Day 19: Wellington

Wellington proved both its windy-ness and its tendency towards rain and overcast days.  We did some wandering around, and on Cuba Street (a locus for shopping and cafes) found this adorable group of 6-10 year olds learning to busk while playing Bob Marley tunes (while their parents looked on.)

We had our first New Zealand fish and chips as well.  About the same as everywhere else, but the fish was quite good and fresh.  Most places seem to be combination Chinese restaurants with fish and chips as well, but the place we went was strictly fish.

I love slightly racy advertisements almost as much as I like strange street signs.

We visited the Te Papa Museum, which lives up to its reputation as an amazing museum, and a good primer on New Zealand as well.  We only saw two floors of it the first day, a small exhibit on a local collector of fine vases and kitchen ware, and a photo exhibit centering on New Zealand snap shots and some old (130 years old) photos of California, including Yosemite.  It's a dense museum, and we have to go back.

We had to move from the hostel where we were staying to our first Couchsurfing host, Lisa, who lives in Lower Hutt, which is the city on the northern edge of the harbor.  While we were in Vancouver, we rode the Water Bus, a ferry across the harbor there, and which the New York Times called one of the most beautiful commutes in the world.  We think that the train out of Wellington might be even better.

These photos hardly do it justice, but the tracks go right around the edge of the water (on a shelf formed by a massive earthquake in the 1800s).

Our host, Lisa, was incredibly nice, and before she started cooking dinner, suggested we walk around the neighborhood.  You don't have to tell us twice, particularly if you mention a nice stream to walk along, and it ends at a pathway.

So, something I didn't really realize until recently is that Molly loves ferns.  If not her favorite plant, it's close.  So there might be lots of pictures like this one forthcoming.

The little trail over looked a bunch of cricket practice fields, so we watched a bunch of Indians practice.  I tried to explain it a bit to Molly, but to be honest other than my normal explanation of the game* I don't really get it either.

*Cricket is like baseball, but played on an oval field in 360 degrees.  There are two bases, with wickets, and both count as home base--running from one to the other is one point.  The bowler (pitcher) throws the ball, which must bounce once before it reaches the batter, with the intention of hitting the batter or the wicket, either of which retires the batter (is an out).  The batter attempts to deflect the ball, but unlike baseball, does not have to run unless they want to.  A good batter can score lots and lots of runs, so the games conceivably could go on for ever.  If any of you play cricket and see glaring errors, let me know.

Afterward, we returned to Lisa's house and had a lovely dinner of curried cauliflower and chickpeas, followed by a lovely conversation.  We managed to break the cardinal rule of polite conversation:  "Don't talk about religion or politics", but were lucky enough that it didn't seem to matter.

As we went to bed, we realized a couple things, with some dismay.  One, houses around Wellington aren't really that well insulated.  This wouldn't matter so much if it weren't for Two, It still gets pretty cold at night in Wellington.  So we layered up as if we were camping, and with full stomachs and large cups of tea close at hand, we went to bed.