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I thought I'd start by introducing you to our neighborhood. We arrived here on December 22. Both of
us thought we'd come through the very long flight okay. But when we got home we realized that we'd left one of Jodie's
bags at the airport baggage carousel, and her computer in one of the cars that picked us up! We eventually got
that all settled out and started to wander around our new neighborhood. Thorndon is just above the government center,
which makes it a very short walk to work for Jodie. It's also a mere 10 minute walk to the central downtown -- here
the government center basically abuts the central shopping area, unlike in Washington.
This is a shot from the top of the hill behind our cottage. There is a foot trail that winds through a heavily
wooded area that traverses the whole ridge at the top of Tinakori Hill. This Northern City Trail is part of the city's
heritage trails and provides great hiking and, as you can see, wonderful views of the city. We discovered this on our
first day here.
| Jodie overlooking Wellington harbor and downtown |
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You can see our cottage here, from the beginning of the foot trail, looking down. It's got 2 bedrooms, one bath
upstairs and a living/dining/kitchen area downstairs, with a nice patio opening off it. It's pretty small by US standards,
but very cozy and suits us fine.
The Botanical Gardens are just across the road at the bottom of our little street. It's a wonderful park, full of beautiful
trees. It climbs a great hill across from us, from which this picture was taken. You can see our neighborhood,
and where our house lies from here. That's a cricket ground in the middle distance. We spent quite a lot of time
wandering through here in our first days. There is also a quite lovely path through the park and the remains of a Jewish
cemetary down to the government center. This is Jodie's favorite route. The second picture below is taken from
the Jewish cemetary, which overlooks Thorndon.
| A view of our cottage from the hill above |
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The Thorndon neighborhood is very compact and hilly. This is a typical house, larger than ours, on the road into downtown.
We are walking practically everywhere, even though we have a car. This location is fantastic for urban living.
One of the previous fellows did his project on Smart Growth. He wrote that Wellington has the highest percentage of
the population that walks to work. We can certainly believe it! Jodie made the point the other day that we are
unquestioningly walking distances that we would always use our car for at home. Partly this is because we didn't get
our car until several days after our arrival; partly it's because the weather is so mild here at this time of year that it
seems a shame not to walk; partly it's the complete change of venue; and partly it's our desire to see everything close up
and get some exercise into the bargain. Whatever the reason, we've walked miles since arriving.
This is a panoramic shot of Wellington from the viewpoint that Jodie was sitting in front of on the first webpage.
Make sure to scroll over to the right to get the full effect of the picture. The weather this day was blustery,
with passing showers and squalls. You can see from the way the picture fits together -- from a number of separate shots
-- how changeable the weather was that day. This has turned out to be quite typical. Summer so far has certainly
been better than the bitter cold our East Coast friends are suffering through. But it ain't nothing like a Washington
summer! More like Northern Maine!!!
| Parliament House |
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| View of a downtown street |
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The government center is right at the edge of downtown. Many ministry headquarters are in the central business
district in office towers. The government "campus" consists of the Parliament House, which dates back quite a few years,
and the so-called Beehive, which houses the government's executive offices. The Prime Minister, currently Helen Clark,
actually lives a few blocks away from our house in the Thorndon neighborhood. It's bigger than most of the homes around
it, but very modest by White House standards. It's got a radio controlled gate in front of the property, and some fencing
around the grounds, but any other security is either absent or very well hidden and discreet.
We toured Parliament with Eli and Amelia. The legislative chambers are modeled closely after those in Westiminster.
So are the traditions of debate. Question time -- when the PM and her ministers answer questions posed by MPs -- is
evidently in the same raucous tradition, anyway.
One of the most notable things about this building is the extensive seismic reconstruction that went on in the '90's.
The building tour provides quite a lot of detail. In short, they cut the building away from its foundations, installed
a system of hundreds of shock absorbing pedastals between the foundation and the building. and also reinforced it horizontally
with new steel and concrete beams. It must have been quite a project to see underway. Now it's hidden from view.
The system was designed to withstand a 300-year event, or an earthquake up to 7.5 on the Richter scale. NZ is on two
active fault lines and has hundreds of small quakes each year. We've yet to feel one, but they're apparently going on
all the time.
| The "Beehive" -- Govt's executive offices |
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We arrived just before Christmas, and the streets were mad with people doing last minute shopping. We spent a lot
of time downtown in our first few days trying to get the mundane arrangements of everyday life settled. Things like
a bank account, cell phone and landline for the house, etc. It seemed we were tramping around the shopping district
endlessly. Most of the architecture downtown is quite drab and modern. But there are, as you can see, some exceptions.
This block in particular shows one of the older buildings that has been refurbished into shopping space. It was at one
time the Bank of New Zealand.
Some things we noticed right away while walking around in this area:
- The streets are incredibly clean. Very little litter, even in the most congested part of town. In fact, when
we noticed a young woman tossing an ATM receipt on the ground we both noticed with chagrin!
- People in the shops were uniformly polite, accessible and helpful. Even though we had our share of misunderstandings
or half-explained procedures that required us to repeat steps several times, people with whom we dealt were unfailingly polite
and really tried to help.
- There are no chain drug stores. The pharmacies are all independently owned. And they are well staffed.
And the staff all wear a sort of uniform, and walk around the store asking if they can help!
- There appear to be no lactose intolerant people here! I've tried to buy Lactaid but was told by a pharmacist that
it's not stocked here.
- There may have been a time when NZ cuisine was anything you wanted as long as it was mutton, but that's long gone.
There isn't a single cuisine we haven't seen somewhere in the downtown area. Asian food -- Malaysian, Chinese, Cambodian,
Japanese - is much in evidence, as is Indian. Regrettably, American fast food has a significant presence here, too.
- But for a country that is very self conscious about being multinational and multicultural, the color tone of the vast
majority of people we've seen since arriving is monochromatic and white. We're startled at the lack of color, and to
some degree ethnic diversity, in the crowds we've seen so far. To be fair, we haven't ventured into much of the North
Island outside of Wellington, nor to Auckland, which is reportedly much more diverse. But here and throughout the South
Island we have both noticed how very white a country it is.
- And the people, regardless of their ethnic background, are unusually good looking! Jodie attributes this partly
to really good complexions, possibly because of much less pollution than we're used to, and to being fit. I don't know
what it is, but the streets are just full of handsome, attractive folks.
- The coffee/cafe culture has taken hold big time. There are innumerable cafes and coffee bars. Favorite
drinks are "long blacks" (2 shots of expresso), flat whites (a non-frothy latte), and the usual capuccinos and so on.
Yes, Starbucks has arrived. But the local cafes are more than holding their own.
- We're spoiled by the NYT and the Washington Post, of course, but so far we're totally underwhelmed by the quality of the papers.
Things have been getting a bit better now that the summer/Xmas holidays are closing and the government is getting
back to work. But even the major paper here in the capital is more reminiscent of the Des Moines Register than
the NY Times or Post. On the other hand, having very little and quite superficial US coverage is not such a bad
thing these days, we think.
- The quality of the light is quite lovely. It's very clear, and when the weather's fine, you can see great distances
with good clarity. The lack of pollution must be the cause. It's invigorating.
- And, it stays light quite late into the evening, at least during this season. We had to keep reminding ourselves
that we are way at the bottome of the Southern Hemisphere, during the summer, so of course the days are quite long, and we
arrived at the longest day of the year. It still takes a bit of getting used to when it's daylight at 9 pm.
- You need to be willing to develop a whole new attitude towards flying insects here, because there are no screens on the
windows. With the weather somewhat warm and home air conditioning unheard of (and largely unnecessary), open windows
are a must. But then, consequently, so are large black flies and in the evening, moths. Big ones, small ones,
fast ones, slow ones.
As you might expect, Wellington has gone bonkers over Lord of the Rings and the final installment, Return
of the King. The film had its world premiere here just before we arrived. It was shown at this theater, which
was refurbished with director Peter Jackson's support. You can see that the decorations are a bit unorthodox in honor
of the film. There are several similar over the top tributes throughout the city, including one of Gollum grasping for
the Ring at the airport.
Speaking of the return of the king, Eli and his girlfriend Amelia arrived here on Christmas Day. You can see Jodie
was very low-key and unemotional at the airport.
One of the nicest things about our arrival was having as our immediate neighbors Jan and Marek Gootman. Jan was
an Axford Fellow in the June-December '03 class. It was they who recommended this cottage to us, as they were renting
its twin across the drive. They and their 2-year old daughter Saige adopted us immediately on arrival and were immensely
helpful in teaching us the ropes. They were wonderful "hosts" and invited us to join them and some other Fulbrights,
Axfords and friends for Christmas Day. Picnics at the beach are one traditional way to celebrate, apparently.
So off we went with them and the others. First we tried Oriental Beach, which is right in the downtown area. As
you can see, it's a smallish swimming beach right in the city. The area has been newly developed by the city.
Beach sand was dredged and shipped here to enlarge the beach. Xmas was a very cool, blustery day, particularly on this
beach. But we persevered along with a number of others for a few hours.
Although we were quite committed to the idea of being on this beach, the weather eventually overcame us, so we decamped
in a car caravan to the other, leeward side of the peninsula, to Lyalls Bay where the picnic resumed. Frisbees were
thrown, wading commenced, and we pulled Xmas crackers and donned the funny paper hats that come in side them and are all the
rage in Commonwealth Xmas celebrations. Jen had brought a Pavlova for dessert. This is the "apple pie" of NZ.
It's a meringue, covered in whipped cream and topped with fruit, often a Kiwi fruit, but anything fruity will do, apparently.
Amazingly, the one Jen made survived the various peregrinations and sustained us as the sun set over Lyalls Bay.
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