Te Papa Day

After being forced inside for several days due to bad weather and a cold I was fighting, we decided to catch the European Masters exhibit at Te Papa. Te Papa is the national museum of New Zealand. It's free, but special exhibits like European Masters have a fee (I think it was $22). We saw a painting by Degas, van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, and Picasso, as well as many other paintings. There was a painting of Goethe that showed that he was a pretty handsome guy! We were a little disappointed in the exhibit; there weren't any favourites that stood out to us except maybe a cubist painting of a dog. It was pretty amazing in the Monet to see how he painted the water.


The wind was CRAZY windy. Here's a view from a little outdoor area behind Te Papa on the waterfront.


The red trees in the background are the Pohutukawa, known as the New Zealand Christmas tree because it usually blooms at this time every year.



Bryce and I were in a real cave like this one last year. Animals like the huge moa fell into sink holes; their bones are later recovered in the caves.

They had a mock excavation pit for the kids, which they loved.


After Te Papa we went to grab some gelato (I had sour apple, mmm) nearby. That was probably one of the windiest walks I've ever been on; the wind was ferocious. As we sat in the cafe with our icecream (if we had gone outside it would've blown away) we watched the car parked in front of the cafe rocking from side to side in the wind. I got a surprise phone call while I was there from my sister; that's the first time someone from the States has called us!

Off we went to the hardware store. We got a little side tracked and went to the appliance section, where we drooled over such conveniences as hand mixers and BBQs. I think we miss our stuff a little. We love the garden section, it still seems so exotic to us. Here's some fern trees:

And you can buy your very own pohutukawa!

Windstorm 2010

Wind arrived late last night as forecasted, and as predicted Turoa was closed for the day. The gusts shook the house fairly hard; I joked around that in Seattle this would be called "THE WINDSTORM OF 2010" but that here in NZ it's just called a fairly heavy storm.

Hearing the wind and figuring that the mountain was likely closed, the group of us slept in, and were treated to pancakes with melted chocolate made by one of the group.

We quickly tidied the place up and then drove to Wellington. Josien and Marc kept pace with us on the motorway, so we all stopped for lunch together at an American diner. There, I found out that "milkshakes" are just chilled milk with syrup added; you have to request a "thick milkshake" to get a milkshake made with ice cream. We were all pretty underwhelmed by the place.

Getting home, we found that Wellington was just as windy as Ohakune. Now our focus is on relaxing, cleaning up a bit, and get ready for Ryan to arrive tomorrow night!!

Wellington summed up

"Well, it's windy. But it's actually a lovely place, where you're pretty much surrounded by water and the bay. The city itself is quite small, but the surrounding areas are very reminiscent of the hills up in northern California, like Marin County near San Francisco and the Bay Area climate and some of the architecture. Kind of a cross between that and Hawaii."
From Peter Jackson i guess he directed some movie?
Since I'm house husband it's probably one of my responsibilities to communicate more. I'll try to start providing more regular updates. Suffice to say we're both pretty busy and having fun. We had a blast with Ryan visiting, lots of huge home cooked meals and wine to be enjoyed. Even got some skiing in.

In the swing of things

We've now been in Wellington for about 5 days, still waiting for our internet hook-up.
Here's a little recap.

• The ferry ride over was nice. The ship was large which made it pretty smooth(couldn't even feel it pull away from docks). It was sunny and we were able to see dolphins which of course made our day. However we saw evidence for why a 18 y/o drinking age is a bit too young.
• Our place is quite nice. It doesn't however have baseboards, I guess they didn't quite get that done.
• Wellington is smaller looking that I expected. The CBD(downtown) is wedged between steep hills and the harbor and most the housing is hidding in the hills and valleys around the city. It's very green everywhere. Very different than flat Christchurch.
• It is cloudier here, and the windiness, while exaggerated, is still constant.
• I rode the bus and then the train into the city with Julie Monday. A nice efficient system. Hardly any waiting and the walks weren't too far either. It was fun to go with her.
• Tuesday Julie felt very cosmopolitan taking the bus and train herself. She got her pass and was able to assure the agent she didn't mind missing the next train because she knew another was coming in just a few minutes. She really likes her 5th floor view of part of the harbor and the river valley that lies below our home. We both think it's pretty cool to set down in a new place. It's a different feel than our first month(which was felt a bit more like a vacation)
  
• I've taken to lots of walking/driving around being not really lost but not really on task. We'll call it unguided exploration. It feels unproductive, but I totally know my way around now.
• I've found the internet cafe system to use, and I've found that they cluster their stores by type. Outdoors stores, check! Snowboard shops, check!
  
• I'm looking to join a climbing gym shortly to stay in shape and improve my climbing. There's not much traditional climbing here or long hikes. However there are many day hikes and bouldering (unroped, low altitude climbing with a pad for any small falls). The deep outdoors is mostly a day drive away, which works. I think I do miss the south island, but this place could definitely be fun place to call home for 6-9 months.

Well that's my summation, hopefully we'll have home internet soon so we can more easily post pictures and Julie can post as well. Tonight I'm making our tacos. You wouldn't beleive how hard it is to find uncooked black beans. I've been to 4 grocery stores and 4 Asian/Indian markets to find them, success!