I wanted to love New Zealand. I bought my flights here in a passionate tizzy, psyched to see my sister and to explore the land that sparked a thousand movies. I wanted to bounce around various pieces of gorgeous scenery, communing with nature and losing myself in the reflections of lakes under mountains and long stretches of blue-green sea. I...
On a cold morning in the middle of August, Marta and I stood on the shoulder of the only road through town, a two-lane straight-shot that ran past the one gas station, three restaurants, and six places of accommodation that constituted the Tongariro National Park Settlement. It wasn’t the best place to get a ride—not a popular route, smack in...
Creamy scrambled eggs topped with freshly grated pepper. Thick slices of homemade bread toasted and dripping in butter. A rasher of bacon sizzling on the stove. Oranges nestled all around the kitchen in an assortment of cornflower-blue crockery. That is what I expected from breakfast on the farm. What I got instead was an helter-skelter spattering of carbohydrates heaped uninvitingly...