Windy Welly

So yesterday I went to Te Papa, the National Museum of New Zealand. This is a huge museum of 6 floors with a whole lot of cool stuff. There was a visiting exhibition of Impressionist art, but you had to pay to get in (everywhere else was free) plus there was a long line. I ended up skipping it. I did see a lot of other stuff though: they had a preserved collosal Squid (apparently the biggest squid on record or that they had the body of), which was only about as big as I am ( I would have thought a big squid would have been bigger), and a whole lot of Maori stuff (including a waka, or canoe), an exhibition on the Treaty of Waitangi (which I was able to understand quite well I thought, this weird video show of NZ pop culture for the past 50 years, an exhibit designed to look like a shipping container full of hidden pests that you had to find (although I found the maggots hiding in the peaches a bit much), and a video calling Operation kakapo copulation, about efforts to help kakapos (a kind of native parrot) breed, which was oddly funny. I also bought from the gift store some chocolates infused with wine for Phillipe and Sandra

After 2 and a half hours in the museum I left and walked around Wellington. I went to the Beehive (NZ's parliament building) and took pictures, then turned around and walked towards Cuba Street, which had a lot of cool shops. On the way I stopped for some noodles, which were quite cheap for what I got. Later on I bought Phillipe and Sandra some Oregon wine, which I thought was kinda cool. At Cuba street I went and picked up some repaired shoes for Sandra, and gazed through the shops myself. I was tempted to get some comics, but ended up not getting them. I did buy some books from a used book store though (I know, I'm weak). Another used book store was called "Ferret Books," so I had to check it out. I didn't get anything there though. After i was done I walked over towards the Embassy Theater (where the world premiere of ROTK was) and got some clear shots of it (not obscured by a van window) of it and the statue of the film camera that Weta built. Finally I walked over to Phillipe's office, where he kindly let me use his laptop.

Today was kinda boring. I had to get up early to take the ferry, which was nice and big. I saw an episode of the WotWots, which is a NZ toddler's show produced by Weta, and read a lot. In Picton I waited around for the train and bought my tickets for my trip to Nelson on Thursday. The train itself was a little crowded, but quite scenic with a car in the back without windows so that you could snap pics if you wanted to. One of the other people at my table on the train spent about 2/3 of the trip out there. I myself went out a few times and snapped some cool pics myself. I also noticed that the handles on some of the doors were oddly placed really low to the ground so I had to bend down to open them. It was weird and I don't know why they did it that way.

Tomorrow I'm going to Tonny's seder (hopefully I can find her house again) and Thursday I got out to visit the Cornelius' out in Nelson.

See you later,

David Lev