Wellington

Like I said, we got to Wellington on Friday night and headed to our hostel. The picture below is a little blurry, but it is the only one I took of the city. In all reality, if anyone has ever been to Minneapolis or some other city, you could think this picture was from there. The only difference between this city and Minneapolis was that there were a lot more shops and everything was kind of outdoors. That's one thing I like about New Zealand...all the shops are in strip malls and you walk outside to get from one to the other. There is the occasional small little indoor shopping center, but it's usually only a few shops or like a food court. They don't have monstrous indoor shopping centers like they do in the States. It probably has to do with the fact that it doesn't get as cold here so it's easy to walk outside so much, but that's why I enjoyed it.

We had heard about a night market down in the city, so we decided to check it out on Friday night. We had to walk about twenty minutes, but it was nice getting to explore the city. When we got there, there was this Cuban Festival going on (on Cuba Street) where everyone was dancing and there was some band playing music. The music reminded me of the kind of music I would hear at a resort in the Dominican Republic. It really made me want to go lie down on a beach somewhere and relax. I think this kind of thing happens every week because there were so many people dancing the same way. It wasn't just random. It was fun to watch and very festive. Once we walked past this, there was another street to walk down which is where the night market was. This street had so much food! Usually markets consist of little crafts or other things people make to sell. This one maybe had one jewelry stand and one stand with someone selling like jam or something, and everything else just seemed like a food truck festival. There were so many wonderful smells and sounds. It was pretty overwhelming because I don't know how anybody could ever decide what to buy since it all looked so great. 

I wasn't too hungry, but eventually Shaina and Courtney decided on a Mexican restaurant that was right next to some guy playing some live music outside. It was a really fun place to sit down and eat some food. After the market we headed back to our hostel. We saw these huge lights in the sky and then heard some music over to the side, so we decided to go and check it out. It turns out they had an ice rink set up for a couple weeks for people to skate on (I think it's a pretty big deal since ice arenas aren't as common here as they are in the States). They had different competitions such as dance offs and there was a DJ playing music. We wanted to skate, but it was pretty expensive and since we were reaching the end of our trip, we realized we didn't have much money left. Instead we just hung out for a little bit and listened to music before continuing home.

We were all pretty tired, so when we got back to our hostel we just kind of hung out and then went to sleep. On Saturday morning, we had another market planned and we were going to explore the city during the day. We woke up and got a nice bacon, egg, and toast breakfast from our hostel. It was probably the best breakfast we had had since being on our trip. 

Our bus didn't leave until 7:30 that night, so we had plenty of time to go around and explore Wellington. We began by heading the same way we had walked the night before. We were told there were plenty of markets, so we set out looking for the Underground Market. It was a neat city with the ocean right there. So many people were running along the coast it was crazy. I always thought I was the only one who ever ran in this country, but so many people were running here. I would if I had such a nice place to work out.

We found the market and it was inside a parking garage. This market was a lot more like the kind of market we thought we were going to the night before. There was hardly any food except for a few stands scattered throughout. Most of the stands were handmade jewelry, clothes, scarves, or other little crafty pieces and decorations. 

It actually kind of reminded me of what inside the Grand Stand is like at the State Fair (only a lot less fancy). It was fun to walk around it, but since a lot of the items were homemade, they were really expensive. We couldn't afford much down there. 

After the market we headed to the Te Papa Museum. Te Papa is one of the most popular museums in New Zealand, so even though we knew we didn't have that much time, we definitely took the time to go and check it out!This museum was crazy huge. It was kind of similar to the Settlers Museum we went to in Dunedin, only instead of focusing on the history and origins of people and their inventions, it focused on various parts of history and earth. There were six different levels, and there were different focuses on each level. The second through sixth floor all had exhibitions. Some you had to pay for and others were free. The first area we looked at was on the second floor called "Mountains to Sea". It focused on different environmental features. There was a section dedicated to volcanoes, earthquakes, flooding, and then on New Zealand's land structure. It was really interesting. I got to stand inside of a little house that reenacted an earthquake. Maybe it's because I knew it wasn't real, but it didn't feel as intense as it was saying. It was neat because they had a bunch of different activities for the people to do while looking at the features. Plus, there were little things you could read about, and it talked about these environmental factors have impacted New Zealand. There was even a little room that talked about the Earth's core and allowed you to look at different elements and videos explaining it. 

Next we went to a section devoted to explaining the key facts about the places in New Zealand. They had the whole map of New Zealand on the floor on a grid. You could step on a square and then something would light up on the wall for you to read. It was cool looking at the different information you could find from looking at various places we had been around New Zealand. 

I don't really know what the point of the next room was, but it was fun. They had all these touch screen computers set up and you could take your picture or take a video. Then there was this huge screen along the opposite wall where you could drag your picture onto. It was crazy how it worked because there were all these pictures on the computer that people had taken. It kind of reminded me of outer space. You just had to search and drag the screen until you found your picture and then drag it to the place so that it would post on the wall. Then they had these magic wands that you could play with and you could do things like move the pictures, flip the pictures, and draw on the pictures. It was pretty entertaining and it was fun seeing our faces all over the big screen.

After that room we went up a floor that focused on the history of the people. There were a lot of different rooms that talked about the people as they settled here way back when. There was this hologram set up with a ship that was the story of a girl coming over on a ship. She explained how it all worked and then talked about what it was like. It was pretty cool. Everything else was similar to the Settlers Museum. They talked about the Maori people and the history that relates to that. It's interesting reading about some of the stories between New Zealanders and Maori people because it seems like it is pretty similar to the history of Native Americans and US people (although I'm sure it was much more peaceful in New Zealand). 

We went up one final floor and it dealt a lot with some recent history. One room that was cool was a fashion room. It was a long hall with a bunch of really abstract outfits. There had just been a fashion week in Wellington, so the dresses and outfits were created by students from that. They had videos of plays in which these outfits were being made. Some were really interesting because they were all made out of a certain material or representing something. They were definitely really unique. Other parts of the floor talked about issues from the 1900s such as abortion and birth control and gay marriage. It's interesting reading about how other countries dealt with these issues. They also had little sections devoted to just the general way of life of people in the late 1900s. It was pretty cool like all the other floors. There was so much we didn't do. You could seriously spend an entire day just on one floor, so we knew we wouldn't get to everything on all six floors in only a couple hours. We were still satisfied with what we went and saw though, so that was good! 

After the museum, we decided to just walk around and look for a place to eat dinner before we had to catch our bus. On the way, we ran into a building called "The Art of Dr. Seuss". Unfortunately I only have a picture of the sign because you can't take pictures inside the building. It was really only one room with paintings displayed. They had little descriptions about them and there were some plaques on the boards with some background information. The paintings were also for sale, and it was crazy how expensive some of them were. I think I saw a painting in there that was $7000. Now I'm sure this is pretty standard, but since I don't know anything about art or art galleries, that seems like a lot. 

We kept on walking and just checking out little shops until it was eventually time to eat. We had not eaten Irish food yet, so we found an Irish Pub to sit outside at and have our last meal of vacation together. I got Bangers and Mash since it seemed like a pretty Irish dish, and it was really good. It felt like a nice home-cooked meal which is why I liked it. Shaina and Courtney had been craving Fettuccine Alfredo and this restaurant had that, so everyone was happy! We took our time and then eventually had to head to the bus station. It was by our hostel (which we were luckily allowed to keep our stuff at for the day) so we picked up our stuff and headed over. 

They had a small little shop called 9 3/4 so of course I had to take a picture...and if you don't know why I had to take a picture of that then we can't be friends (Just kidding...kinda).

We hung out at the bus station for about half hour before our bus arrived. We were taking an InterCity bus, and it was taking us on an overnight trip back home. When it pulled up, we realized it had an upstairs, so of course we had to get a spot up there! I stood at the front of the line while Shaina and Courtney got my luggage packed underneath. We were the first ones on so we went straight up to the back row. It was perfect because we wanted to be able to sleep, so we had a whole 5 seats to ourselves. Unfortunately our bus kept making stops, so I gave some guy the window seat and just sat in the middle by Shaina and Courtney. We made a few stops around Wellington and then headed north. We went to Napier, Taupo, Rotorua, and then Auckland. We got to take a couple bathroom breaks and breaks for a snack, but it was the middle of the night, so everyone was pretty groggy. I didn't sleep very well because I was in the middle seat with nowhere to rest my head on either side of me. Eventually at about 6:20 the next morning (almost an 11 hour bus ride) we arrived in Auckland. We had about an hour before getting on our bus to Thames, so we walked to Denny's and had breakfast. 

After Denny's we were on another bus to Thames where Petro was waiting for us at the station. It felt good to be back in Thames, but obviously we were sad our trip had come to an end. It was definitely the adventure of a lifetime, and we couldn't have been happier with how it had turned out. After that, it was just two weeks of teaching and then time to come back home. We were all pretty exhausted that Sunday we got back. We just did laundry and lounged around. After dinner, we had to get right back into working mode because we were all headed to school and all teaching again in the morning!