My birthday involved a crazy amount of travel time and a lot of meandering and it was exactly what I didn’t know I wanted. Terence, Apoorva and I made the trek to Wellington for Saturday + Sunday and left Friday night after our Waitangi Day at Bastion Point (which included an awesome powhiri and a lot of food trucks, but I digress). I could go on forever on all the wonderful little bits of my weekend but for the sake of anyone reading, I’m making it a listicle instead. You’re welcome, Mom*.
*we all know it’s most likely just you reading this.
the iconic wellington pic - I couldn’t resist
1. I SURVIVED TWO 10+ HOUR BUS RIDES! I feel like I deserve a tee shirt with that across the front and a really sweaty-looking me on the back inside a logo. I’m so impressed with me. My usually motion-sick, bus-hating self sucked it up and acted like a reckless youth and did an amount of traveling that would seem absurd if were anywhere but New Zealand. And it was totally worth it.
2. Running Adventures On Saturday morning, Terence and I run-scamper-hiked for two hours up into the mountains surrounding the city and saw some amazing views. Exhibit A:
If I were in the states I would’ve been gunning for 21 miles, but since I’m in New Zealand and Terence and I had just stumbled off of an insanely long bus ride, we just ran for fun without tracking miles. Besides, we definitely did at least 21km, so that’s New Zealand-y and festive.
found my coastal dream home
3. Te Papa/Being Broke College Students We lucked out on endless free activities – my favorite being Te Papa, the national museum, which we literally spent the entire day in. This museum had EVERYTHING: a giant squid, shark skeletons, whale skeletons, bigger whale skeletons, T REXES (YES, SEVERAL), a bushwalk with robot glowworms, contemporary Pacific art and history…literally it was endless. It was the most amazing museum ever.
4. ALL OF THE FOOD + the outdoor market ...which included Thai, indian, and Malaysian, as the highlights. We stumbled into an outdoor festival/market the ngiht of my bday where I had some delicious Malaysian shrimp thing and listened to live music and watched a flash mob haka of Ka Mate – it was almost too perfect.
5. The evening I did not expect We somehow ended up in the middle of the crowd of every drunk sevens fan in town for the tournament and finished off our night at a weird outdoor clubbing scene dancing on a raised centerstage. We were the only vaguely sober people there (woo 21! Go hard!) as well as the only people not in racist costumes, but it was a great time.
6. Sunday Brunch (o the homesickness) I know this should be lumped in with delicious food but brunch deserves its own category. We spent Sunday checking out the cable car and wandering around the massive botanical garden. We then ate rhubarb crumble for brunch in the rose garden. It was all very English.
hydrangeas! felt like home
I had such a great birthday. Terence, Apoorva and I were basically little children on the loose, running around a strange city and eating our way through it like Pacmen. It was glorious.