The Weekend Cont

Where did I leave off? Oh yea, after BK the night ended and we all crashed. On Saturday one of the girls got the bright idea to go to the zoo. When I think of the zoo, I think of the Brookfield Zoo outside of Chicago. Huge, expensive, stupid gift shops everywhere. The Wellington Zoo was not like that at all, it was really small, they had one café/gift shop and it was pretty cheap too. Since we road the bus there we got 1/2 off our admission. I'm loving public transit more every day. Because this zoo is so small, it really didn’t have much there. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty to see but there was a lot less than the Brookfield Zoo. It was fun to explore more of the town with the gang, and we learned a few things too.

While we were on the bus going back to town, we started brainstorming where we might want to go to get food. Then someone came up with the idea of fish ‘n chips, and we all remembered our coordinator pointing out a little store that has “the best” fist ‘n chips in Wellington. So we took a hike, got our food, and went back to our place to eat. The fries were really nothing special, I’ve had way better, but the fish…Oh…just thinking about it wants me to go get more. It was this HUGE fillet (which they pronounce FILL-ITS) and I know this might sound weird, but it actually had more fish than breading. If you’ve ever had fish ‘n chips in the States you’ve probably noticed how crunching the breading is, and sometimes its too salty, and the fish is just manza-manza. This was not like that at all! The breading to fish ratio was perfect, and the breading is the perfect combo of soft and crunchy with the right amount of salt. I didn’t care about how greasy it was, or the fact that my lips were chapping as I ate it. That was one of my best dinners yet. I only wish I had some malt vinegar to top it off, but I guess that’s not Kiwi enough for this meal.

As we were eating, one of the Amanda was telling us all about this party her co-worker was having that night. It was a mid-winter, summer party, but I couldn't dress for that theme since I didn’t bring any summer clothes. The party wasn’t in Wellington, we had to take a train out to this suburb like town called Lower Hutt. Since Amanda works in Upper Hutt, which I assume is the next town over, I figured Lower Hutt is probably a nice town. Well……its not that nice. Not to say it was the ghetto, but it sure was creepy. We got to the stop probably around 10:30 and we looked around…there’s practically nothing there. There was a platform, some stairs to get to the road and some trees on both sides of the tracks. At this point we’re all looking at Amanda thinking, "really?" So we walk up the stairs to the road and there seems to be some houses and a few streets, but no people or cars. We eventually found the house where the party was and life became a little normal again. Everyone there was pretty cool, but they were probably being like that because we were all Americans. I think they were wondering what the hell we were doing on their side of the world. While at the party we all got the usual questions, where in the states are you from? Where’s that? Do you go to Uni? why did you came here during winter? All in all we ended up having a good time and met some Kiwi’s. A couple of Amanda’s work friends invited us to go to Lake Taupo with them, which would be AWESOME! Especially since they have cars and we wouldn’t need to rent one or take a bus.

Sunday has been pretty chill. A couple of us went to the farmers market this morning and bought some veggies and fruit……and that’s been about it. We still need to plan our trip to Rotoura next weekend, which I am going to make everyone due TONIGHT.

Pictures are up on my facebook, let me know what you think.