devoted to travel. And I am in the enviable position of continuing to be a traveler, given that I’m an American who has been in New Zealand since the world shut down; when the vast majority of people around the globe aren’t leaving their home country anytime soon (let’s face it, some people are lucky if they’re even traveling outside their houses right now), I have a freedom and an opportunity that is unattainable to many in this moment. 

So I want to talk about the things I’ve done and seen here in New Zealand, and I want to reach back also into last year, to those halcyon days when COVID-19 wasn’t a trending topic on Twitter and Zoom wasn’t a household word, and share so much about Italy and Greece and Bali and all the amazing places in between, but it almost feels like taunting. Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Hear about all the places you can’t go and the things you can’t do! I mean, how exactly does one write about travel during a time when travel isn’t really a thing?

At the time of my last post, New Zealand had been at Level 1 (everything open, no masks, no distancing, everything just as it was in the beforetimes, apart from the border being shut) for almost two months, and it had been close to 100 days since the country had seen a COVID case apart from those caught in managed isolation at the border.

I spent my birthday (August 7th! What’s up, fellow Leos?), which was probably my best birthday ever (Thanks, New Zealand! Thanks, R! Note:  I’m just going to start calling him R, because “companion” sounds increasingly like something an older lady would use in reference to her glorified travel assistant, á la Rebecca—which incidentally is one of my favorite books AND movies—and because anything else feels too simple or generic.), picnicking on a cliff’s edge high above the Pacific Ocean and drinking Prosecco at this very cool, castle-y place called Sign of the Takahe, and doing it all without a single thought to health precautions, because there was literally no need.

Cut to last week, when, as we were watching an episode of Vikings and generally having a casual night, the emergency alert on my phone started blaring. It took me a minute to realize what the noise was, and even when I did, I was slow to react. We looked at our phones and read that four new COVID cases had emerged in the community in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. They didn’t know where the cases had come from, or how New Zealand had gone from successful elimination to the potential for a second wave, but as of noon the following day (we received the message at around 10 p.m.), Auckland would be back at Level 3, and the rest of the country would be at Level 2. It felt alarming (to me), but not overly so (yet), and we went back to watching Vikings.

The next day, I shared this breaking news with some of my friends and family, all of whom are located in the US. Even as I typed out the messages, I felt uncomfortable. How are four new cases news—and emergency alert level news, at that—to people who are in a country where fewer than 50,000 new cases is a good day and a sign that maybe there’s a downward trend? As one of my friends wrote to me in response, “It sounds disparaging [to say], but it does seem quaint.” How privileged am I to be in a place where I’m not just notified of new cases, but where those cases can be counted on one hand? If I ever needed a reminder of just how different my day-to-day reality is from the reality of most of my friends and family, this certainly qualifies.

It was a bizarre feeling to suddenly be reemerging onto the pandemic scene. (Even typing that feels uncomfortable. Reemerging onto the pandemic scene? Like, really? When total cases are in the lowest of the low three digits and are part of the same cluster? Quaint, indeed.) Sure, New Zealanders knew that the pandemic was accelerating outside their borders, but here in this bubble, it was yesterday’s news. Something that had come and gone. Suddenly, the virus was back, and what did it all mean? 

Cases continued to rise over the following days, and people were on edge. Scrolling through Twitter, I lost count of how many people were fearing another nationwide Level 4 (many of whom had heard directly from their best friend’s brother’s sister-in-law’s dad that such a shift was imminent—all very hush hush, of course, because they were high up in the government/military/police). A little over 48 hours after Levels 3 and 2 took effect, the prime minister announced that the government had unanimously decided to extend Level 3 for two weeks for Auckland, and Level 2 would remain in effect for the same amount of time for the rest of the country.

Since then, more new cases have cropped up, almost all of which are connected to those first four. So far, it seems there’s only one cluster, and if the next week or so keeps up with the current trend, it seems pretty likely that New Zealand has dodged a bullet, and elimination is once again in reach. Unless the next week or so sees evidence of more clusters or infections outside of Auckland, the country is probably on track to return to Level 1 by the end of the month.

So is this a travel post? I think it is. It’s not a typical travel post. I’m not giving you ten must-visit places next time you hit New Zealand’s South Island. I’m not crowing about the Mercato Centrale in Florence or raving about the fact that for the low low price of 3 Euro, you can get a 1.5 liter plastic bottle of rosé wine in Greece (and that you can drink it while wandering the streets below the Acropolis in Athens…or pretty much anywhere else), or offering my in-depth review of some of the Turkish baths in Budapest (short review:  5 stars, heart-eyed emoji, must-do). 

But what I am doing is sharing what it’s like to be an American in New Zealand at a pivotal time in world history. I am sharing what it’s like to see the governmental response to a pandemic here, versus what it’s like to watch the US response. A number of people, both people I know personally and people who are in the media, wonder what it must be like for New Zealanders to “have everything, and then have it taken away.” But that’s not what it’s like, at least from my (limited) perspective. 

Based on my (admittedly often obsessive) reading of the news, and on my Twitter feed, and on the general demeanor of the people walking around Christchurch (we are here again for a bit after visits to Franz Josef, Queenstown, Te Anau, Dunedin, and Invercargill—in Invercargill, we made a pilgrimage to “The World’s Most Southern Starbucks,” which, while cool, was somewhat of a deflating experience due to the sign on the door informing us that the real store was closed for construction, so please, visit the “container Starbucks” next door; this was, indeed, a large shipping container with a fully stocked and staffed counter within), people are pretty optimistic, with a “we did it once, we can do it again” mentality.

The prime minister and the Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield (at a gelato shop downtown the other day, I saw in the window their menu, complete with a drawing of Bloomfield at the bottom, with the tag, “2020 Sexiest Man;” he is largely beloved here, with his likeness adorning everything from tote bags to mugs to earrings) resumed their 1 p.m. pressers, which were all the rage during the first weeks of Level 4 lockdown (and which, I came to discover, is referred to by some as the “Jacinda and Ashley Show,” complete with its own entry and reviews on IMDB). 

Members of the main oppositional party demand answers to how the virus got back into the community, criticize border procedures, and talk about economic damage, but it’s done in a pretty civilized way, and elected officials aren’t calling on Jacinda Ardern to “liberate Auckland” or anything. I’m loath to say too much about how the government works, and I certainly don’t want to present myself as though I’m speaking for how the average New Zealander might view the government (though my impression is that there is majority support for the prime minister and the government’s handling of the pandemic in general); I have very limited knowledge (even using the word “knowledge” might be too generous), and I am a foreigner still struggling to understand how the parliamentary system works.

Governmental officials shoot down conspiracy theories instead of embracing and endorsing them. “Be kind” remains a central component of the national COVID campaign. 2020’s Sexiest Man repeats during every presser, “The virus is the problem, not the people [who have it].”

It’s all so vastly different from what I’d be experiencing if I were in the US, even from an outsider’s perspective. Really, it’s because I have an outsider’s perspective that I’m able to marvel at any of this.

I don’t want to paint a picture that I think everyone here is getting their Kumbaya(ya)’s out and going around like Mr. Burns in that Simpsons episode where he’s all glowy and floaty and “I bring you love” after one of his weekly medical procedures designed to cheat death; there are still people here who are wary of governmental heavy-handedness, who float conspiracy theories, who feel angry at the damage done to jobs and businesses.

But there’s a team spirit here, an overall willingness to trust in facts and science and to put the good of the many before the one in a way that most reasonable people wouldn’t denounce as communism, and based on what I’ve seen and read and heard about the state of things in the US right now, this mentality feels lightyears away in comparison.

So, yeah, I think this counts as a travel post. Next time I imagine I might pull out one of my many started-never-finished posts from my “Fits and Starts” document, or elaborate on some of those Turkish baths I mentioned, or spam you with photos (Yes! Photos will be a thing here once I’m actually writing about things that, you know, merit photos.), or tackle something entirely different. For now, I’m trying to pay tribute to the many people who have asked me about being in New Zealand right now:  “What’s it like?”