There's never trouble in paradise

As of today I have been away from home for 4 weeks.  And it has indeed been glorious, but I still sometimes feel like I just got here! (well, I kind of just did, one week in Wellington today!)  I guess I still feel new because I have yet to move in to my house I can still see sitting tauntingly outside my window.

Pictured: Lust

It may not look like anything fancy (it's not) but there are nice big rooms, and it will soon be my home! Apparently I get to move in tomorrow; we shall see if it actually happens. Though I'm pretty sure tomorrow someone else will need to move into my room so they'll have to put me somewhere.  But enough about such boring housing issues--i won't even get into the problems with housing and hours and internet--but I feel like a good way of desrcibing my experience thus far is a lovely list of the best (and maybe a few of the worst) parts of Wellington, and New Zealand as a whole.

Favorites: My house (I know, we just got off this topic, but bear with me) has a backyard.  Campus housing and I've got a house with a lovely little backyard right outside my door with, now this is important, ROSE BUSHES.  Now Wake has a beautiful campus, and even here I don't have nearly the view of some of my other friends, but I have something none of those do: roses.  While technically they're in my backyard right now too, it will be even better when that backyard connects to a house and not a crappy flat (I've currently been left all alone in).

People just walk around barefoot.  I'll let you guess how long it took me to pick up on this trend, but it wasn't long.  Even around the city, down town.  It's not just parks or their shoes hurt, people just walk around barefoot in the city or wherever without getting stares of shock or disgust (those are reserved for everyones freakishly defined calf muscles).

The food.  All the food here is good.  Even the cheap little instant box of Thai rice is delicious.  There are little sushi places all over the city where you can get tons of sushi for under 10 bucks, and the Vietnamese place of course was great.  The farmers market was fresh, healthy stuff for dirt cheap prices usually reserved in the US for ramen noodles and funyuns.  In general it might be a little more expensive here, but with no tipping, tax included, and the New Zealand dollar being 75-80 cents on the dollar it's not as bad as first expected.

 

The views.  Walking around the city you'll be trudging up some staircase that looks like it was designed only for the use of sherpas and mountain goats you'll come around the corner and through the trees there will be a breathtaking view of bay, city, and mountains., and a blue sky you can't find at home unless your sunglasses are properly tinted.  After barely subsiding on Salem lake (can something be called a lake if it's small enough to have a running track around it?) it feels great to be going to school somewhere with water always near by. 

The Lagoon.  Now I mentioned the lagoon in my last post, but now I know it by name, and I promised a better picture.  This is definitely my favorite spot in Wellington, the fountain in the foreground is really cool enough when the wind has died down enough to run it without soaking unsuspecting cafe patrons, said cafe also has spectacular gelato, you can people watch all the crew teams that leave from the boat houses in the afternoon, there are plenty of comfy places to lay in the sun and look for sting rays, who also come to the lagoon for sunbathing, you can jump off the bridge on the left and there is a great wine bar made out of a shipping container on the far side.  Basically it's all I need in life, not to mention little crafty shops right behind me.

The waterfront in general is one of the best places to hang out, and since classes haven't started yet our schedule basically consists of sleeping in, heading to the city/waterfront, grabbing coffee or some lunch, lounging in the sun, heading to the shopping area because someone always needs something, making dinner at someones place, and then heading out for the night, to start all over again in the morning.  We had one day of orientation, but don't worry, we quickly recovered from the lapse in our routine.