Jenni | Auckland Central
“My biggest challenge is coming here by myself I think, at the moment. Actually, I’ve only been here for a couple of days.
I decided to come here about six months ago and booked the flights. I’ve been telling everyone where I’m from that I’m coming, and I didn’t actually realise how difficult it would be to be here by myself. So it’s a challenge, but yeah it’s going okay, I think. I’ve lived in the same town forever, and I worked there and everything. So all of my family are from Saltburn where I’m from, and they’re the thing that’s most important to me, really.
I’ve got quite a big family. A lot of nieces and nephews and brothers and sisters, so that is the most important part of my life, but I realised that was all my life was and I needed to go out and see the world, instead of just being in the same place all of the time.
New Zealand seems to be the place to come that’s friendly and easy to navigate. Just believing that it’s going to make me a better person, and sticking with that thought. The world’s a big place and overcoming my fear of it is knowing that at the end of it, however scared I was at the beginning, it’s not going to seem like such a big deal. I’ll have enjoyed myself and had the best time ever, and maybe I’ll want to go to other countries and things like that afterwards.
That’s been my main thing and just walking around and not saying no to things like this and just sort of doing it. All of my friends who are the same age as me are getting engaged, married, and are buying their first houses and that sort of thing, which is great and something that I want to do in the future. I do love where I come from so it’s where I ultimately want to settle, but it scares me a little bit; that thought of waking up when I’m 50 wishing I’d done it when I was younger. I’d hate to wake up and regret that I hadn’t made the most of my time. So that’s it really. It’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time and, I don’t know, one day you’ve just got to decide to do it, don’t you?
I’m very unprepared. I know there’s loads of places in New Zealand to visit. So that is basically my whole plan: to just travel round and find where I like the best and hopefully stay there for awhile and get a job. I don’t know how long I’m going to stay or anything. I’m just winging it and hoping for the best, really. That’s my full plan and hopefully it’ll be okay.”
