I’m a US citizen. Back in my country kind of sucks. We’re lucky to be able to pull up stakes and go, though, so we did; we’re in New Zealand right now.

It’s late summer in Auckland, and the weather is fantastic. I didn’t realize that I had been getting headaches back in the US due to clenching my jaw until I got here and they went away over the course of a month. The people here are invariably kind and friendly. Government services are actually funded. The infrastructure isn’t falling apart. I have had a grand total of two, maybe three, bad meals in the three-ish months I’ve been here, and I made one of them; all the rest have been delicious.

There are certainly problems in New Zealand, I’m not oblivious to that. But they’re different problems and on a radically different level.