Arrivederci Italia….. Bentornata in Nuova Zelanda

Ciao a tutti,

As you can imagine a lot as happened for us these past couple of months. Unfortunately the internet we were using from Matteo’s aunties house (which was the flat below where we were staying) was rather slow where we were, so I was unable to document a lot of the things we did, but I will tell you some more about them later 🙂

Saying goodbye is always a difficult task, especially when you are going half way across the world, it wasn’t like going to London where we could just get on a plane and two hours later be back in Italy. Unfortunately this time, we would be travelling on two planes that are around 12 hours in flight time each, with a forced stop over, so it’s a big difference between Italy – to London and Italy – to New Zealand! ahhhhh! Although it was funny, because Matteo couldn’t understand it that way, because he had never travelled that far before, all his aunties were crying, and the Nonnas were crying, and I was crying right there along with them, and when we left Matteo said to me “They didn’t cry when I moved to London, why are they crying now?” haha, yea I wonder…. It’s a much more expensive trip to New Zealand, rather than a cheap flight from London! Really Matteo…. but I guess as he had never travelled that distance before, it was a much different understanding for him, that it was for me.

But I have to say, Long haul flights are pretty comfy, we were flying with Singapore airlines, and it was absolutely wonderful. Matteo was saying he felt like he was in first class! haha it was awesome 🙂

Got to have some fun while on the plane! Pisolo all comfy in his own seat on the plane! Safety first 😛

After a 12 hour flight from Rome to Singapore, and a 12 hour stop over in Singapore, we made our way this Changi Airport, straight to the showers. It gets a bit expensive if you have more that one shower, like Matteo did at $16pp, but better to be clean I guess! Singapore airport was amazing! I loved the foot massage chairs, I spent so long on them! hehehehehe! And the butterfly garden was just beautiful! We signed up for the free tour of Singapore, and went on a bus tour, and got to stop at the MerLion to have photos. The first thing I noticed when we stepped out in Singapore was the heat and humidity. When we stepped out to see the MerLion, I literally couldn’t open my eyes properly when Matteo was trying to take a photo of me. The humidity was just taking it’s toll so much! I made the mistake of not bringing my sunglasses. Definitely something I won’t be doing again if we ever make it back to Singapore!

As you can see, we are both struggling to keep our eyes open!

After our 12 hour stop over, we were finally on the home stretch, we sat next to a young girl who had a bladder of steel, seriously, it was a 10 hour flight, and they give you so much liquid on the plane, and she didn’t get up once! We were worried because we wanted to sleep, but we didn’t want to get woken up by someone wanting to go to the bathroom, so we were very lucky! We arrived in Christchurch an hour earlier than we were supposed to, I guess due to a tail wind or something. So we were waiting for about an hour for my mother and step father to collect us. I was really surprised that it was sunny, and warm when we arrived, because I thought coming into Autumn it would start to become cold!

My parents finally arrived, it was so nice to see my mummy again! But then we had one day of rest, then it was straight it to last minute wedding organising, it ended up being a rather stressful couple of days that I had to finish all the arrangements. But finally it was D day! The day Matteo and I had been waiting for, it was like a fairytale, it was all quite a blur, from waking up in the morning at my grandmothers, to getting my hair and make up done, putting on my dress and waiting for my mum to arrive to take me to the church, where my God Father was giving me away, and we were saying our wedding vows in both italian and english (and woohoo, Matteo understood 90% of what I was saying when I was saying it in Italian) Then photo time, and party time! hehe! It was a great day! And now for the beginning of the rest of our lives!

Signore e Signora Castellani

After our whirlwind wedding, it was lots of visiting family members, we didn’t really get much of a honeymoon, because we couldn’t afford it, but maybe one day soon :), poor Matteo was feeling a bit like scrambled eggs, because he was going to so many different places all the time, without getting to settle anywhere. We went and staying with my father and his family over the easter break, and then went back home to where my mum is for another few days, we were planning to stay longer, but then decided we just wanted to go to Christchurch sooner, so now we are here in Christchurch, Matteo found a job very quickly, thanks to my wonderful step brother, as a labourer. I’m still looking! Hopefully I will find something soon!

I am just hoping I don’t lose all my italian that I had improved so much after 5 weeks in Italy 😦 but just down the road from where we are living, they offer intermediate italian classes, so I would be tempted to give that a go, after I have some form of income of course 😛

Ciao ciao for now!

Will write again soon

Anna x