Learning a Thing or Two in Wellington

As I stepped outdoors for the first time in Wellington, New Zealand, I was knocked sideways by a stiff 35 mile per hour wind.

"Wow, it's pretty windy out, isn't it?" I said, demonstrating a clear grasp of the staggeringly obvious.

"What wind?" our friend Steven said back to me, not missing a beat.

It's true, a 35 mph wind barely deserves mention here. It doesn't even qualify as a gentle breeze. And so, we became intimately familiar with one of Wellington's most salient characteristics. Chicago seems calm by comparison.

All kidding aside, Wellington felt to us like a young, creative and extremely entrepreneurial city. It's artistic, trendy, and bustling, but the people here still have the same friendly charm we had come to know and love in the much less populated South Island.

Once we had set our tires on dry land after arriving on Interislander ferry, we drove into town to meet up with our host, Steven. We had arranged to meet up with him and several of his colleagues for drinks at his startup company, Altspace, and that evening we enjoyed the company and conversation of a mix of Kiwis, Americans and Germans, all of whom were either starting up companies or engaged in some sort of entrepreneurial venture.

After dinner at Restaurant 88, a spectacular Vietnamese Restaurant Street on Tory Street, we headed to bed with plans to walk the city the next day. Here are some of the scenes we saw:


A bikram yoga studio in the heart of town:


Some kids practicing a hip-hop dance routine down by the wharf. The sun is so powerful down here that even the trendy young people will place a high premium on being in the shade:


The Wellington War Memorial, at the intersection of Buckle Street and Tory Street, only a twenty minute walk from the wharf:


A trendy pub where we caught a little tennis from the Australian Open:


Enjoying a Tiger Beer and some tennis:


Wellington's wharf area is both a working wharf as well as a tourist destination.


There were even people doing some snorkeling right in the harbor:


The New Zealand Stock Exchange is down here too, just a block away from the wharf. We were pleased to see a few stocks actually trading up today--who knows, maybe Dan could find work here!


Finally, one of the top tourist destinations in Wellington is Te Papa, the National Museum of New Zealand. The museum is right next to the wharf and inside are extensive exhibits of Maori culture. You could easily spend a couple of days at this impressive museum.

Getting a Little Homesick in Nelson

Maybe it was that guy who honked at us, maybe it was that few seconds of "Frasier" that Laura happened to catch on TV (I could hear her laughing from a mile away).

Maybe it was the profoundly stupid idea I had of checking up on the US stock markets and finding them in free-fall. And maybe it's because we're exactly at the halfway point of the longest trip away from home either of us have taken in more than 15 years.

Whatever the reason, we're strangely feeling out of place, out of the loop and homesick today here in Nelson, NZ.

Se we ordered a pizza at the Pizza Bar Cafe here on Hardy Street and talked out what our next phase of life is going to look like, and we made exactly one plan: we'd go out for a Speight's beer somewhere in our next town, Anikiwa, NZ at exactly 6pm this evening.