Arrival in Wellington

Maori-influenced wheatpaste!




It's all about the ferns here.


Reminded me of Rower's in Toronto. Apparently this is the world headquarters of the verb.




Since I arrived before my room was ready (and without colleagues who missed the plane, and/or had their passport withheld) I wandered around and explored, visited the Te Papa national museum, until I ran into KS and had coffee. They are very BIG on coffee in Wellington. I was impressed also with the number of visitor to the museum and the obvious interest the Kiwis have in their history, geology and cultural anthropology... and the world's only colossal squid (4 m) in a museum.

I then got into my room. Amazing how a shower, fresh clothes and sushi dinner (with much NZ wine) can restore your sense of being human. Had dinner with two Kiwis, two Germans, and one somnabulent, 3-month-old gentleman with both Kiwi and German passports. We decided the live music in the first place was a bit much for the wee person and migrated to a sushi place. I got a lift back to the (backpacker's) hotel, which I appreciated because the walk through Courtney Place was rather rowdy at 7:30 pm on a Saturday night, so we were pretty sure that number of young drunken people at 10 pm (think a more pedestrian-friendly clubland) would probably not make the best impression on the tired visitor. When I was dropped off, G said, "Oh, you're staying in a pub." I replied that I was on the 1st not the ground floor, though that would likely only make a marginal difference to the noise and festivities, spilling out into the road. His advice was to join 'em if I couldn't beat 'em, but I was tired enough that it didn't matter what was going on outside my door.

In other news: no news from the boys yet, LR can't come and BS has moved up their schedule so that it conflicts with our meeting. Oh, and when I asked the Kiwi where I should go on my free time, he said, "The weather's nice in Fiji this time of year." While it is winter here, I think they are mistaken if they think NZ weather would intimidate a Canadian.