Adventure Wellington

So now it's time to play catch up with all the stuff I've been getting up to the last few days.  My last post was all about my first day in Kiwi-land, so now I'll have to expound upon the things I got up to the last couple of days.  Boy, living in the future is tough!!


On Thursday I went out in the morning with Amy, had to go and exchange some money as well as try and find: a phone, pillows, blankets, and some other random things.  So first, Amy had to go the bank I followed her downtown, stopped in and exchanged some money (exchange rate is about $1 US= $1.2 NZD), and then wandered out while she was talking to the bank people about something.  I had seen a place that sold phones earlier called Vodaphone.  I went in and checked it out, there was a cheap pay as you go phone for $49+ $20 top up on minutes, BUT it came with 2500 free texts on the sim card, and since that's how I mostly communicate I thought it was a good deal.  I had wandered out, checked out some other phone stores down the road, and it looked like theirs was the best deal so I went back and got the phone.  It is the tiniest, flimsiest thing I've ever seen: it feels like a toy phone.

Toy phone, not real phone do not eat!

So got my phone set up and then realized I had forgotten to ask Amy for her number to call her and meet up again.  Unperturbed I adventured out into the city alone, going the direction I was fairly certain we had come.  Along the way I looked for a place that would sell me a pillow or two.  The girl who exchanged my money at the bank had told me that a place called Farmers would have the things I sought to I went in search of that store, found it and also found that the blankets and pillows they had were ridiculously expensive.  I mean seriously, $29.99 for one pillow??  Luckily for me I spotted a double pack of pillows for the same price, took it to the counter where the man at the checkout said they were actually onsale as a 2 for 1, with an additional 30% off if you spent $30 so I went back and grabbed another double pack.  Four pillows for less than $30 seemed much more reasonable.  As I aimlessly wandered out of the store trying to find the street I knew I stumbled across a Salvation Army.  Score one for extra cheap things!! And it just so happened to be on the street I was looking for (5min walk from my apartment), so double win.

View from my room, that "hill" in the distance is Mt. Victoria

I wound my way home and as I was trying to fit my key in the lock (which turned out to be the wrong key, I got a replacement a little later) Amy came back so it was perfect timing!  She invited me along to a hiking trip later that evening with this group she just joined called Adventure Wellington.  It's a meet up group that does all sorts of free and cheap activities in and around the city.  That evening we were going to hike up this big, more than hill less than mountain in the middle of the city call Mt. Victoria.  That wasn't until 6:30 though so we scouted out a used book store first where I got myself a book of Maori (the native New Zealanders) short stories.  On the way back we were discussing when new flat mates would be moving in, and not long after we were back in the apartment when Jeff came up saying that a new guy was moving in; another international student.  The clincher of this little story is that the next thing Jeff says to me is, "and I think he's from the same place you are too." WAHHH??! How is that even possible that two Wisconsinites are going to be in the same building, let alone the same flat?!?!  Anywho the new guy's name is Forest, and he goes to school in Eau Claire.  Coincidences are outrageous.

Moving right along, we decided to bring the new guy with on the trek up Mt. Victoria later that evening.  So Adventure Wellington, as I previously mentioned, is a meet-up group.  It's all organized online so that you go and meet up in a public place and then you all go do things.  It's made up of a mix of New Zealanders and internationals.  The walk we went on was a newbie walk so everyone there was new to the group, and most were new to Wellington (yay we weren't alone!).  We ended up walking most of the time with another American named Rosemary, who'd studied at Victoria University and now worked in tourism in Wellington, her friend Nicole who's a Kiwi, and an Irishman by the name of Colm (I think that's how you spell it) who's working in Wellington as well.

This is me and Amy at the Top of Mt. Victoria
 it was pretty windy up at the top.

The hike we took up Mt. Victoria was spectacular!  There were views of the city and ocean at every place we stopped along the trail.  The only bad thing was that I was definitely not expecting it to be as strenuous as it was so I had worn jeans to the hike and wished every step that I was wearing shorts.  It was a hot and heavy climbed; super steep in some areas.

This is Rosemary after we ran the last few
steps up to the top doing the "Rocky" theme song.

We descended the hill and then headed out for a bite to eat (free courtesy of the Southern Cross bar) and we stayed til about 10 just chatting with everyone.  I really hit it off with Rosemary and Nicole we just sat and talked and ate until they closed the bar in the room we were in (it was kind of like a private room for our group with a bar separate from the main bar).








 Check out the bay from the top of Mt Victoria.

 The sun was setting, awesome

Friday was much more of a chill day.  I showed Forest where the supermarket New World was, and brought back some more groceries.  Later in the afternoon Amy and I ran down to the bay and then along the beach.  I walked through the ocean for a bit, but the water was pretty cold.  There were tons and tons of kids just jumping into the ocean, I wish I had brought my camera--it was so beautiful!  We kind of just collapsed onto our couches when we got back, and right after Jeff came over bringing another American student named Marina with him!  So basically we're taking over the world.  Anyway, Jeff had to work


Friday night, but we ended up going out and meeting up with Colm, Rosemary, and Nicole for drinks.  Then Rosemary ran into some friends so we went barhopping with them for the rest of the night and boy was that fun.  Kiwis can sure hold their liquor, not that I tried to keep up with them at all.  It was just a lot of us walking around going what bar is good?  Where should we go next?  There were only two actual kiwis in the group (Nicole and Rosemary's friend Raymond) and then it was me, Colm, Amy, Marina, Forest and an India guy that I'm totally spacing on his name right now.  But we ended up at this little cocktail place called The Library that was filled with books, and comfy couches, and tables.  It was more like a mix of a bar and a restaurant because they sat you, took your order and then brought you drinks and food.  After that we wandered around to some other pubs and bars, I had some pretty good beer and a glass of excellent cider.  We somehow ended up finding a cake shop that was open at midnight for whatever reason, and parted ways there.  It was an excellent night on the town and we've decided that we will allow ourselves one splurge night a week.  So that was it!