CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
An Auckland man who now lives in Australia has today struggled to last longer than 15 minutes without mentioning how rough it is back home.
30-year-old Eden Ellerslie hasn’t lived in the Land Of The Long White Cloud for ten years, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten his roots.
Because, according to Eden, it’s quite hard to forget the extremely volatile streetlife and constant sense of danger that only exists in living in the world’s 2nd most livable city.
With a median resident salary of 80,000 and an average house price of 900,000 (NZD lol), Auckland isn’t just coffee shops and Lord Of The Rings tourism.
As Eden points out, the metropolitan suburbs of the picturesque North Island are as treacherous and violent as the midwest American city Chicago under the reign of the notorious mafia don Al Capone.
In fact, it sounds as like even the most hardened slumlords in the favellas of Rio de Janeiro would wanna keep their heads low in the City Of Sails.
“Bro, back home” says the humble Kiwi, as he shakes his head with a smirk that implies only he can truly understand the transgressions that exists in a lawless society.
“Let me just say… Aussies don’t get it”
In fact, given the harrowing insights that Eden has provided about New Zealand’s largest capital city, it’s really quite surprising that he was even able to escape.
Luckily with a commerce degree at the University of Auckland, and the option to work in Australia at 20 years of age, the former Albany Senior High School graduate was gifted the rare chance to break the cycle.
“I’m one of the lucky ones, I guess” he says.
“A lot didn’t make it out”
When asked if he ever visits back home, Eden chuckles.
“Yeah bro. Sometimes. But I don’t stay too long when I do”
“So easy to get caught up in something over there”
