Billy the squid.

Trip Start Sep 10, 2008
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Trip End Sep 03, 2009


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Flag of New Zealand  , South Island,
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Wellington, the windy city, Capitol of New Zealand, a title that has been fought over fiercely. Eventually managing to negotiate my way out of the airport and onto the bus, I thought I had got the wrong address when I got to my hostel, as it was quite clearly a hotel. Apparently it was a hotel with dorm rooms, with a handily placed bar which did a cheap BBQ/quiz night every Thursday. We didn't do too badly in the quiz, especially considering we were a small team and I was the only native English speaker. The fact we were all girls, so sports questions were out and we had no knowledge of New Zealand trivia probably didn't help either. Admittedly, the drunk old man in the corner helped us out a bit, until he pretty much fell off his bar stool. And then we were on our own. But we still managed to come about half-way up the table of results, so not bad really!

There's not really much to say about Wellington Wellington
Wellington
 . Its main attraction, other than the fact it has quite a few shops, seems to be the museum. New Zealand seems to be very good at making museums, and Wellington is no exception. It recently acquired a giant squid and you can now go and see the thing, bobbing up and down in a tank. Or at least you can when they aren't doing repair work on it. Supposedly it looks almost as if it were still alive, although I felt the fact
some of its skin seemed to be peeling off kind of spoilt this effect. Just before I left the museum, I managed to catch a glimpse as they had taken the plastic covering off the tank. It was big and squid-like, and ever so slightly gross.

Wondering around I saw many school kids enjoying the good weather and launching themselves off the walkways into the water. Most were fully dressed. It seemed strange to me that this was normal, an every day activity. I guess as I didn't grow up near water, or in a climate where you would want to go anywhere near the water!
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