A Kiwi Catastrophe
Becoming The ‘Angry Ex-pat’ In New Zealand
I was sitting around a table at a shared apartment in Blenheim, New Zealand. My best-friend and I had a job working on vineyards. Around me were fellow 20-somethings from most corners of the globe. We were swapping tales about which volcanoes we had hiked, glaciers that had been seen, odd jobs we had worked throughout the country. The country was gorgeous, and we had already toured both islands and seen outrageous beauty. It was everything I had dreamed of the year before when I first floated the idea to my roommate in Kentucky of getting a working holiday visa for New Zealand.
There was just one problem. I was miserable.
Not miserable in the day to day, I-hate-what-I’m-doing sense. But, miserable as a grating, ever-present ache in my stomach that left me counting down the days until I could leave. I enjoyed a lot of things about that trip, but now ten years later those memories are still colored by an acrid light.
My last series of articles have been focused on the sometimes unreasonable expectations of ex-pats. I’ve read and heard so many fellow ex-pats complaining that I felt inspired to reflect on things to keep in mind when you decide to move abroad.
But while I’ve been (and am) the content traveler that has lived joyously in eight…
