September 26th Can You Tell The Difference?

Yesterday's Blog was written as an Australian citizen, who lives in New Zealand and has done so for a total of 44 years.

Today's Blog is written by a New Zealand citizen, who was born in Australia.

Yes, today I was granted my NZ Citizenship Certificate, and have that in my humble possession. The ceremony was actually quite nice. I  had the distinction of being the only Australian in a group of 64 people being granted citizenship.  There were South Africans, Indians, Samoans, people from the United Kingdom, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indian and Fijians in attendance. Each individual and each family were gifted a Kowhai Tree (native to NZ).

I didn't expect to be as moved as I was, until it came to the singing of NZ's national anthem, in both Maori and  English. I found myself in tears at the very emotional moment.

So I can no longer be referred to as a Polish Australian Kiwi. I am just a Polish Kiwi girl (OK woman, if you want to split hairs).

Afterwards, you know what was called for. And I really went all out and treated myself and spent the rest of the day concentrating on my celebratory skills and did not work. The shock, the horror!!