It's been nearly two months since we've socialized with other people. A stark contrast to the past year, which has been full of meeting strangers on a seemingly daily basis. Definitely one of the joys on our travels which we've missed.
With lock down restrictions eased in NZ, groups of up to 10 people are now allowed to congregate. More importantly, with virtually all community spread of Covid-19 eradicated in NZ, we jumped at the chance to polish off our human-to-human interaction skills.
Friday Night Margarita?
Paulie, Jayne, Lani (6 yrs old) and Mika (4 yrs old) live in a tiny home about 100 yards from our house, just next to the glass lettuce houses. During lock down, we'd chat socially distanced for a few minutes here and there, typically when Paulie would drop a daily load of lettuce off into the "lettuce graveyard" of all the uneaten goods.
Earlier in the day, we decided to make some margaritas. We had picked up some tequila, so why not invite our neighbors over for a drink? Not needing to social distance, the girls got right into being buddies. Forts, dancing, you name it.
Meanwhile, the adults had margaritas. It started to get late, but not wanting to break up the party, we decided to make it dinner too. I put together some pizza for the girls and had a homemade lentil soup for the adults which had been simmering all afternoon.
A good time was had by all!
Saturday Morning British Tea
With a quick turnaround, the next morning we had Eoghan and Rachel over for homemade biscuits and coffee. A couple of days earlier, Sarah and I had been hiking on Moke Lake (P&S in their first week of school). We had the entire place to ourselves, save a black camper van that had been parked overnight. We struck up a conversation with Eoghan & Rachel. They're currently on a 6 month road trip in New Zealand, before heading back to life in their hometown of Bristol, England. We thought, we should have them over before they head out of the Queenstown area. A couple messages over Instagram and we made it happen.
We had good fun chatting about sites we'd each visited during our NZ travels. The girls especially enjoyed a VIP tour of their trip accommodations, a converted camper van they purchased from a German couple a few months back. Eoghan even gifted the girls a special golden ring he'd picked up during his travels - it's possible it could be Frodo's. It was good fun to connect again.
Just Do It
We're back in the grove of meeting new people in a way that has been so rewarding on our journey thus far. Off we go...
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