Beckett's Last Day

With an intense week of travel and activity behind us, Beckett's last day in Wellington was a truly New Zealand day in that it was very laid back. We were both tired and neither of us was too interested in doing much in the way of sight - seeing.

I would have liked to have shown him around Te Papa, the national museum in the middle of the city, but when you don't have the energy it's a big ask to wander around a museum for hours. Instead we slept in late and settled into some quiet drinking couple with general R & R.

We went into town and played pool along some of the iconic Cuba Street bars which is always a good way to spend a chilled out day. Beckett's flight the next day was an early one so we didn't have too big a night or anything but it definitely wasn't a day wasted.

I think it was a good way to reflect on the trip we'd had and share some quality stress - free hang time before we said goodbye for an indefinite length of time once again. It's not very often you find friends that are willing to fly halfway across the world to see you for just a week and if I've learned anything in life so far, it's that those are the people who stick around in your life for a long time. In saying that they're also the genuine kind of people that you want to be in your life for a very long time.

I realise now that writing this, I have seen Beckett every year since my exchange, except for 2015 but with a trip to North America planned later in the year I'm sure we'll make it happen. That's a pretty cool claim to be able to make for friends that live on opposite sides of the world from each other.

To cap off the series of blog posts that have been written about our adventure across the North Island of New Zealand and Wellington City, I woke up at about 4 AM to drive Beckett to the airport the next morning. As is always the case at that time of day, we were both exhausted, it was dark and it felt like the middle of the night. I dropped him off there with his bags, said a quick goodbye and left him to his own devices to check in and such as I drove back toward home.

Naturally, when I got back to the house (thankfully I live about 3 minutes drive from the airport) I went straight to sleep. The accumulative lack of sleep over the trip seemed to catch up with me in one hit and I slept until about 2 PM. I woke up still feeling a little groggy, made myself a cup of black instant coffee and stared out my kitchen window as I often do mindlessly during the wake - up routine.

As I looked out to the neighbours yard with the sun shining in on it, the surreal nature of the previous week dawned upon me. If there hadn't been a half bottle of Duty Free tequila in my cupboard, I'm not sure I would've believed it and so having just woken up in the middle of the afternoon, I poured myself a tequila shot and drank to the raw power of friendship.

Photo by CMDR Shane on Unsplash