Going home
As I left on my flight home, I thought how fitting it was to have ended my Round the World trip in Australia and New Zealand. Like the US, I think of these countries as "New World" countries, bringing people together from all over the world. In fact, I had representative cuisine from each of the countries I visited. A dessert shop from Latin America in Queenstown, my favorite Turkish soup in Melbourne,Thai, Lao, Cambodian food all over New Zealand, and the morning I left, I had a repeat of my favorite meal in South Africa. It's a fast casual chain called Nando's, and while they scream "Portuguese" in all of their marketing materials, it's actually Portuguese as interpreted by South Africans. Definitely try the spicy peri-peri chicken if you get the chance.
I actually hadn't planned on visiting Australia at all on this trip, since I'd been once before. And I was only going to spend a week in NZ, after two weeks in the Pacific Islands. One kayaking safari after another fell through in Fiji, and other Pacific nations required too much thinking on my part to plan for, so I sort of defaulted on seeing the two countries for the whole month. I'm so glad I did. With the cooking class in Sydney and the chocolate class in Melbourne, and the outdoors adventures in NZ (glacier hiking and snowboarding), this month was an awesome way to end my trip.
