Helloooo New Zealand!

Caitlin and I finally made it into Wellington at 7:30am on Thursday. Luckily the people at the hostel were nice and didn't make us pay for the night we missed and also let us check in right away. We dumped our stuff and met Tiffany! It was an excellent reunion- I haven't seen her since Christmas, which is the longest separation we've had in 6 years. So there was a lot of catching up to do!

Our hostel is right down town and only a few blocks away from the Te Papa museum. After breakfast we spent pretty much the whole day wandering around, and there were still entire floors we didn't see! I was particularly excited by the giant moas they had on display- one of my favorite extinct animals. They also had an immense set of Irish Elk antlers- another of my favorites. We found the grocery store, did some trip planning, and called it a night- after a long flight out from the states and nearly 48 hours without sleep, we were all ready for bed.

On Friday morning we were rudely awakened by a fire alarm. Our room was on the 6th floor, so we trucked downstairs and outside in our pajamas, waited for the firemen to do their thing, then trucked back up the stairs and went back to sleep. We had another low key day of wandering around the city and the waterfront, went back to the museum for a while (it really is that good!) and made a delicious dinner. Caitlin came down with a cold- probably from sitting in the airport for ages, so she went to bed while Tiffany and I explored the Wellington night life a bit. We decided it is definitely a good city.

Today (Saturday) we took the cable car up a big hill to the botanical gardens and spent the afternoon running around with all the plants. We found an excellent playground and kicked the kids off a zip line so we could have a go (actually, we waited in line patiently like our parents taught us). We are going to a bar later to watch the All Blacks rugby match, which is the national passion. Tomorrow we pick up our rental car and drive north to Rotorua. I am slightly terrified to be driving on the opposite side of the road, but we have 10 hours tomorrow to get used to it!