Saturday, March 31
Josh and I woke up early because we were going to attend the Rotary District Conference in Upper Hutt today. Well, Josh was going to attend while Kim and I went shopping and looking around Wellington.
We were on the road by 7:15 and looked forward to stopping at the first McDonald's down the road for some breakfast. Now, we knew we would not be able to get a sausage biscuit as they don't have biscuits down here, however, we were excited about the sausage.
Excited that was until we took our first bite into the sausage McMuffins we had...they tasted like poison! Ugh. We couldn't figure out why either. I had a coffee to drink and a hashbrown that tasted normal. Josh's hashbrown was fine too but his diet Coke had the same poison-y taste. Not like bad, flat Coke but just BAD.
So, with that disappointment done, we were closer to Upper Hutt and the conference. The sessions started at 9 and I planned to meet Kim there to head into Wellington which is 30 minutes from Upper Hutt. Josh and I made it into town, but Josh had left the directions to the conference hotel at home so he had to call Anand who has a cell phone and who was riding with Fleetwood and Kim, to find out where the hotel that was hosting the event was located. We didn't carpool down with Fleetwood, Kim and Anand because F&K planned to extend their trip after the conference concluded.
Josh and I made to the conference hotel around 9:15 and ran into Pauline (the French Rotary Youth Exchange student) at the back entrance. Pauline was standing outside with a group of other youth scholars because they were about to be introduced on stage. Josh and I went to the proper entrance, got our name badges, and went to sit in the autotorium for 5 minutes before we noticed Fleetwood enter the room.
We went out in the lobby to talk and I met up with Kim there. We decided that we would take our car into the city and Kim woud give me directions on how to drive to the Te Papa museum since she'd been there twice before. We said good bye to the guys, Kim went to get the right gear to wear since it was a raining day and then we were off...with me at the wheel to drive into the big capital city in the rain!
Well, it wasn't raining that bad and it stopped raining before we reached Wellington. It was exciting to drive into a big city after having been in such a small town and on such small two lane roads. Wellington's motorway actually has 4 lanes rather than 2...how exciting! It was nice to be in a city although I don't usually like them that much.
We found the Te Papa parking deck easily enough and popped in the museum to have a look around. There were police all around the outside of the museum so we asked one of the museum workers what was going on. Apparently, the Te Papa was hosting a Meat Association conference and people were scheduled to protest outside the museum. Interesting.
Kim and I had a look around. Since she'd been here twice before, I tried to make it quick. I took a look in the "Earthquake House" which simulates an earthquake...not quite the real deal but it did stir up some memories of the last one we felt in Palmy. We grabbed a coffee in the cafe. Best mocha I've ever had! And, it was so cute to look at!
We finished looking around and I learned that the real Treaty of Waitangi is not housed here but in another archive building that is accessible to the public (I also learned that is where the women's suffrage documents are also located). Being a total nerd/historian, I am excited to view both on my next trip to Wellington.As it was, Kim and I left the museum and went to have a look at a market across the street. It had some cool stuff but nothing I was willing to buy and ship back to the states. We looked around at the stalls that sold food there but nothing looked that appealing. We left and walked towards the wharf and found a great place to eat.
We lucked out with Mac's Brewery. The fish and chips were awesome and they had brunch prices until 2 pm - score! It had very modern decor inside and was just a nice place to sit down for awhile. After lunch, we walked downtown to where all the shops are located. I got to see the parliment building which is known as the "Beehive" because of its shape.
Wellington is known as "Windy Wellington" and it deserves that title...it is crazy windy! I couldn't live in this city. We walked in and out of shops as we made our way back towards the Te Papa. We looked at a lot of Easter candy as Easter was coming up soon.
The guys called us around 3:00 and we planned to meet up at the New World grocery store across from the Te Papa. By the time Kim and I had walked back to the parking deck, got the car, paid $12! for parking and drove across the street to New World, we didn't have long to wait before the guys arrived. I went inside to grab a diet Coke and when I came out the guys were there.
Kim, Fleetwood and Anand were staying the night with a Rotarian and Josh and I were staying with Jess and Ike so we all parted ways...Kim borrowing a pair of my black heels since she'd only brought one pair of dressy black shoes to NZ and I'd brought 3.
Josh and I called Jess and Ike on the cell phone to get directions to their place. We only got lost once and we were at there house fairly quickly. As they live in the middle of the city, parking was a nightmare. Also, because Jess and Ike live in the lower level of a house built on a hill, Ike was standing on the sidewalk so we could spot where they live. Since Ike was wearing all black for the Chicago theme and he's dark complected with dark hair, I was like, "who's that Greek waiter standing over there?"
When I saw Jess for the first time, I gave her a hug because I felt like I knew her from writing emails back and forth since before the NZ move. It was like instant friends...just add water. It was that natural of a click/connection.
10 minutes after arriving, Jess and I were doing our hair for the evening and putting our dresses on while the boys changed and finished getting ready. It was really hectic because Jess was supposed to meet people in her Rotary club so they could paint a black eye on as something that represented their club and a rugby team. That shortened the time we had to get ready and made for a really fast, stressful pace.
After we were ready, we headed out to the Jess and Ike's car. My short dress was killing me in all that Wellington wind!!!! Aggrivation walking up the hill to the car - ugh! As we drove down the hill, we picked up Elise, another Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar studying in Wellington. Elise is from Misouri like Jess and Ike. It was so funny because as we were driving down the hill, Jess told Ike, be on the lookout because Elise could be anywhere on this road because once she gets tired of waiting for us to pick her up she starts walking towards the house.
We found Elise then headed over to the Rotarians house while putting our make up on in the back seat. We got lost once and then we made it to the Rotarian's place. They were having lots of drinks and invited us in. Jess and Ike put the eye make up on but since it wasn't our Rotary club (and I just didn't want to wear it) I declined.
We got back on the road and drove the 30 or so minutes to Upper Hutt....in the rain...and when we got out of the car it was pouring. Jess had furs that she borrowed so we brought those in with us but they soon became a bother and Ike returned them to the car. Everyone was in costume so we blended in well. It was neat to see everyone dressed up and themed out!
Dinner cost $75 per person. We thought that was expensive until we realized that included drinks. So Josh and I had some pre-dinner drinks and then they starting escorting everyone in the autotorium which by this point had been set up for dinner. We thought drinks may have ended with the pre-dinner social hour, however, when we got inside the autotorium we realized that they were still serving.
And by still serving I mean, I went to get a glass of wine and the guy was like just take the bottle back to your table...okay.
They had entertainment which was a review of a variety of Broadway musicals. It was really good singing and a lot of fun. Tables were divided up according to Rotary club, so Josh and I sat with President Lindsay, Jill, and Lyle. Dinner was a buffet but really tasty. At the end of the night, people finally got out on to the dance floor and started dancing to the live Grease and Mama Mia! songs being sung. We had a great time!
As the night concluded (with a call "Bus 1 is now departing) we all gathered up in Jess and Ike's car and returned to Wellington. We dropped Elise off at her apartment and then went to Jess and Ike's house. They made us a bed on a mattress on the floor but we stayed up for another 2 hours talking and hanging out.Sunday, April 1
Josh and Jess had to get up early to make it back to Upper Hutt the next morning to present with the other Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars. Ike and I got to sleep in while they were presenting which was nice after having got up so early on Saturday morning and having stayed up so late talking the same night. Josh was a bit upset that other Rotary speakers had run long that morning so that the RAS presentation which was supposed to be 25 minutes got cut down to about 12 and they were essentially ushered off the stage by the playing of music like at the Oscars. This was disappointing because Josh had put a lot of work into coordinating every scholar's information and arranging a powerpoint presentation based upon it.
Josh and Jess came home before the conferene ended so we had some extra time in Wellington. We picked up Elise and went to eat lunch at a place called "Chicago" funny because of the theme we did the night before. We went there because they were playing the finale of the Final Four game on tv there. It was so not a big deal in this place though. Hardly anyone was there BUT the food was really good.
After lunch, we were going to go home but dropped Elise off at the New World to get some groceries since she doesn't have a car. We waited in the underground parking garage (who thought that a grocery store would have an underground parking garage?) and then we thought we were going back to Jess and Ike's but the thought of ice cream was to great.
We went into a local mall and grabbed an ice cream cone. Wendy's is NZ's ice cream place...but they didn't have that many flavours. Everyone was tired but we still wanted to talk/hang out. After ice cream, we dropped off Elise and ourselves and hit the road out of Wellington. Driving around those Wellington streets is like Seattle...winding, twisting, narrow....unpleasant....living here would be way to stressful to me. Give me Palmerston North any day!
We got out of Wellington and pulled over at an overlook. We're so lucky to be in New Zealand. You just can't take something like this for granted!
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