Day by day

Since Mike pretty much took photos every single day he was here, I thought it might be fun to tell you about each day he was here, one day at a time.

Today I will tell you about his first day in Wellington:

His visit started off with a bang when his flight from Auckland to Wellington was an hour early. AN HOUR. And when the flight is less than an hour long that's really saying something. That something is, "I'm in Wellington airport, Claire. Where are you?"
My glorious flatmate Steven drove me in a hurry to pick Mike up when we realized we'd already missed the dramatic meet-him-at-the-gate-and-be-the-first-person-he-sees-in-this-foreign-land moment and had to settle for "I'll meet you at baggage claim."
It ws great to see him when we did finally meet up. (Please pretend he doesn't look like the Unibomber).

From there we dropped his stuff off at my place, where my mother and Steven's boyfriend Shaun met up with us and we all piled into the car and drove to the Chocolate Fish Cafe in Scorching Bay for brunch.
Now if anyone's been paying attention, this sould set off tons of alarms as it's where Aunt Jane (McGuinness) took me on something like my third day in Wellington back in February. It seemed really fitting to bring my mom and Mike there too.

me outside the Chocolate Fish Cafe

After a scrummy brunch, Steven took us on a tiki tour of all the bays around central Wellington.

The next stop was Mt Victoria so my guests could get a panoramic view of Wellington from the Mt Vic lookout. Unfortunately, it was a rainy day so visibility wasn't so hot. But there WAS a cool coffee van nearby!

Afterwards, Steven and Shaun dropped us off at the Museum of New Zealand: Te Papa Tongarewa. If you ever get to Wellington, you must make a point to go to this museum. It will actually take you a few days to see everything, but it's worth every second. It's the most innovative and ingenious museum I've ever been to, and you really get an incredible sense of what New Zealand is all about.

We were at Te Papa specifically for the Lord of the Rings exhibit which was closing the next day. The exhibit had actually started in Wellington, travelled around the world, and had now come back 'home' for its final showing. My mother, Mike, and I were absolutely stunned by it. So so so so so so cool. It also helped that Mike's friend Tami Lane from Peoria had a connection to it: she worked on the prosthetics for the movie (and later went on to win an Academy Award for her work on the Chronicles of Narnia).

After the LOTR exhibit, Mike was starting to feel jetlagged, so we dropped my mother at her hostel and went back to my place...in time to watch the All Blacks! We ordered pizza and drank Malibu and Coke as the All Blacks slaughtered Australia...and Mike dozed off in his jetlagged stupor.

A great introduction to New Zealand...hopefully. :)