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| Downtown Windy Welly |
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| The government building nicknamed the "Beehive" |
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| Parliament buildings surprisingly still all made out of wood |
We spent all day Friday exploring Wellington which was a lot of fun. Wellington is not only the political capital of the country but the cultural one as well. There are lots of museums, theaters, galleries and bars and cafes with live music. Wellington is also known for having the best coffee in the whole country and each cafe boasts about the particular local beans that they roast. I've heard people compare Wellington to Melbourne in Australia and to a mini-version of Chicago in the States.
I was impressed by Wellington's fresh air, efficient and organized transport systems, clean streets and polite, considerate and friendly citizens. The city itself was beautiful and seemed to be designed for active and nature-loving people with plenty of running and walking trails along with lots of free parks and gardens. To be fair, however, after spending two years in a Chinese city, any mildly clean and sparsely populated city seems like a utopia to me.
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| Probably the closest I'll ever get to Cuba |
We started off the day by walking along the wharves and then headed downtown to check out the old government buildings. After that we took a ride up Wellington's historic little red cable car and then visited the national and local museums. The museums were huge and held some pretty impressive displays - the most amazing thing about them for me, however, were that they were free to everyone!
In the afternoon we walked through "Cuba Street" which is the cultural hub of the city with lots of trendy coffee shops and funky boutiques; needless to say, it was hipster central. We stopped to try the local coffee in "Midnight Espresso" and immediately realized that we were nowhere near cool enough to be in there.
After the hipster crowd, we decided to join the yuppie crowd during happy hour at Mac's Brewery right on the harbor. While enjoying some overpriced specialty craft brews, we took in the views of the bay along with the 70s decor of the warehouse-turned-micro brewery-turned bar. Walking home, we could barely keep a straight line because of the heavy gusts of wind.
When we entered the hostel and I was chatting with the guy at reception I asked if the wind (which was blowing so hard it was causing the whole building to shake and rattle) was usually like this. He said, without looking up, 'Oh this? This is nothing. Last week the winds were 125 kph up in the hills.' 'Wow!' I said. 'What did you guys do?' 'Well,' he said and looked up at me this time, 'We didn't go up in the hills.' Classic Kiwi response.
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| Mac's Brewery |
Later he told me that you can always tell a local by the way they dress; even if it's nice and sunny out, the Wellingtonians will be dressed as if it were winter out and they will never, ever carry an umbrella. He said that the trash cans outside the airports and train stations are built a special size to accommodate all of the tourists' broken umbrellas within minutes of exiting the building. I'm not kidding, it really is extraordinarily windy here.
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| They don't call it Windy Welly for nothing |
Ah, my Wellington is also "winderful." The upside is that there is no smog.
HAHAHAHA. That pic of you is great Sarah!
Are you sure that straight-liine walking problem was due to the wind? d