< 1 day.. :)
And tomorrow is the day.

I am sitting in my room with my bags packed, going over in my head to find the things I've forgotten. I'm sure there are several, and I'll realise what they are when I'm in the plane somewhere over the Tasman sea. I feel somewhat excited, but I'm not entirely sure what else I feel. I think it will feel a bit sad to be leaving New Zealand behind.

I have music playing on my stereo, which I can't bring with me.. A surprisingly small amount of stuff fits into even quite a big suitcase, especially when you're trying to stick to a 23kg weight limit. I also can't fit my cow or my elephant. But the wall-frog is already packed :)

Tomorrow at 1:15pm I fly to Christchurch, and then on to Sydney at 6:05pm, arriving at 7:25pm Australian time. Then I will stay a night at Formule 1 Hotel Sydney Airport.. which looks fairly modest, hopefully it'll be alright. Sunday will be spent either at Sydney airport, or if I feel up to it I might go visit my cousin at Bondai Beach. The 16 hour 50 minute flight to Dubai leaves at 6:45pm and arrives at 5:35am Dubai time. Unfortunately there is only a 2 hour stop in Dubai as I'd have liked to have spent a bit more time there. But these tickets were part of some kind of deal meaning stopover options were limited, but the flights to UK were pretty cheap ($1300 inc taxes). Anyways, at 8:05am, this is on Monday, I'll board a flight to London's Gatwick airport which arrives at 12:30 pm. And that'll be that. Friends of mine from Dunedin will be (hopefully) waiting at the airport to pick me up and take me to Cranleigh, which is about an hour or so southwest of London.

From there I don't have too much in the way of further plans other than that at some point in the coming 2 weeks I need to go in to London and find a flat to live in. And also buy some new clothes.

I often have emotions that are associated with a certain time or place.. not really any emotion that I can name. Each time one of these links forms in my mind it is brand new -- I've never felt that way before. Its a place, the feel of it, the smells and sounds and colours and experience of it. Often I will have these emotions associated with the music that I was listening to at the time. I was in the supermarket the other day and Orinocho Flow started playing and in my mind I had the feeling of camping at Tologa Bay on the East Cape of the North Island with my family about age 7 or 8. They're not really feelings that I was experiencing at the time, I think the feeling is the actual memory of the place.. so much more than can be put into words its like I go back there in my mind and experience it again it some way. I guess I feel like I'm gonna look back at where I am right now with certain feelings but at the moment I just can't tell what that feels like.. But I know I'll feel like this was a significant time in my life. Its sortof a transition from the familiar, the comfortable, known, etc, into the unknown. I honestly have no idea what I'll be doing in 1 week from now. What will England be like for me?