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New Zealand Travelog #44
Back home - Mon, 22Apr 2024, 7pm
Today has a day of rest after returning from two weeks in New Zealand and before returning to work on Tuesday. ...Well, it's most of a day of rest. Our flight landed in San Francisco this morning around 6:45am, and we were home— as in walking through our front door— at 7:45am. The balance of the day has been for resting up & getting back into ordinary daily life.
Technically I could have made today a workday instead of taking it as another day of vacation. But, oh, there are so many reasons to have taken it off:
Back home - Mon, 22Apr 2024, 7pm
Today has a day of rest after returning from two weeks in New Zealand and before returning to work on Tuesday. ...Well, it's most of a day of rest. Our flight landed in San Francisco this morning around 6:45am, and we were home— as in walking through our front door— at 7:45am. The balance of the day has been for resting up & getting back into ordinary daily life.
Technically I could have made today a workday instead of taking it as another day of vacation. But, oh, there are so many reasons to have taken it off:
- There was no guarantee that my flight would have landed on time for me to be home & ready to work by 8am.
- As it was, I got no sleep on the flight. I knew that was a possibility when I planned. Rolling into a workday on literally zero sleep is not a plan for success.
- My company offers an "unlimited" vacation policy, so why not take an extra day?
- Compared even to coming home late one evening and working the next morning, having a day— or most of a day— to readjust after an overseas trip is awesome.
- By 10am I realized I was going to need a nap to get through the day. I laid down for an hour. After an hour I realized an hour was not enough, so I added another 45 minutes.
- After my nap I went out for lunch to a favorite local taqueria. After two weeks of mostly disappointing food in New Zealand it was splendid comfort food.
- The weather was amazing Monday afternoon. It was like, "Summer is here!" Especially after 2 weeks of cool weather, overcast skies, and rain most days in New Zealand, it felt like I pulled a Rip Van Winkle and skipped a whole season.
- Driving on the left side of the road again was no challenge. Like I wrote about driving on the right, the change is more hand-eye coordination than muscle memory. Though today I signalled most of my lane changes by turning on my windshield wipers. 🤣
- I spent the afternoon catching up on financial stuff, paying bills, etc. This may sound like displeasurable activity but it was satisfy to get things squared away.
- I made dinner at home. Afterwards we went out for a long soak in the hot tub.
- We watched a bit of TV together
- I did no work. NONE.
- I went to bed at 10pm feeling like I'd had a satisfying, relaxing day— and rejuvenated to get back to work on Tuesday.