Weekends in Wellington, Part 1

It’s odd for me to have crammed so much travelling into the beginning of my time here. If I were doing things my way, I would have eased into things. I would have taken my time exploring Wellington, the epicentre of my adventures, and then radiated outwards from it. But if I would have done that, then I would have missed out on travelling with others. So, while there was an explosion of excitement, and then quiet after the storm, I have enjoyed it.

With this internship, I have enjoyed a four day work week. Friday the 16th of July dawned, I slept in (although my body usually wakes me up earlier than I want it to on days off), and in the early afternoon headed out to get fitted for a costume for "Dames, Dolls, and Gents" casino night, an event that Kendall was putting together for her internship. She needed volunteers, and I wanted to help out. As a part of it, Amanda and I were dressed up as flappers and would be serving as Cigar Girls. Wes and Adam were also a part of the evening, and so we all headed out with Kendall to the costume shop. More to come on this in a post in the near future, I promise.

Since it was a nice day out, most of us stayed out and explored some of the city. Kendall and I ended up wandering through the “Old Bank” building. At one point, it was a bank (go figure) but was going to be torn down. However, it was discovered that the ruins of one of the tall ships that brought settlers to New Zealand lay beneath the foundation of the building, and so in the end it was preserved and converted into a shopping centre. I misunderstood the end of the story, because I thought that the ruins of the ship were still visible to the public. I told Kendall this, and so we went inside seeking to see some wreckage. It was like a city within a city, filled to brim with interesting but tiny shops. We found an ode to the tall ship in a glass showcase with a few rotted pieces of wood and rusted metal. Bit of a let down, really, but we saw it nevertheless! Perhaps the oddest part about our journey into the building is that we emerged from underground several blocks away, and had to backtrack a bit in order to find Adam, Amanda, and Joe, who were sitting at Starbucks. We walked around for a while, but headed back. Amanda and Joe split off from the group, and I decided to introduce Adam and Kendall to a café I was shown by the girls from my church here. It’s a part of the theatre where Return of the King was premiered, and I didn’t know if they knew that yet or not. Adam did, which was a bummer, but we still went in and had some coffee.

Saturday morning, Kendall and I found ourselves awake at about the same time and decided to head out to a small hole in the wall type restaurant for breakfast called Joe’s Garage. It was delicious, and was a good time of getting to know each other a lot better. When we got back from that, I texted Wes to see if he wanted to go out on a hunt with me for a movie we’d been talking about finding. We ended up going to several different stores before finally finding A Goofy Movie. Who knew!

The big event of July 17^th, however, was going to the All Blacks rugby game against South Africa. I was so excited! There were nine of us sitting together, the perfect number for writing out on our cheeks, with one letter per person, ALL BLACKS.

It was amazing as we took the bus to the stadium to look out the windows and see the river of people along the sidewalks headed to the same destination we were. The atmosphere was charged as we arrived and made our way to the stadium entrance. Now, I will say only one negative thing about Kiwis. Overall, they’re lovely people. However, get them in a grocery store or, in that case, in line for tickets, and all bets are off.

Once inside, we made our way through the bowels of the stadium, heading in the general direction of our section, hoping that we wouldn’t miss the rugby team throw down the gauntlet by performing a haka. Camille and I somehow got separated from the rest and were the first to emerge into the seating area. Having paid a small fee for our tickets (labelled row MM), we expected to be in the nosebleed section, and so we headed upwards. However, we noticed only a row M, not MM. I asked a gentleman sitting nearby if he had any idea where we were sitting. He pointed down! We were the second row from the field! It was awesome!

I think rugby may be my new favorite sport. It has such a great pace! The All Blacks creamed the South African team (YEAH!). All around, it was a great night! On the way home from the stadium, we talked. Indiana, Marlowe, Wes, and I got separted from the group and ended up playing on a playground for a while, until it started to rain.

On Sunday, after church, I met up with the gang at the farmers market down by the water, picked up some fresh veggies, and then Kendall and I set out to climb Mt. Victoria (it's quite generous to call it a mountain, actually, but Hill Victoria just doesn't have the same ring). It was a beautiful day for it! The beginning of our walk took us through a cute little neighborhood, at the end of which we found a bike trail. I cannot imagine biking up that - it was so steep and muddy! Our only imperative was to keep going up, and as a result we found some pretty interesting paths to take us there. At the summit, there was a nice memorial and explanation of all the international politics that surround the frozen continent of Antarctica. We looked around for a while, then headed back down to the city.

Again, having only the idea that we needed to go down somehow resulted in us finding new paths. Perhaps my favorite finds were identifying the silver fern along the way, and finding a cute little swing that overlooked the city. A funny little tidbit about the swing - Kendall and I only got to use it after a group of about six Indian men finished with it (and Indian meaning Indian Indian, not Native American Indian).

It was a great weekend in Wellington. The cool thing about this city is that even if you don't leave it, adventure can still be found.

Again, I wish pictures were possible right now...but internet difficulties mean that those will have to come at a later date!

Cheers!