An intrinsic part of New Zealand culture is the "OE", Overseas Experience, which involves thousands of young Kiwis leaving these shores in search of adventure, worldwide travel and well-paid jobs in Europe, the Middle East or Australia. Some of them only stay away for a few years, but many others don't return for decades, if at all. Case in point are my two close friends from university, Ellie & Corinne. Ellie embarked on her OE more than 3 years ago and has been living in Sydney ever since. Corinne's journey has been less straightforward: she spent six months in Holland & the UK in 2004, followed by a year back in NZ, and now she's a lucky inhabitant of London (I'm so jealous!).
When I found out that she'd be coming home for three weeks this December I immediately booked a bus ticket to Wellington and arranged to sleep over at her parents' house for a few nights. Because of several unexpected job interviews, my two nights turned into a week-long stay, which gave us oodles of time to catch up on the happenings of the past year (we managed to meet in Amsterdam in 2006), visit Corinne's favourite Wellington haunts, drink lots of white wine and celebrate her graduating with a Master in International Relations from Victoria University. As I missed my own graduation ceremony back in 2003, it was fun to attend this one, not to mention support a friend who's worked her *ss off to complete her studies. Gefeliciteerd!
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