Last Monday after work Charlie and I met up with Caitlin and her husband Rob who have been visiting New Zealand from New Mexico, and were in Wellington for one night. After excited/awkward meeting-people-from-the-internet introductions we wandered down Lambton Quay to the cable car - which is so expensive now! I'm sure it was a dollar each way the last time I used it. The weather wasn't great and there's a lot of scaffolding at the top of the cable car right now, so the view of the city wasn't spectacular. We walked back to the city via the Botanic Gardens (which they'd totally heard about h/t FoTC/The Simpsons) and Parliament, then around the waterfront to get beer and pizza at Lovelocks. Which I know isn't the classiest choice but the main reason is that it's two-days-before-payday and I knew gluten-free wasn't a problem there.
I've known a lot of people 'online' over the years and have met and befriended quite a few of the New Zealand ones, and one who came to live in NZ from the UK. But this was the first time I'd met someone who I'd got to know online and was just visiting. It was so much fun just chatting about their trip, our lives, comparing countries. You can read about their whole holiday over on Caitlin's blog - always interesting to see a visitor's perspective on the country, and they did a lot of hiking and exploring rather than the tourist hotspots which is awesome.
Five days of work to go until my Christmas break. I absolutely cannot wait, but this week will probably be pretty intense. Also, up until Christmas I am doing a sort-of Vlogmas on my YouTube channel - I'm not sure they're terribly interesting but it's great speaking practice and putting them together every few days is pretty fun. Watch them below, or watch the whole playlist here.
