What’s something we both love doing together?
Probably travelling, although we’ve reached a stage of travel burnout. We can’t wait to have a stable life and start building a nest!

What’s a typical weekend for us?
Ileana trying to get Kauri off the computer and out in nature (usually the beach); Kauri commenting how HD it is outside (every time the same dad’s joke…).

How did the proposal happen?
It was an Odyssey and it took Kauri 10 days of calculations to make it happen. We recently took a trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia. Kauri had planned to propose at a nice restaurant on our first night in Vietnam. However, we had some issues with our flights so we cancelled the dinner and booked another place in Cambodia. When the time came, Ileana got sick so we decided to postpone to Malaysia. There were a few mishaps there as well (restaurant was full, we had to reschedule etc) but we finally found a nice place on our last night in Kuala Lumpur! And that’s where it happened 🙂

What was the first cultural difference we noticed about each other?
Kauri wouldn’t wait for me to start eating! I was shocked, it was one of our first dates and Kauri had started digging in on a pizza while I was washing my hands in the bathroom.

Italians can be very passionate and expressive. One word text replies from me get me hit with the 🥶 emoji. Ileana comes home, gives me a short theatre performance about her day. My day is usually ‘pretty normal’ which gets a ‘is that it/tell me more!’ from Ileana. Kiwis are more chill than I realised lol

Can Kauri speak any Italian?
Not really, or better: he’s learned a few basics at the start and then never progressed any further. He knows enough endearment terms to keep Ileana happy.

What’s one Italian habit the Kiwi partner has picked up?
Scarpetta: using a piece of bread to soak up the last of the sauce on the plate.

What’s one Kiwi habit the Italian partner still finds funny or surprising?
Where do I start? I always find it funny and fascinating how every Kiwi knows so much about birds. A lesson I learnt the hard way is that by “tomato sauce” they mean ketchup, not passata. Also, shoes are optional. And, my favourite one: Kiwis are so relaxed and laid-back that they don’t need much notice or planning to organize stuff (or is this just Kauri?).

What’s our best memory from our trip in South America?
Completing a 5-day hike in Patagonia, seeing the Samba schools competing at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, riding our bikes along the Caribbean Sea in Mexico, seeing Machu Picchu from the top of the hill… We have plenty of good memories from South America, but the best one was how simple and natural it was to face that backpacking life together. We embarked on that journey not too long after we had started dating, so in many ways it was a test to our relationship but never did we have any doubts about each other 🙂

What’s our best memory from our life in Australia?
The day Ileana received the visa for New Zealand. Jokes, probably driving a van from Cairns to Brisbane: vanlife was something we had been meaning to tick off our bucket list!

What’s next on our bucket list?
Ileana hopes Kauri will invent an app and get super rich so that we can buy a house and start the boring adult life we’ve been postponing for too long!