Wellington

This is now my third time rewriting this blog post... I've gone to save it and the internet cuts out and loses the post, annoying! (I write it all on my phone so there aren't many saving options). And now I'm unable to include any pictures- anyway, I have a whole fabulous weekend in Wellington to write about!

Friday, I arrived in the city to see how lively it was with people everywhere, shops and restaurants open. I had dinner at an Indian restaurant which was lovely however I was getting a little bored with dining alone so I was excited to have friends to meet up with for the remainder of the weekend!

My sister and brother in law have a close friend from Elon who is temporarily working in Australia and coincidentally was visiting Wellington the same weekend I had planned to be here. I tagged along with him and his mate (an Aussie) at Beervana which is a local micro brewing festival at West Pac Stadium. It was awesome to be able to try local beer and food- we even went to a session to learn about the brewing process.

This particular info session focused on the malt of the beer which is basically the barely or wheat. The speaker explained how important malt is for the brewing process even though it is often overlooked as people are more focused on adding hops to make the beer different. He emphasized that malt is the foundation of the beer so you have to put special care into the fundamentals of the process.

Just that morning, I was reading through our hot off the press welcome back to school packet of information for teachers at Calvert. This 17 page packet contains schedules along with letters from many admin sharing stories and offering motivation for the upcoming year. Wouldn't you know that our new Headmaster based his letter on focusing on fundamentals! Two obviously very different topics, but one clear message :)

After the festival, we had Mexican food at a fabulous restaurant and headed towards some pubs in the downtown area. Wellington is by far the most lively town I've never to- but that may have been subsidized by weekend visitors.

On Sunday, I took an early walk around the harbor area although I was bummed that the clouds were ruining my pictures. I also took a tour of Parliament (making Mom proud) which was very interesting. We weren't allowed to bring our phones or take any pictures but we did see the national library, house floor, and committee rooms. It reminded me a lot of the MD government buildings in Annapolis and the similar process of a state government. I grabbed many pamphlets on the way out to study as I'm sure I'll be quizzed on this venture when I get home :)

It started to rain in the afternoon, but we still drove up to Mt Victoria which offers panoramic views of the city. We took some good pictures and even got to see a few planes land right by the water.
By late afternoon it was time to head to the ferry terminal to travel across the Cook Straight to the South Island. The weather was pretty miserable but the boat was nice. There were couches to rest in, a food court, bar and cinema to enjoy the three hour trip.

We made it to the South Island late and I was in for a rainy drive along the coast to Nelson which should have taken about an hour and a half.

I was warned about the lack of people, and gas stations before but I assumed that somewhere on my (ended up being over two hour) drive I would come across at least some form of life preferably a had station as well. To make a long, dramatic story short- I drove up a mountain, and back down it, with absolutely no cars, houses, people in sight convinced I was going to run out of gas- without any cell phone reception. After a lot of panic, I thankfully made it to Nelson and to my hostel to sleep for the night.

Today I drove a little further up the coast of the northern part of the South Island to Motueka to visit the local high school which is well known for their outdoor education program. On my drive, I passed through a small town Richmond that had a "Salisbury School" -awesome!