More Adventures in Wellington
Saturday night, Meg, Carolin, Tuomas, and I visited some bars we had never been to. One of which, Motel, is relatively hidden. You have to gain access through a door in an alley before you climb the stairs to the tiki themed bar. A really neat place!
Sunday was Gold Coin Day, where many major city attractions were only $1-2 and all proceeds are donated to the city. We visited the animal sanctuary, Zealandia, for just $1, as opposed to the usual $18. It is a heavily fenced off area of forest where native animals (mostly birds) live freely. It was a particularly windy and cold day, so we didn’t stay too long. I want to go back and do the much pricier night tour, where you get to see kiwis and glow worms!
Today, Sharyn and I bought a padlock and took a stroll down to a bridge at Wellington Harbour that has loads of locks on it. We did the customary locking onto the bridge and tossing the keys into the water.
My time in New Zealand has taught me to be extremely careless with my money because of the ridiculous prices of EVERYTHING. I realized today that I used to roll my eyes and walk away when I found a can of pop in a pop machine for $.75. I have willingly paid $2 for several cans since being here. It is not uncommon to pay $17 for a single fast food meal. While I do get a bit with the conversion, I’m not gaining THAT much.
I also realized that people will probably think that my terminology is really odd when I get home. I have grown accustomed to using New Zealand words like capsicum (red pepper), flat (apartment), chur (thanks), and overusing the words reckon, yep, and keen. I never picked up on heaps, which is seriously used HEAPS (like they have no other word for “a lot of”), or “(adjective) as”. In addition, I will have a problem with writing the month first in a date instead of the day. Because everything is backwards here. But actually the United States is backwards. I realize that. It will be nice, however, for people to not look at me funny when I say “it’s 55 degrees”.
I am currently working on my final projects. I got about 1/3 of my Maori art project done and have been running lines for a performance for Modern Drama that I have coming up on Wednesday. Just have to get through the week and then I’m headed South for a few days on Sunday!