Matt and Kat Brown

I arrived back in Dublin safely on Sunday afternoon following 40 hours of travel from Sydney via Auckland (5hrs), LA (1hr) and Heathrow (another 5hrs). The best part about all the travel is that I haven’t really had any jetlag, I was back at work at 9:30 on Monday morning, and I’ve been back to normal sleep, wake, work, play, sleep routine without any ill effects.

My two weeks in Sydney were very enjoyable, the Google office there is very nice, looking out directly over Darling Harbour from nearly the 20th floor and with a fairly laid-back and relaxed atmosphere. I also caught up with our friends from Auckland, Sam and Manuela who have been living in Sydney for the last year or so and we swapped some stories about our various experiences living overseas and away from family which was interesting.

There is a bunch of photos from New Zealand, Brisbane and Sydney in the gallery at:

• NZ
• Brisbane
• Sydney

It’s been a busy week back, both at work and catching up with what friends have been doing while we were away. We went to a Habitat for Humanity pub quiz night last night, raising funds for a trip to build some houses in Ghana later this year. Our team only had 3 out of a desired 4 members, but despite that disadvantage we still managed to post a semi-respectable score of 49 (the winning team got about 96, the losers were on 30 I think) and had a great time.

We’re moving out of our current apartment in two weeks, and I think we found where we will move to this evening. Apparently sleeping on decisions allows your subconcious to make cleverer decisions than when you are awake so we’ll decide tommorrow morning if that’s where we want to move or not :p

Watch this space.

What a busy first week back in Dublin it’s been!
I had such a fun time in New Zealand. I think it goes without saying that I loved seeing all our friends again and treasured the time we got to spend with our families. I only wish we got have stayed for 3 weeks more! There was a strong feeling of relaxation and comfort at being ‘home’ when we arrived in Auckland and as we drove the familiar road from Auckland to Hamilton. I’m loving being here in Ireland, the travel and the new places and people but it’s also helped me to see how much I appreciate NZ and all that we’re blessed with there!

I got back to Dublin on Sunday last week. It was straight into work on Monday morning, thankfully without too much jet-lag.

We’re planning to look for a new apartment in the next few weeks so I’ve been keeping an eye out for new places and also beginning to tidy up around our place and pack things up. One thing we’ve been avoiding ‘tidying up’ for the last 5 months is our Christmas tree. We bought a real Christmas tree last year, a beautiful big tree that filled the corner of our lounge and made the house smell like Christmas. Unfortunately, living in an apartment in the city makes it hard to dispose of said tree after Christmas is over… for the last 5 months the tree has been slowing browning on our deck.

We had many helpful suggestions from family on how to get rid of the tree – such as leaving it in the apartment lift or sneaking out in the dead of night to throw it in the river. Taking a slightly more conservative strategy, this weekend I went out and bought a hand saw and dismantled the tree, limb by limb so we can put it out in the trash. Quite an accomplishment I felt – and so nice to be able to see our deck again

Unfortunately my weekend turned sour on Sunday as my bag was stolen It’s an awful feeling to be without your bag – no phone + no keys + no wallet = no life! In church is the place you least expect to have your handbag stolen but it was also the best place it could have happened as I had friends around me to calm me down and help me sort things out. Wonderful friends who stayed with me during the day and lent me their phones and their money, fed me and offered me a bed when I couldn’t get into my own place. What a blessing they are!

All is mostly sorted out again now and I’m safe and sound in my own apartment again. Hopefully the rest of this week will pass without incident. I’m looking forward to having Matt home again this Sunday

For the last three weeks we’ve been back in New Zealand (and briefly Brisbane) catching up with friends and family. It’s been a very busy, but fun time and it is certainly nice to catch up with everyone in person again. The trip has led to some interesting (and no doubt reassuring for some family members) observations.

When I left New Zealand, just over a year ago, I thought that I would be quite happy to live overseas for the next 5-10 years and apart from missing family I wouldn’t really miss New Zealand all that much. That seemed to be pretty true during the last year in Dublin. I was never consciously homesick or wishing to be back in New Zealand. Skype, VoIP and the Internet do a pretty good job of letting us stay in touch with family and friends, so while I was looking forward to visiting New Zealand I wasn’t expecting my thoughts and opinions about ‘home’ to be significantly changed.

With that in mind, I found it quite strange to feel much more comfortable, at ease and ‘at home’ back in New Zealand than I do in Dublin! Lots of little things about Dublin that I’ve not previously noticed or been bothered by suddenly came to mind as I enjoyed New Zealand suburbia. I’m pretty sure that this is mostly just due to New Zealand being where I grew up, and hence being much more familiar to me than Dublin but it I found it an interesting observation none the less.

You shouldn’t take that to mean that we’ll be immediately moving away from Dublin and rushing back to New Zealand. We both have good jobs in Dublin, and I struggle to think of where I would get a similarly rewarding (financially and intellectually) job in New Zealand. Add to that the fact that there is still lots of Europe that we want to see and the friends that we’ve made in Dublin and we’ll almost definitely being staying till April 2009. I say almost just to leave ourselves some wiggle room, you never know what interesting opportunities or events might cause a change of plans! After April 2009, who knows, maybe Dublin, maybe not. It’s too far ahead to plan in detail at the moment.

So, visiting New Zealand and Brisbane was an excellent holiday, well worth the 24+ hours of flying and time off work. Apart from the obvious highlight of seeing our families and friends, I also particularly enjoyed:

• The sunshine and good weather (mostly in Tauranga, but also in Hamilton and Auckland).
• New Zealand suburbia, the grass and trees in particular. Dublin is quite dark, dirty and full of concrete/brick by comparison.

Right now I’m in Sydney, preparing to spend two weeks in the office here getting to know my colleagues in Sydney a bit better and getting a feel for the city. Kat is currently somewhere over the Pacific, en route to LA and eventually Dublin.