Happy 2008!

Alright so I'm in Wellington now but before I go into the travels I'll give you a brief overview of New Year's Eve! We had a big barbeque where we all bought too much food (as usual). Bernie stood and cooked all the meat for literally 2 hours while the rest of us made salads and side dishes and got ready for the evening. We had such a fabulous time drinking and eating in the warm weather that we didn't even go out! We watched the fireworks from the backyard at the hostel and I popped a bottle of bubbles to celebrate the New Year. We ended the night relatively early (probably 1:30 or so) and I had to help Beate since she had a little too much to drink.

The next day we just lazed around and watched movies and packed. Wednesday morning at 5:30am came really quickly. Bernie drove Beate and I down to Britomart to catch the train at about 6:30am. We each have a few super heavy bags (as any girl traveler does, right?) and we were kind of worried that they were going to make us pay for having extra bags or more than 20 Kilos. Well it was the easiest check-in I've ever been through. We didn't even have to show ID! They just had us show the tickets and bring the bags to the baggage cart. We went and sat down and waited to get going. I have a bunch of pictures of the ride that I'm trying to load soon so you can see! The train took off at 7:30am and we got into Wellington at 7:30pm. It was a beautiful day all across the North Island and only became cloudy once we reached Wellington. I got up at one point and got some air and then a Sprite at the food court. By the time I sat back my motion sickness had kicked in so I spent the rest of the ride sitting or standing in one place. We got off for 45 minutes at National Park and had some lunch and fresh air. They also stopped at a number of places along the way to let people off or on. I was never so happy to get off and walk around once we arrived in Wellington!

In Wellington we got off the train, gathered our luggage and decided not to mess with the buses but to get a taxi to the hostel. We were exhausted from not much sleep the night before (due to watching Die Hard 4.0) and were starving since we hadn't ate for about 6 hours. Of course our hostel is on a hill! Ha, we definitely know how to pick them. We checked into the Rosemere Backpackers and the guy checking us in was from NYC. He didn't show us around or anything and told us our room was up 2 flights of stairs. He was nice, but definitely not hospitable. We lugged our bags upstairs to the room and caught our breath for a minute. Then we headed back down the hill to find some dinner. It was very quiet and empty in the city at about 8:30pm but we've determined it's because it's still holiday time here and everyone leaves during this week. We ended up going to this place called "Espressoholic" for dinner and had a fabulous meal that we couldn't finish because we waited too long to eat. I had tomato basil soup and some hummus with veggies and bread. Beate had some fabulous chicken and mushroom fettucine.

We walked back to the hostel totally stuffed. The walls are thin so it sounds like everyone is in your room and the mattresses are definitely thin too, but hey that's what you get when you stay at a hostel. On the plus side, the bathrooms are way bigger! We awoke to our neighbors chatting and people vacuuming. Then my cell phone rang, so it was time to get up at 9:30 (it should be anyway I guess). We showered and got ready for a sunny and warm day in the city. We walked all the way down to the harbour and had breakfast at a fabulous place overlooking the sailboats. I had a smoked salmon benedict that was unbelievably wonderful! Then we decided to checkout the famous Te Papa museum which is right on the harbour. The museum is huge and very kid-friendly. It was fun to walk through (and it was free!). We then went to Mac's Brewery which is almost next door to the museum! Mac's is a New Zealand beer that is all natural and very popular throughout NZ. I had their Summer Ale before and absolutely loved it so we decided to check it out. They didn't have any tours or anything so we sat outside in the restaurant and had the beer tasting tray! We tried Mac's Gold (Lager), Spring Tide (low-carb beer), Hop Rocker (Pilsener), Sun Dance (the Summer Ale), Sassy Red (Bitter), and Black Mac (dark beer). The red was definitely not my style and the black was too intense for how nice it was outside, but I definitely liked all the rest!

Then we decided to try and find the cable car to take us up to Mount Victoria which has the best view of the city apparently. Well this idea took us on a few miles long trek through the city where after a couple of hours we found the cable car track, but we didn't know how to get on it. We asked multiple very helpful people on our trek to find the cable car and in the end, we finally found that we had passed it about an hour before. We finally took the cable car up the side of the mountain and were rewarded with fantastic views of the city and the surrounding Marlborough Sounds. We walked around a little and saw some of the Botanical Gardens and then decided to head back downtown. We were walking back towards the center of town when we heard some music. We went to check it out and found that they were setting up for a free concert that was to start in about an hour! Hell yes! So we looked around the area and then went to the visitors center next door to book our ferry and check out the bus tickets for travelling around the south island. The gal at the counter helped us a lot and we were able to book the ferry (which was filling up quickly) to take us to Picton on Saturday and the Flexipass to get us around by bus on the South Island. By the time we were finished it was almost concert time. We went and found a seat in the crouded area and began to notice how much sun we had from the day outside.

Shivering from too much sun and 3 songs into a kind of crappy performance, we decided to leave and find some dinner. We ended up at a pizza place which worked out just fine. We were then both exhausted and ready to relax so we headed back up to the hostel at about 7pm. We hung out, read, talked on the phone and went to sleep after 10.

This morning we slept in and then headed out for a day of shopping, internet, and a movie. We saw "Death at a Funeral" at Rialto Cinemas--the one that plays the independent films. It was hilarious! I highly recommend it if you all want a quirky british film. We still have to go to the supermarket and then back to the hostel to make reservations for our bus trips so I'd better get going. I'll upload pictures later!

-Lisa