Kiwi Hat Trick!

In the Auckland airport, I logged onto the internet, sent a couple work emails related to the work I did on the flight from Denver to LA, and then truly closed off the work part of my life for the next 9 days.

I took a couple pictures from the plane as we were landing in Wellington. After we dropped my stuff at Calle's place, I took a quick shower (so there *was* a shower in my near future) and then we headed out for the day. Calle's goal was to keep me up until 7 or 8 pm. We walked downtown by the bay. We had a cup of coffee by the bay, did some people watching and checked out the yachts. (Actually the coffee was a "flat white" – similar to a latte, but apparently with lots more foam. There's also a latte on the menu, so I have to figure out how those are different later.)
First Sighting of Wellington!
Cannot wait to be there!

Then we headed out to the Wellington Zoo. The "Zoo keeper says" signs there cracked me up. My favorite animals were probably the Sun Bears.
Zookeeper Says (like Simon Says?) Check out the "x" on the giraffe's eyes.
Sun Bear
Chimps with a view of Wellinton (and a rugby game)

But the most important thing is: WE SAW A KIWI! So I got my hat trick already!

• I met Calle's neighbors (Kiwi person).


• We went to the Wellington Zoo and saw the Kiwi birds (they're nocturnal! So I couldn't get a picture.)


• On the way home we stopped at the local market for some Kiwi fruit.

Tonight we went back up to Calle's neighbors and watched a rugby match on TV while barbequing on the huge grill they have. The match was between a South African team and the Wellington Hurricanes. The 'Canes won! I gather this is an unusual event. I don't really understand rugby, but Calle's neighbors did their best to explain what was happening to me. The problem is they kept comparing it to "American Football". I see some similarities, but I'm also not the biggest NFL fan. There's a lot of lateral passing in rugby. And apparently you have to slide into the end zone for the goal to count.

At any rate, it's like 9pm here now. So we’ve made Calle’s goal of keeping me up until a reasonable bedtime...and I did get up at 2:30am local time...so it's not quite 20 hours of awake time, but I am tired. We have to get up early tomorrow to catch the ferry to the south island and go on the sailing adventure.

I'll leave you with this picture I took on our walk around Wellington.
Pretty!