I’ve been in Wellington for a total of almost two weeks now and it is still an everyday occurrence that I think to myself, how fortunate I am to be given this opportunity. I’m not sure when it’s going to sink in that I am here living in the capitol of New Zealand. I’m clearly still in the honeymoon stage of my experience. This city and my university have gone heaps and bounds past all my ideas and expectations of what I thought Welly and New Zealand would be like. The atmosphere of the city has been the most pleasant surprises I’ve had so far. I never considered myself to be a city person and you can ask my best friend Julia or my Mom to attest to that, but for some reason this city already feels home-like. I find when I’m just walking down the street comforted by the people and the buildings. There is so much hustle and bustle, it is exhilarating. I big difference though I’ve felt between this city and say like New York city is the people don’t seem to be moving at such a space you can’t have a causal conversation, just walking down the street. It feels more friendly and free. The amount of culture and opportunities to see beautiful artwork was something I was quite happy to see flowing so much around Wellington as well. It has definitely earned the name of the Creative capitol, and it makes complete sense then to insert the creative campus of Massey Uni into this eclectic city. Thursday I was touring around the city a bit with my friend Megan and we came across this Suite Gallery. It looked sweet and it was free to go into so we went to check it out. The art work was beautiful and after looking around we continued on our day, to only then come across another gallery and venture inside. This one was even better because we began talking to this extremely kind woman that worked in the gallery. She mentioned that there was an exhibition for a New Zealand female photographer that was currently on display at the City gallery and the artist was flying in on Sunday to give a talk.. Well I can tell you where I was going on my free Friday. I was going to check out this exhibition.
And I did! Friday was an excepted spectacular day in Welly. Megan and I both didn’t have any classes Friday, so the weekend was starting early. We went exploring to find the City Gallery. It was actually a rather simple hunt. It was directly next to the library and some government buildings. The gallery was so much more than I was expecting. It was absolutely stunning. The artist in display was Yvonne Todd and at first I was hesitant because she does a majority of commercial photography, meaning using studio lights and capturing models faces and expressions, but there was more behind her photographs than a pretty face or a forced smile. Her collections allowed me to get to know Todd on a more personal level and the further into the gallery I went, the more I felt as I was actually meeting her. Most of her collections seemed to be based off of her interests. She was fascinated with wigs, casts, crutches, and wheelchairs and so she photographed people with wigs on, or children in crutches. It was quite interesting and the photographs even came off slightly awkward. I took a few photographs myself in the exhibit too so that anyone can take a look. One of my favorite parts of the gallery was probably the dress room and the sources room. The dress room was where you could see a bunch of the actual gowns Todd used in her photographs. It added a whole level to the experience to see the dresses and the photographs side by side. The sources room was a room full of places Todd pulled from and used to base her collections off of. They even had Todd’s workbooks so that you could see her thoughts developing.
After traveling through the Gallery we ventured back outside to find a rousing game of Cricket being played, a band getting there groove on, and a ton of people eating Sushi. The Cricket World cup is currently being held, and it is a very popular sport in New Zealand so they definitely celebrate it. So just outside the gallery they have set up a green grass area, cricket field, stage, and tons of bean bag chairs. Megan and I lounged in the bean bag chairs for a bit and listened to some music and then the most unexpected and a moment of this Kiwi Adventure I’ll never forget. The Cuba Street Cricket Team came to put on a show, so we thought ok they’re going to play some cricket, we’ll watch, it should be fun. Nope the Cuba Street Cricket Team is led by “Juan in a Million”- a very energetic, salsa-loving, hilarious, yet slightly odd man. They don’t play regular Cricket either; their Cricket involves crazy hats, stick horses and some stellar puns and announcers. Me being me was not going to miss out on this opportunity to partake in this Cricket match, so Megan and I were the starting team and slowly but surely other people began to join in on the fun. Megan even became the international Cricket announcer for the game! I actually wasn’t half bad at Cricket and I hit a bunch of 6 runs (out of the park hits). It was one of those moments that made me so glad I was taking chances and really trying to emerge myself in the culture.
After traveling through the Gallery we ventured back outside to find a rousing game of Cricket being played, a band getting there groove on, and a ton of people eating Sushi. The Cricket World cup is currently being held, and it is a very popular sport in New Zealand so they definitely celebrate it. So just outside the gallery they have set up a green grass area, cricket field, stage, and tons of bean bag chairs. Megan and I lounged in the bean bag chairs for a bit and listened to some music and then the most unexpected and a moment of this Kiwi Adventure I’ll never forget. The Cuba Street Cricket Team came to put on a show, so we thought ok they’re going to play some cricket, we’ll watch, it should be fun. Nope the Cuba Street Cricket Team is led by “Juan in a Million”- a very energetic, salsa-loving, hilarious, yet slightly odd man. They don’t play regular Cricket either; their Cricket involves crazy hats, stick horses and some stellar puns and announcers. Me being me was not going to miss out on this opportunity to partake in this Cricket match, so Megan and I were the starting team and slowly but surely other people began to join in on the fun. Megan even became the international Cricket announcer for the game! I actually wasn’t half bad at Cricket and I hit a bunch of 6 runs (out of the park hits). It was one of those moments that made me so glad I was taking chances and really trying to emerge myself in the culture.
On Saturday we were going on an adventure with ISOC, which is the International Society at Massey. We were all set to take a trip to Putangirua Pinnacles Reserve. It was here that some of the Lord of the Ring movies was filmed and the views were absolutely stunning. I kept saying to myself this place doesn’t look real and it truly didn’t. We couldn’t have wished for better weather for this tramping experience. It was so gorgeous outside and the sun just would not quit. After some time tramping around we headed to Martinborough, a cute town to stop and eat lunch at. I grabbed a sandwich from a place called The Bach, which in New Zealand terms means vacation home. After being in Wellington for so long it was such a different experience to come to this quite, little town. I really enjoyed the change of pace and scenery. Our last stop of the day was a wine tasting and tour at the Murdoch James Estate. This vineyard was exactly what I was expecting it to look like. It was huge and there were delicious grapes everywhere (yes I tried some), and the views were spectacular and it felt so elegant. I’d never been to a vineyard or really tasted wine much wine before, so I was looking forward to learning the proper way to taste wine. The experience of drinking wine has a lot to do with the fragrance of the drink and that can really enhance the experience. We had slips of four different kinds of wines. Starting off with a very sweet and my favorite Pinot, then we tried a Pinot Rose (this one had a strong strawberry flavor.) The next two were much dryer wines that I didn’t particularly care for, but I still tried and finished them. The first of the red wine was my least favorite and I can’t even remember the name of it. The last wine that we tried was a Syrah. It had a strong pepper taste to it and it was packed with flavors. The Murdoch James Estate is a highly awarded vineyard and they wore their award-winning wines with pride. After the tasting we took a tour of their farms as well, and saw that much more goes into a vineyard then just grape growing. They were raising several breads of cows, sheep, and lambs that they raised. It was a great behind the scenes look at the vineyard. This was a well spent Saturday in New Zealand and one I won’t soon forget.