Pictures from Welly Welly

Our daily walk to the bus stop. The little red arrow towards the middle of the pictures is where the bus stop is. The picture is taken from Nicole and Manuel's porch. Needless to say, walking down isn't so bad. It's the walk back up that is a killer.

It must have just snowed on the South Island. You can see that snow cap just dying to have its picture taken. View from the porch.

Nicole showed us this apple. Looks like a gross apple, right? Wrong. It's not real. She painted styrofoam to create this masterpiece for her last film. She actually painted like 50 or so. Amazing.

This is just one way I keep busy at night. The walk is just too much to do more than once or twice in a day. Going into town at night is a real hassle, so we either watch movies on laptops or do things like this to keep us busy.

Mind-blowing sunsets aren't as rare as you think. I'm just too lazy to take pictures everytime it happens. Here is one time, however, when I thought the beauty would be worth the effort.

Sorry that these have been so long in coming. I'll try to do better in the future.

Wacky Wellington

More reasons to love Wellington...

Cops don't carry guns. They carry tasers, but not even the kind that shoot the little barbs. They carry the kind that you have to actually physically touch the bad guy with. So bascially, just run away and you're good to go. Also, cops don't pull over speeding cars or cars that run red lights. They just write down your license and mail you a ticket. In fact, I saw my first cop yesterday. I had been here for 11 days without seeing a single cop. Interesting...

Good news. It is now legal to ride your bike in public...naked. In fact, being naked in public isn't illegal unless you are doing a "lude act" while being naked. So, like I said, good news for all you naked bike riders. Come to Wellington and go for it.

Tribal tattoos are cool here, mostly because the people that have them most likely ARE in a tribe. The Maori people here (the natives) are mostly Polynesian types, descending from tribes. So, unlike the weirdos in the States with tribal tattoos, these guys are legit. You make fun of their tattoos and you're a dead man.

A resume is called a CV. To hire is to rent. A top off is a refill. A lift is an elevator. A prawn is a shrimp. Chips are fries. Lollies are anything sweet (candylike). Biscuits are cookies. The bathroom is the toilet. Don't ever call it a bathroom or a restroom. They'll think you're crazy. You either say "toilet," or say "blokes" or "mens" for the guys bathroom and "women's" or "ladies" for the girls bathroom.

They say "keen" a lot. Like, "Are you keen for working tonight?" Or, "He's keen on coming over tomorrow." Sounds like Mayberry, if you ask me.

Little kids wander around by themselves a lot. You'll see kids as young as 5 or so riding the bus by themselves.

"Blanket Man" is a local favorite. He is a Maori man, in his 50's maybe. He sits on the street everyday on a blanket just laughing and grunting at people walking by. He is very very dark because the sun here is very strong. He sits out in direct sunlight everyday, so naturally he has little skin cancer spots all over body. Oh, and did I mention that he only wears a loin cloth?

New Zealand is said "Aotearoa" in Maori. The literal translation is "Long White Cloud."

The NZ football team is the All Whites. The NZ rugby team is the All Blacks. And the NZ basketball team is.....you guessed it.... the Tall Blacks. We could never get away with that in the States.

Add "as" to the end of a word and you'll sound very kiwi. eg. "Sweet as." "Cool as." "Keen as." It makes you ask the question, though...sweet as what? cool as what? keen as what? I guess I'll never know.

South Island Sunset

The South Island as seen from Nicole and Manuel's porch. We're really high up so we have a great veiw of it. You can't really see it from many other places.