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“It’s a small world after all…” the song at Disneyland plays during a ride in which little dolls dressed in national costumes of the world spin and twirl alongside, around, over and under you. The slow journey through a tunnel makes you dream dreams of a world without war and famine and sickness, a world where we “all just get along.”  It is a world I am making plans to explore beyond Disneyland. Today, most airlines cooperate in what are known as Round the World fares. They are based on either mileage/kilometres or a fixed number of stops in continents. Usually the ticket is good for year. You have to keep moving in one direction, east or west.  Deciding on where you want to go is more binding then the dates and times which can be changed, for the most part, without extra expense. I know, as a teacher of English as a second language, I want to see Asia and the countries most of my students live in.

But, when it comes to making plans for moves—whether to a new home, a new country or simply a holiday in search of healing, recreation or refreshment there are lots of questions. Should finding the best deals, saving the most money, rule in the making of plans? As a widow/single person can I do this by myself? 

The first few months after my husband died a year ago I seriously considered becoming a nun! I wanted to hide from the world and savour the depth and beauty of his passing. Time had slowed so much that it seemed I might be in that state for the rest of my life. But, as Willie Nelson sings “love is the greatest healer,” and I find myself, after a year of receiving the love and support of family and friends, able to think of a future…and, as one of my sons said recently, even eager to experience it.

I remember when Disneyland first began in the late 1950s. My family went there soon after the Magic Kingdom first opened the doors to Sleeping Beauty’s castle. We had just moved, yet again, from Los Angeles, out into the desert high country of Yucaipa, and made the trek as a family (mom, dad, two big sisters and one little brother) down to Anaheim where Disneyland was. It was flat land, then, with no houses, surrounded by orange groves. 

In the move to Yucaipa, my parents had put all of their savings into Disney stock--$1000. Those months they had the stock--which went down, down, down, splitting over and over again--were the only ones in which I ever heard my parents argue openly. Finally, when the stocks had split several times and risen to the point they were again worth $1000, my parents sold. The tension of the business world and the stock market was too much for them. It was ruining their love story. 
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My dad, Henry Clay Pruitt, who I have written about before, was born in the mountains of North Carolina. Following World War I, his mother wanted the family to move to Raleigh where there were jobs. His father didn’t. My grandparents divorced in 1920 when most Baptists didn’t get divorced. It was rumoured that if his mother ever returned the KKK would burn a cross on the property! At 9, my father lost his sense of home and family. 

He lived and worked on tenant farms with his father and two brothers until a kind woman noticed that he, now 11, loved school whenever he could attend. She arranged for him to enrol at Berea Academy in Berea, Kentucky where he lived until he finished high school, late, at 19. It was the Great Depression by then and my father took to selling magazines in the Northeast telling prospective buyers he was working his way through college. A lie told my many young men in those days.

One day, when he had walked up a long drive to a large home in Providence, Rhode Island--those were the days when poor young men dreamed of being millionaires - my father told the lie to the woman who came to the door. She said, “I know you are not telling me the truth, but you look like an intelligent person. Maybe you should stop telling this lie and go to college.” 

Instead he returned to Raleigh where most of the family then lived and tried, for a few years, to put his family back together. Finally, his mother told him it wasn’t going to happen and that he needed to make his own way in the world. So, he joined the Army and spent four years in Panama. Then he joined the Navy and spent the next three years sailing from the Aleutians to Australia. America entered World War II.

In the South Pacific, an explosion on his ship and burns to my father’s face, arms and hands - and a time in the Naval hospital in Wellington, New Zealand - meant the end of that wandering life. Then he met my mother at a hamburger stand in Pasadena, California. They married three weeks later. They walked everywhere, including past large homes in Pasadena and San Marino, dreaming…

The GI Bill was passed and four years later, my father, mother, my younger sister and I moved into the tin-roofed Quonset huts set up for GIs at Occidental College in Los Angeles. My father had his chance at a higher education. When he finished at 40, he didn’t have to go through a mid-life crisis and, instead, became an elementary school teacher. My brother was born, Sputnik was launched and Eisenhower put “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.
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View from beach in Lanikai, Hawaii

My dad retired at 62, in 1975, and his income as a teacher had never been over $20,000. My mother went to college after my father finished and she worked for 13 years as a teacher. Her income never matched my dad’s. Seven years younger than my dad, she retired at 55. Their mortgage had been paid off and they paid cash for a house with ocean views in Lanikai, Hawaii, on the leeward side of Oahu, near my sister. An ideal spot for retirement--never need to move again, you would think. My parents’ generation--the one they say saved the world--does seem to have had some special blessing on it. But most have died or soon will. Having grown up during the Depression, my parents had a desire to have jobs that seemed to weather economic ups and downs; they had observed that teachers always seemed to be able to find work. They had a desire to do better than their parents. They were good savers of money. My father took the advice of real estate experts to buy what you could afford in the best places. We moved a lot in the search. My dad was always a rather restless soul and looking for something to “eventuate,” as we say in New Zealand.

Our beautiful little home with a Juliet balcony at 581 Berkeley is featured in a retrospective of his work about his innovative design of smaller “tract” homes. Neff was way ahead of his time. Located near the California Institute of Technology and the Huntington  Museum (where Pinky and Blue Boy reside http://www.huntington.org/), there are just a few streets of these homes in San Marino and Pasadena. How different California would look today if Neff’s architectural leadership had been followed!

There was even a time when my parents owned a vacation property on Lido Isle next to Jane Wyman’s house—one she owned after she and Ronald Reagan divorced. They bought that property after an aunt left my mother some money. “Aunt Ella believed in real estate,” my mother said and then this property happened at just the right time. Love motivated my mother.

How did these things happen to my parents? I don’t know. They must have wanted them, worked hard and made prudent and interesting choices based on values other than the desire to make money. However, I have wondered if that little boy from the mountains who had to do so much wandering before he found his true love in my mother ever wished he could be a millionaire. Their estate was worth about that when they died within seven weeks of each other in 2001, both in their 80s, having clung to each other as long as they could. And, it would all mean nothing if it weren’t for their love.
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And while my parents always did well by investing in real estate, they always sold right before values went up dramatically! It was a pattern. They kept moving on over the years—the various places in southern California as we kids grew up, then Hawaii where my sister lived, then North Carolina to be on the East Coast for easier travel to Europe, then back to Hawaii before spending their last ten years in Florida on the East Coast where I was living in Pennsylvania and my brother, the monk, at Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, Massachusetts.  What did my Dad have to say when we talked about what a former home was worth at the time?  “I won’t forget what I did for love…,” he always said. My parents loved the musical The Chorus Line. Here are some of the words to the musical’s song What I Did For Love:

Auckland

..
Gone,
Love is never gone.
As we travel on,
Love’s what we’ll remember.

Kiss today goodbye,
And point me t’ward tomorrow
We did what we had to do.
Won’t forget, can’t regret
What I did for love.

Yes, when my parents moved, they moved for love: a better home or better schools for their children, to be near grandchildren, to be closer to my brother just in case the monastic life didn’t work out. 

My father had encouraged my brother, born eight years after I was, to invest in the stock market when he was a boy. They sent him on a trip around the world as an undergraduate. While my sister and I grew up under more frugal circumstances, my brother had another experience growing up in San Marino
around privileged peers, in a household with two incomes. It was a heartbreaker for my father when my brother chose to give up the worldly life for a monastic one. But, after more than 25 years as Father Anthony, my brother is “happy as”. Now, there’s a place to escape from America!

Like most of us, my parents were always looking for the best quality for the best price. That is only intelligent. Travel or moves, especially these days, whether just around the corner, to another state or another country or continent, it seems to me, have to be grounded in something more than getting the best deal. However, as my friend, the travel agent says flying in and out of New Zealand to various parts of the world provides some of the cheapest airfares today. Let me tell you what I have discovered in the last seven years.

When my late husband, Tom, and I arrived in New Zealand in July, 1997, we flew in on one-way tickets. We had our application for permanent residency papers filled out and $30,000US from the sale of our house in Pennsylvania. 

We were two adults (49 and 51) and four children (18, 14, 13, and 10). We thought we had been smart to purchase only one-way tickets. We figured we weren’t going to be going back to America for a while and probably not as a group, so why spend the money on round trip tickets?
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View of Snells Beach

As the six of us sat in an alcove waiting to find out if we were going to be able to enter the country, we began to feel a little foolish. Tom had presented application forms, the money, and told them our intentions. But, now, we had to wait. Happily, when the uniformed official came back, the news was good: we could enter the country on the 3-month visa, just like any tourist and hope that our application for permanent residency would be approved within that time. Love and hope for the future were motivating us.  We lived for two months on the North Island in pastoral Snells Beach, near Warkworth, where we set up our bank account—at the time our $30,000US turned into $45,000NZ. If we were to do this today, the exchange would be less. We were thrilled at the time, but during these seven years we have seen the exchange rate fluctuate greatly. Three years ago, our $30,000US would have turned into almost $60,000NZ! What we do we do for love…

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Our immigration case worker was in Auckland, an hour and a half away, and overworked. After we moved to less-populated Christchurch here on the South Island, things moved more quickly. By the end of our visa time, we had our permanent residency.

Our one-way tickets cost about $1000US each. Round trip fare from Los Angeles to Auckland has stayed around $2000US over the years. However, it usually costs between $1500 and $2000NZ to fly to Los Angeles—this is about $800 to $1200US, so I have always thought something was wrong (or right) for someone travelling from there to here or here to there!

The times they are a changing, though. Tom’s family is coming to visit in December, and they were able to get tickets online with Air New Zealand, set to begin flying from Los Angeles to Christchurch (rather than Auckland which has been the only port of entry) in November. Their cost is around $900US which is quite a savings, comparable to the airfare from here to there.

I am planning to take six months off and travel around the world on a ticket that is good for a year. I will arrive late to the Big OE (or Overseas Experience), a Kiwi phenomenon (http://www.tandempress.co.nz/inprint/book.cfm?bookid=121). Airfare from here is based on kilometres travelled. The basic fare of $2100NZ would take me to Singapore, Frankfurt, London and Los Angeles. Around the world, sure, but just…

For $3500NZ more cities can be added. But, for not more than $4500NZ I can go to ALL the places I want to: Singapore, Toyko, Seoul, Bangkok, Frankfurt, Bombay, Vienna, London, New York City, Boston, Merida (Mexico), Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Honolulu.

Here is the response I received from Rob, the travel agent, with regards to round the world airfares from America: 3 Continents $3500US, 4 continents $3800US, 5 continents $4600US or 6 continents $5000US. Rob also tells me:

Pricing is dependent upon type of fare class, number of continents visited, and country of origin.  Starting such a trip in North America is one of the most expensive places to start.  Tickets issued in some European and African countries can cut the ticket price nearly in half.

A typical around the world fare allows up to 20 segments total, and all these are included the price of the ticket.  You have 12 months to use the ticket from the time you start your trip.  There are routing restrictions and in-continent segments restrictions that need to be understood. A single flight number is considered a segment, even if there is a stopover and a change of equipment.  Planning a valid itinerary is time consuming. 

More information can be found at: http://www.oneworld.com/products/category.cfm?ObjectID=3. Also, http://www.hardlink.com/~markdu/OWFiles/. 

So, all that is left is for me to make the big decision to “go for it.”  Planning, for me, will involve deciding which direction to go in. Whether I go east or west, near Merida, Mexico, in Playa del Carmen, I plan to do a four-week CELTA (International House Barcelona, training@bcn.ihes.com) course to increase my qualifications to teach English as a second language. Then, as my Head of Department has told me, I can go anywhere in the world and teach!

This week I received a most interesting email in response to a young woman reading my first article for Escape From America magazine “Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness…and Dying.”

Dear Ms. Green,

I know this is and might be completely strange, but...I just read your article, "Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness", and was immensely touched by it.  As I was reading it, though, it reminded me of a similar story of a girl I met when I was in college.  Her name is Shoshanna Hill.  I don't know if you know her, but, according to your life story as presented in your wonderful essay on seeing life differently through "shifting" and experience, you might??
Here's why:
--her parents lived in New Zealand when I met her in a Geology class at 
UW-Madison.
--I know her maiden name was Green.  She married a fellow named Hill, hence the new surname.
--her father was a television producer for a TV station
--she has a younger sister (Hadassah) and you mentioned having a younger 
daughter
--I know Shoshanna is originally from PA (I believe she's in NJ now--that's where her husband Pat got a job).
--You mentioned travelling to Hawaii, and I know Shoshanna went there over the spring semester that I met her (2001).  She brought me back rocks.

I am currently moving.  I don't handle it well, but to hopefully feel 
better I did a Google search--all I entered was: "moving unsettled new love 
life together".  Your essay was the second listing that came up, so I read 
it and, as I wrote, was very moved by how affected you were by the Kiwi 
people.  I was especially comforted by the line:  "I realized I might just 
be where I was supposed to be".

Maybe you don't know Shoshanna, and if so, I am glad that I get to express 
to you that I found your writing very poignant.  But there are so many 
details that line up that, in the case that she's your daughter, I wanted 
you to know how small the world wide web is, and how much you can affect 
someone so faraway in Madison, WI.

Thank you for reading my response, and my very best wishes to you and your 
family. I am so interested in Kiwi thought and phrases now.

All she did was put MOVING UNSETTLED NEW LIFE LOVE TOGETHER into her search engine! This dear stranger is, indeed, a friend of my darling daughter Shoshanna who I will visit on my stop in Philadelphia as, Love Willing, I wend my way around the world. I may not do my Big Overseas Experience  as a nun, but, perhaps, like Chaucer’s nun in his Canterbury Tales, I can have, in a spiritual way, LOVE CONQUERS ALL emblazoned on my bodice.

Kiss today good-bye. 

Point me toward tomorrow. 

Jiminy Cricket, it’s a small, small world!

The following are the previous articles that Candy has written about New Zealand for the magazine:

Living In New Zealand ~ Answers & Anecdotes Part 1
Life, Liberty, The Pursuit Of Happiness And Dying - Reflections On Immigration To New Zealand
Is There Trouble In Paradise? - In New Zealand
Answers & Anecdotes, Part 2  - More On Living In New Zealand
Walking On Mountains: What’s Love Got To Do With It? - From New Zealand To Norfolk Island
Cheering Up Down Under ~ In New Zealand 
The First International Widows And Fatherless Tour - More Adventures In New Zealand

To contact Candy Click Here
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