beef in wellington

Three hours hours after falling asleep, I woke up to my final morning in Sydney Australia. You may remember, if you follow the intricate details of my blog with a near stalker-like interest, that I set my alarm to wake me up after four hours of sleep. But my brain, in all its intricate wonder, has a habit of waking me up before the time I set for alarms. I rarely rise out of bed when this preemptive consciousness strikes, and so I was left to sit there in the semi-dark, contemplating the benefits of pursuing an extra hour of sleep. In the end, I staggered up, crept quietly passed the sleeping hulks in the bunks around me, and allowed the alternating freezing cold and scorching heat of the hostel shower to bring me into my full senses. I then quietly extricated my half-packed bags from the room and nosily packed them in the hallway. Kneeling down to zip a final side pocket, I felt a tear in my pants, and realized that I had ripped a hole in the knee of my jeans. Annoyed, but unable to take any immediate action to rectify this, I hauled my luggage downstairs where I was able to catch an early morning breakfast before my shuttle bus arrive.

Sitting in the nearly abandoned meal room (there was one other hostel goer up and about, under circumstances similar to my own) I suddenly felt the compulsion to repair my jeans. I had all of ten minutes before my shuttle bus was scheduled to arrive, and so I tore an iron-on mending kit from my bag, and rushed to the laundry room to heat up the iron. Seven minutes later, my pants were mended, and I was feeling pretty good about myself right up until I reentered the meal room and realized that the shuttle had just arrived and they were impatiently waiting for me. Rushing to put my shoes back on (such things need to be taken off if one is to repair jeans you understand) I broke the fragile left lace, damaged in the fireplace mishap in Nepal a month ago. Cursing this misfortune, I hastily gathered together my luggage, and fumbled out to meet the shuttle. Leaving the hostel into an early morning rain, I managed to get on board and we were soon underway. Jerry-rigging my lace to hold my boot tight, I was soon stepping off the shuttle bus into Sydney International Airport, still feeling a bit disheveled.

I clumsily checked in at the Air New Zealand booth, and cleared security with such swiftness and ease that I found myself with plenty of time, far too much in fact, to look around the Duty Free and the various other airport shopping offerings. While I would avail myself of none of these offerings, I did learn a great deal more than I expect I needed to about the collection and processing of merino wool, as well as the myriad of different semi-useful things one can knit it into - if anyone has been looking for doggy leg warmers made from 100% Australian Merino Wool, I saved a business card.

On board the airplane, I was treated to one of the more impressive in flight entertainment systems I've yet come across, and having my pick of recently released films, I chose Frost/Nixon - this over Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, under the theory that if you're going to go through the labor of watching a Michael Bay film, where the only redeeming values are the digital editing and explosions, an eight inch screen is hardly the proper medium. Frost/Nixon is definitely worth a look if you missed its release onto DVD, bearing in mind that I am a political science student, and anything I say about the fascinating qualities of politics or economics should be taken with a grain of salt; more on this later. For the time, Frost/Nixon got me through most of the three hour plane ride to New Zealand, and when we landed I had to hurriedly fill out the immigration card they provided me upon entering the aircraft.

New Zealand is famous for inventing the bungee jump, its fruits and birds beginning with "kiwi", and a fanatical obsession with keeping out anything that might be seen as an invasive or dangerous threat to their ecosystem. Germans were forbidden entry through the 1970's. So I was more than a little nervous at coming up to the immigration desk with a suitcase full of souvenirs that would provide textbook examples of "tree products", "food items", and "things derived from the sea." The "Instant $300 Fine!" sings didn't help to steady my nerves. I had half-heatedly declared that I was carrying certain things that may not be allowed into the country, as a way of safeguarding myself from the consequences of a random search, while still avoiding the heartbreaking loss of some memorabilia that has been with me throughout my travels. In the end, my scheme worked (I sure hope no one from New Zealand's Immigration Security reads my blog) and I managed to sneak passed after a short round of questions, during which I honed my political skills by never once lying.

Feeling really really good about making it into New Zealand, I turned my attention to the task of making it into Wellington. In this I was assisted by the most helpful non-human entity I've come across in my travels: a touch screen computer that I identified my hostel, placed a call into reception, then printed me out a little map of how to get there. I was so happy to have this machine, which by rights should fall into the long line of "things that seem like they should work well, but don't", that I took a picture of it:

Note the little receipt-like map that had printed out below.

Boarding a bus into town, I enjoyed the first and only free public wifi I've found in all of New Zealand. The bus ride took less than twenty minutes, though this was long enough to get my laptop out, boot up Skype, and place a truly mobile call back home to let my parents know I had arrived safely in New Zealand. I made it to the hostel without incident, checked in, dropped off my bags, and set out to explore Wellington. I wouldn't realize it until later, while I was flipping through an atlas at a local book store, but I had now arrived in the southernmost capital city in the world, having started out in Reykjavik, the northernmost capital city in the world. The two cities are almost exactly on the other side of the world from each other, but Wellington bore an almost uncanny similarity to Reykjavik, and I really enjoyed just walking around the city.

At one point, a fine mist that had been coming down from the sky finally turned into the barest definition of rain long enough to become affected in the most dazzling way by the strong winds coming off the harbor. These tiny rain droplets danced in the sky, moving from side to side and coming at me from all angles as they were tossed about in the shifting winds. Behind me, a rainbow formed out of the swirling mist, and the whole thing was rather magical, if a bit cold.

Faded in the bright light of the afternoon, the rainbow was still clearly distinguishable.

I took refuge from the wind and rain in Te Papa, New Zealand's free National Museum, which is basically the entire Smithsonian complex of museums rolled into one big harborside building. Much of Te Papa involves a rather childish interactive quality to the exhibits, lifting latches, and being rattled by mock earthquakes, so suffice to say I loved it. I was hardly the only person there taller than a yard stick who seemed to be getting a kick out of the exhibits, as Kiwis (the people, not the birds or the fruit) seem to have a very playful approach to life that no doubt comes from lives lived in desperate isolation and sheep.

Te Papa was really cool, but I had come near to closing time. So, vowing to return, I headed back into the fresh New Zealand air to continue my explorations... only to find everything else closed. It turned out that this particular Monday was New Zealand's Labor Day, and so the only things that were open were the National Museum and the grocery stores. Having seen the National Museum, I naturally made my way to the grocery store. There I chanced on a ludicrously low-priced cut of beef tenderloin, that I spent the next half hour fashioning a meal around. It took the purchase of two slices of bacon at the deli, the procurement of two kebab sticks from the meat lady, and the acquisition of lettuce, potatoes, and ginger ale, but I soon had everything I would need to prepare two meals of filet mignon on a backpacker's budget. Everything, that is, except a stove. For some unfathomable reason, the hostel's kitchen had no less than twelve electric ranges (none of which worked with any consistency) and not a single stove or broiler. So after halving the steak and wrapping it in bacon, I cooked one portion in a covered pot with as much success as I should expect to get from the troublesome electric range.

Wandering through Wellington.

Wires for the tram stand out against the colors of twilight.

Dinner was pretty much the highlight of my evening, as after enjoying it I opted for an early night in. The next morning, and in fact most of the next day was dedicated to a proper visit of Te Papa, where I wandered through interesting and interactive exhibits, the likes of which I have never come across in my many museum-going years. Highlights of the visit included an exhibit featuring interactive architecture, a good - if goofy - summery of race relations in New Zealand between the Maori and the colonists, a large and inexplicable section dedicated to the Scottish in New Zealand, and the Colossal Squid. The Colossal Squid was entertaining for a number of reasons, none of which had to do with the squid itself. First of all, the amount of media coverage of the hooking of this squid was only matched by the fascination exhibited by museum-goers over this specimen of the deep. Where Americans would have seen a large, but otherwise unimpressive portion of calamari, New Zealanders have build an entire exhibit around the squid - which is now preserved in formaldehyde - featuring a documentary on it's capture, a build-your-own-squid interactive game, and - no joke - a 3D film complete with glasses that follows a supposed telling of the squid's daily life up to its capture by a local fisherman.

For all of this, Te Papa has earned my endearing love, and as a way of giving back to the museum that provided me with so much entertainment - not to mention squid-based factoids - I ate lunch at the famously over-priced museum cafe. My seafood chowder was, well, certainly full of food from the sea, though the beverage I paired with it helped to redeem an otherwise mediocre meal. After finishing the late lunch, I left Te Papa to continue my exploration of Wellington. Stopping by the tourist information center, closed the day before in observance of the holiday, I procured a number of useful brochures for planning out my remaining time in Wellington, then skipped over to the local library which was reported to be rather impressive. The library was actually very impressive, though I am hardly the type to run halfway around the world just to plunk down in front of a book all afternoon while there are sites to see and adventures to be had. So I left the library and continued to wander on to little if any circumstance until the sun started to get low in the sky. Hoping to find a good view of the sunset, I started climbing one of the hills that circle the city, and so began an hour-long distraction through the heights of Wellington.

Franks: a damn good drink.

The sun setting over New Zealand.

Having successfully obtained a few decent pictures, I made my way back to the hostel where I enjoyed a second night of filet mignon, much to the jealousies of my fellow hostel-goers. After dinner I shared a few beers with one of my roommates while I regaled him with tales of my adventure, and I am comfortable saying that New Zealand has by far the best beer of any country I have visited during my trip. While Belgium will likely never be dethroned from beer eminence, I place New Zealand right up there with the best of them.

Monteiths's Summer Ale: another damn good drink, though unlike Frank's, it doesn't see fit to advertise this point.

I woke up to a hot bowl of porridge on my last full day in Wellington. That is, I woke up, dressed, walked down to the the kitchen, and prepared it for myself - this wasn't the Ritz or anything. The calories earned by the porridge would be seriously taxed by my itinerary for the day, which started with a walk over to the Parliament Building. While I had been called on to give tours of the European Parliament Building in Brussels, I have never myself taken a tour of a foreign central government building. But New Zealand's government fascinates me. Here, in one of the most geographically isolated countries in the world, has flourished a liberal democracy that has afforded its citizens one of the highest standards of living in the world, despite historically violent and reasonably recent breakdowns in race relations between the European settlers and the local Maori. Yet today New Zealand boasts a system of universal health care, defacto free university education for anyone willing to stay in the country after graduation, and original inhabitants who are well represented in everything from the government to the core culture of the country. The United States, I feel disappointed to report, can lay claim to no such achievements.

"The Beehive", part of the Parliament Building.

Outside of the macro level achievements of the New Zealand government, I learned of two interesting features of their structure and procedure during the tour - I interject again my caveat about the relative interest of government procedure to me as compared to the rest of the world. The Parliament of New Zealand was founded as a bicameral legislature with an upper house: the Senate, and a lower house: the House of Representatives. Curiously, they adopted the British name for the legislative body, and the American name for the houses. However, when it became painfully clear that the Senate, a body that in function had more in common with the House of Lords than the US Senate, were almost totally corrupt and useless, they threw the goons out. And this was not on a Senator-by-Senator basis, the government took the necessary steps to completely dissolve the Senate, rendering the Parliament of New Zealand as one of the few unicameral legislatures in the developed world.

New Zealand's most famous Prime Minister, you've probably never heard of, died on June 10th as the last of a string of terrible happenings for New Zealand on that date in the 19th century.

This take-no-crap attitude toward government extends into lawmaking. Contrary to what Schoolhouse Rock's Mr. Bill may have told you, the process of going from a bill to a law in the United States is rather convoluted. Ordinarily a bill is introduced on the House or Senate floor, and then it is referred to the appropriate committee or subcommittee - groups of Congressmen or Senators with a specialization in say: Agriculture, Foreign Relations, or Daisy Planting. Subcommittees are where bills go to die. This is the easiest place to allow a bill to languish obscurity, and this is the fate of the majority of legislation before the House and Senate. Congressmen in New Zealand do not have this luxury. Every single piece of legislation that has been introduced on the House floor and referred to the appropriate select committee - as they are known there - must be reviewed by the committee and passed through to a vote within six months. Extensions are occasionally granted if there is an outpouring of popular interest in the bill which leads more public addresses before the select committee - another fascinating practice of the New Zealand government - but usually the committees are treated as though they are comprised of mature adults who can be expected to make the deadlines imposed upon them.

Aside from all the procedural stuff, the tour of the Parliament was impressive simply because of the incredible Victorian architecture that graced the interior of the buildings. All recently restored after a fire, countless stained glass windows, intricately carved wood, and abundant gold leaf come together to form a spectical in nearly every room. Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed inside, so I will have to leave it to you to visit for yourself.

When I finally left the Parliament, I had in mind a tour of the Weta Effects Studio, the people who are responsible for the costume and effects of many major films, most notably the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Based right here in Wellington, their studio is in the coastal borough of Mirimar, which was only a few inches away from the Parliament building on my map. So I headed off into the hills, oblivious to the distance I was attempting to traverse. I walk at a brisk pace, and so to finally stagger into the Weta Cave - as it's known - three hours after leaving the Parliament is a testament to both the terrain of New Zealand, and the proximity (or lack thereof) of Mirimar. Admittedly, it was largely a pleasant walk, taking me into the hills high above Wellington and affording me fantastic views of the harbor. But near to the end of the walk, as I traversed a kilometer or so of windswept coast, bordered by the four lane highway, I was more than ready to arrive at my destination.

The winding coastal road that traces the Wellington harbor.

Walking along the windswept beach.

The Weta Cave was pretty interesting - perhaps not worth the three hour walk, but all the same. They had several displays showcasing the various props and costumes they had made, as well as a wonderfully goofy video showcasing the different effects work they had employed over the years. I've never been one for miniatures, so I left the gift shop empty handed, but still enjoyed the time I spent there.

Paintings hung on the ceiling of the Weta Cave.

One of the more famous creations of the good people at Weta.

My walk from Parliament had taken me passed my hostel, so it only took me two hours to return back to my place of lodging, just in time for a light dinner of bruschetta. After dinner, I joined my roommates for a light night out on the town. I am an unapologetic fan of Big Buck Hunter, virtual deer-shooting franchise that has become a staple of the American Bar. And so when I saw a New Zealand variant on the game, ironically called "US Hunter", I excitedly deposited 50 cents and waited for the thrill of the electronic deer stalking tention. The game was terrible, mostly large pixels moving against each other, and I quickly gave up and returned to more social pursuits.

Wellington Harbor, at night.

Despite the peer-pressurings of my roommates, I called it a night sometime before 2:00, as I had a 7:00 train to catch the next morning. Setting my alarm to allow me the reduced amount of sleep that had become all too familar, I slumped into bed excited about the comming train journey.