From old memories: Titahi Bay today and then

I loved this place when I was 19! This view from the terrace, this bay, this café, this beach, everything around it. Often, and especially when I was homesick (often!), I longed to go back there. Not because everything there was (just) great or easy - on the contrary - but I felt at home there, in Titahi Bay, and wanted to feel at home.

Let's start in a different and unusual way, not only with the positive: When I think of Titahi Bay, I also think of the fact that I had little money, only irregular work and was poorly paid.

I vividly remember that my bank account was and was getting emptier; because I wanted to travel, experience a lot and at the same time definitely didn't want to ask my parents for money, I was extremely stressed at times.

I had a room in a beautiful house and I wanted to stay there. I got on well with the young family I was staying with and was glad to no longer be in a shared room in a hostel. I didn't want to give up the breathtaking sea view from almost all of the rooms. But it also came at a price. I only had work now and then. In addition, questions about what exactly I wanted to do after New Zealand put me under pressure. And I put pressure on myself too. Sometimes, in addition to money worries, I was perhaps also a little afraid of the future. That's how I see it today.

However, one thing was clear to me back then and I was determined: the time in New Zealand should be mine, not financed by anyone else, not given to me as a gift by my parents etc.

I remember having extreme back pain for a while and not only working in a café and in a restaurant in the evenings and at weekends, and then again with no shifts in sight for days, but also doing a kind of self-organised internship with the Greens, the Green parliamentary group in Wellington, a few times a week [I kept in mind: you have to think about the future, your CV,...]

Despite or because of all of this, Titahi Bay remains very fond in my memory. Intense is the word that best fits here too.

It's been over 15 years since I was last here, and as I drove from Wellington to Titahi Bay I couldn't describe how I felt.

Upset?

In joyful anticipation?

Melancholic?

Strange?

Actually rather quiet.

I didn't really feel much except that I was trying to remember.

Hmm, the shopping center, yes, the big shopping center in the nearest big city. Looks like it did back then.

Wasn't that the place where I broke my glasses?

And wasn't there a pizza shop?

Where was the gym?

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the sea is blue. That's how I remember Titahi Bay. Beautiful, cozy, inviting, a place to linger.

There! The fire station. I'm happy, I have to laugh and I talk to myself. I still remember my visits there well. I read it later in my blog at the time, "KiwisfürAnfänger". https://kiwisfueranfaenger.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/mein-neuseeland/

Where is the house I lived in for a few months? Was that the street? Or further down?

Titahi Bay, here I understood what it means "Home is where your heart is". I may try to convince myself of this in retrospect, but there is something to it when I think back to this bay.

Looking down on the bay from above, so beautiful! I still can't get enough of it today.

Then down to the beach. I'm, how should I say, a little disappointed, perhaps.

Somehow it is not as beautiful as I remember; somehow smaller, no exceptional sand and so few waves.

I have to smile at myself - how spoiled, absolutely spoiled, I am! I think about the many beautiful places that I was able to discover, that I "discovered" after Titahi Bay.

How long ago all of this was! “Incredible,” I think more than once.

Over there is the cafe where I worked. It's closed, no longer a cafe. I'm a little disappointed. In my mind I was going to have lunch there today and do a little work. I sneak around a bit, go to the beach and back. I see that the door is open, a few people; I knock.

Without me having a chance to introduce myself, a blonde woman of about 60 comes up to me and introduces me to an older baker with a hairnet. I tell her what brings me here. I get a piece of bread and a hug. "That's great! Aunty Daisy, yes, it's been closed for a long time. I used to eat here a lot!" the woman without a hairnet tells me. "It's been a long time since the café closed," the other repeats. "It's so nice that you're back. Another piece of bread? Look, here was the counter, there was the kitchen."

The sun is shining, it's warm, I'm drinking a flat white. The owner tells me that a small new café opened right next door two or three years ago. "Oh, I should bring back the weekend dinner thing," says the man at the coffee machine. I think I hear that his accent is not a Kiwi one. His café is called Aloha Friday. American, Canadian? I don't know, and I set off for a little hike. I think I didn't do this 15 years ago when I lived here. Why not? I don't know, or I don't know anymore.

Looking out over the sea, fragments of memories come back.

I wonder what the people I met here back then are doing?

I wonder what the many backpackers I met on all my travels are doing?

Then my thoughts and memories jump back and forth. Various anecdotes from the last 15 years. How cool that I'm back here now. And my memory takes me back to a person, an encounter, a trip, an anecdote. Refreshing the memory, indeed.

And then a new thought that I'm stuck with for the moment: I'm proud of myself. Really, really proud and without any ifs and buts. I wasn't expecting that on my visit today. There I am standing in the sun, looking out over the sea. I just did that back then when I was 19. "Crazy," flashes through my mind. "At 19, really awesome." I had to laugh as I thought about it - and now as I write. If I could meet the self I was from back then, I would pat the person I was talking to on the back. I think I only really understood that today. Really well done, how you managed everything. At 19. Hats off. I have to smile, I'm totally happy.

And then I get in the car and drive on. I have a smile on my face, listen to music from back then, drive to New Zealand's Lesser Poland, a former DP camp. Work and travel in the absolute sense, learned back then how it works and can work and then never stopped again. Really good! Such a great day. Such a crazy day. Such an intense day. I haven't been this happy for a long time!