We have been in Wellington for a week and are beginning to get our bearings and find our way around. We are living downtown in the CBD - Central Business District, so this is a new experience for us car focused suburban types. We live on Wakefield Street, a block from the harbour and a block from Te Papa the national museum.
The best thing about where we live is we can pop across to the harbor and walk along the lovely promenade. Day or night there are all kinds of people there, walking, jogging, skateboarding, biking, or just stopping to admire the hills or have a drink at the brewery. I'll attach some pictures of the harbor.
There is also a skateboard park there, so pretty much any time there are boys aged about 4 to the occassional 40 year old hancing out or shredding. The girls couldn't take being observers and prevailed upon their Dad (known as the pushover) to buy them skateboards. In 2 days I have to say they've gotten pretty good. Once in a while another girl or two shows up, sometimes even with a board, but mostly its the girls and a bunch of boys. It's interesting - you have 4 year olds on scooters and bikes and teens on skateboards and some rollerbladers all doing their own thing and it pretty much works. You here more "excuse mes" than I imagine you would in the US.
That is one thing we have noticed about the Kiwis is that they are generally very polite. Of course, sometimes we have a little difficulty understanding their brand of English, so its possible there is some rudeness, but I don't think so. Dave commented on how they use a more hesitant "in'it" as a filler in contract to americans ubiquitous "you know". As in, "it's a nice day, in'it?".
I am amazed at the lack of "NO" signs and the limited disruption multiple lifestyles seem to have on each other. Very live and let live. Of course we are still scandalized by barefeet in the grocery.
One thing we found to be very clever is the Kiwi garbage system. You don't pay for garbage collection by tax but through a bag-based user fee. You have to buy these special yellow garbage bags at about $2 each and put all your trash in them. The more you have the more you pay. Recycling is free, so if you recycle as much as you can you have less trash to pay for. Clever, huh?
We are also surrounded by cafes. They are everywhere, offering Indian, Malaysian, Chinese, Mexican, just about everything you can think of. Last night we went to an Indian/Malaysian cafe and had a very nice dinner. The Indian bread was out of this world. There are also quite a number of English/Irish style pubs nearby which we will have to check out over time, for research sake of course.
Yesterday we had our first experience with city services when our building's fire alarm went off. Now, we can see the fire department about 2 blocks away. When the alarm went off mid-morning we toddled downstairs to avoid the horrific noise and met some of our building neighbors. It was pretty clearly a false alarm, but that didn't stop 4 huge fire trucks and quite a number of firemen (complete with axes and full gear) running into the building. they were very thorough and checked everything out for sometime before we could go back in. I have enhanced confidence in the fire response - which actually had concerned me a little since we don't really have a rea exit option. Anyway, the fire department can be there quickly and with a significant response
Tomorrow I start my first day at work. I here there is tea time at 10 a.m. - what a perfectly civilized tradiyion. Do you think I can get state government to adopt it?
This weekend our block with be closed to a street party. Something about the "sevens" which I assume relates to rugby. I probably ought to figure that out before we join the revelers and say the wrong thing.
