Last full day in NZ, and thankfully the band’s popular here because I can’t wait to come back.

I’m struck by the similarities between NZ and Iceland, two places I instantly fell in love with. Both islands, isolated, fiercely proud, gifted with millennia-old lore. Small, but with seemingly infinite, grand, and deeply wild country, the backdrops for reimagined tales of fantastical heroism.

And both with gnarly-yet-delicious seafood delicacies, rights of passage for wide-eyed off-islanders, that even staunch meat and potatoes enthusiasts from impossible places like Connecticut wolf down with near-orgasmic delight.

The sign of a good trip’s when you leave questioning everything, and this has been one of the best, and most necessary, in a long time.