I met up with the group in Wellington at around 730. Due to my poor travel planning, I was the last too arrive and had a full day ahead of me after 54 hours of travel and a night spent on the bus. I was a bit tired, but excited super excited to be there and ready to explore a completely new city. We had the afternoon free to wander the city a little bit, but mostly to complete a scavenger hunt at the Te Papa Museum(history of NZ).
Wellington is a really neat city. Its built on a harbor and into the surrounding hills with the downtown right on the waterfront. The surrounding neighborhoods are built into the hills. The severity of these hills so near the water leaves these houses terraced with most houses having incredible views over the harbor as well as the rest of the city. I also found the city itself to be incredibly interesting. The architecture of Wellington is unlike anything I've ever seen in the States. It seemed that every building was designed to be completely different from the one next to it, giving the city a very eclectic feel. This may sound distracting to some, but in the end it gave the city an extremely laid back climate as it didn't seem to take itself too seriously. The Te Papa Museum itself was really cool and extremely informative. It had everything from natural history (both geological and wildlife) to Maori culture to the history of New Zealand post European settler. If I had to pick a highlight it would've been learning about how much has changed here since the first introduction of man (essentially the first mammals in the country) in the 1200's.
Despite my lack of sleep, I felt like I needed to go out and enjoy my only night in Wellington. Since we were staying at the youth hostile, we met people from all over the country, as well as a couple other countries. I ended up spending most of my night with a few guys from Auckland. They were all pretty cool and friendly, perfectly willing to help show us yanks a good time in the city. It seemed like there were people from all over out that night as I met people from Europe, Australia, China, Canada and of course all over NZ. I wont get into the details too much, but suffice to say that I stayed up much later than I should've considering the amount of sleep I'd gotten the last two nights. The next morning we slept in a bit before leaving for the Quaker settlement in Whanganui. But ill save that for next time, thanks for reading!
Love hearing about everything.
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