It's Shocking!

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That is what I suspect I would have typed had I been in Christchurch during the earthquake the other day. Thankfully, I wasn't. As most of you know, I was in National Park when the quake hit and I didn't feel a thing.
Now I know that I should really be thankful that I wasn't there and that I wasn't really affected by the quake in anyway, but I really would have liked to be there. When I came to New Zealand it was definitely with the partial hope that I would be able to experience (first hand, in the flesh, up close and personally) some kind of natural phenomenon. Be it an earthquake, volcanic eruption, tsunami... basically any kind of natural distaster-esque thing that Saskatchewan doesn't experience. Long story short, if all I experience here is a freak snow storm, I'm going to be very disappointed.
One thing I know I'm not disappointed about is Wellington. I had a great day yesterday, and I can only anticipate today being better. Yesterday, I wandered about the wharf area, in true aimless wonder. It wasn't quite so sunny but it was still deliciously warm. Eventually I decided that I should do something with my day and made the 10ish minute trek back uphill to my hostel "Worldwide Backpackers" on The Terrace (you are now supplied for google mapping). Once home, I gathered all my pamphlets, tourism guides, and random papers and began the tough decision of what to do. This decision is particularly tough because of 3 things. 1) There are tons of cool things to do in Wellington. 2) They are basically all free. 3) They are all within walking distance. Yes folks, there are roughly 10 free art galleries, and 6 free museums that I know about off hand. None of them is more than a 20 minute walk away. There are also parks, botanical gardens, free tours, and of course just a ton of random shops to pop into. It makes deciding what to do each day both exciting and difficult. Anyway! I decided that I would visit the Wellington City and Sea Museum and then go from there.
The museum was free naturally. It consisted of 3 levels; one dedicated to the history of the city, one about the harbour and trade history, and one about the social and Maori history. It was exceptionally well put together and extremely informative. The curator obviously has a wicked sense of humour too as many of the exhibits write-ups had... hmmmm... well witty and sarcastic elements to them. There were a couple funny cracks against Australia (commonly refered to as Aussie) that made me giggle. I could really feel the rivalry between the countries. It is a lot like the Canadian/American relationship. The best part of the whole museum was a small art section. It was for kids, but art is art and while I would have been able to handle more sophisticated write ups beside each work I did enjoy the kiddy version. This section also had these great little books that you could purchase for $2 that take you through the gallery and make you interact with each work. This is a freaking brilliant idea for kids. There were tasks like write a narrative about the figure in this painting, describe what kind of feeling this painting evokes, design your own Greek style vase, and so on. I was really impressed and had I brought along some money I would have bought one and done it myself. (I actually still may. It was seriously that cool). So ya, I viewed that whole museum and then wandered around outside again for a bit. I'm finding more and more that I can't stay inside for too long. I need sun and wind and nature or I get restless.
During my wanderings, I happened upon an art gallery which I had heard about but had no idea where it was. Turns out it's in a super central location and I've possibly wandered by the side of it a couple times without realizing what was inside. Anyway, that cool little section in the Wellington Museum had put me in the art mood so I left the sun and basked in art instead. See http://citygallery.org.nz/current-exhibitions/ for exhibit images and information.
In true Wellington form, this gallery was predominantly free. There was one exhibit which you had to pay $6 for, but I didn't have cash so free I went. The ground floor was an exhibit of local (generally student) artists and was called Un-Sited. The main concept centered on unidentifiable space. Each work portrayed a specific space but in some way intentionally removed itself from that space. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but it's the best I can do. My favourite peice was a long stretch of white paper, roughly 25 feet in length and about 5 feet high. It had a touch of grey shading that reached about 3 feet up the paper in the furthest left and faded down to basically nothing as it ran along the bottom length of the paper. I can't remember what it was titled and there was no write-up next to the work. I always read the show write up after I have looked at all the peices so that my interpretations are purely my own on first viewing. So after I had seen all the peices I read the Un-Sited write up and was informed that that peice was the recreation of one of the walls in the artist studio. It was kind of cool to think about the layers of space and creation that that work played with. Essentially it was a representation of a creative space (the studio) that had been placed in a new creative space (the gallery) and given an entirely different value. I'm not making myself very clear. Haha. Becky, help me out here...
The next exhibit was called "The Vault" by Neil Pardington. It consisted of large scale, high definition photographs of behind the scenes areas of NZ museums and art galleries. There were images of stock rooms filled with mannequin parts, images of preserved critters in jars, images of shelves of film reels, etc. They were quite beautiful and definitely intriguing. In some cases, I almost felt like I was looking into one of those I-Spy books from when you were little. Remember those? You'd have to find 2 buttons, 3 red truck, and 4 dices before you could move onto the next page. The images in those books were busy and maybe a little overwhelming, but when you broke them down it was really just a odd collection of stuff in one space. Well this exhibit's images and entire collection felt a bit like that. The one thing I wasn't too impressed with was that the images were staged. The artist had gone in and shifted things in those museum storage spaces to create the image and feeling he wanted. I felt like this manipulation of space and objects was unnecessary and cheapened the whole thing a bit, but it was still really quite potent. My favourite image from that exhibit was of about 6 stainless steel shelves with one stuffed seagull lying belly up on each. It was comical. I felt like I was looking into a bird morticians freezer compartments. Again, you probably have to be there to understand what I mean, just take my word for it. I literally guffawed when I saw it.
The next exhibit ("Mana Takatapui" by Taera Tane) didn't do anything for me so I shan't discuss it. The one following was interesting but very difficult to explain so I'll leave it alone as well. It was called "Two Walking" by Mari Mahr. And the last was potentially my favourite. It was titled "The Imaginary Life and Times Of" by Graham Percy. It was basically all ink or pencil drawings of kiwi birds (instead of kiwi people) in random cities and historical moments. Some of them were really funny, and all of them displayed a real pride for New Zealand. This one was simply the most fun to view and left me in a great mood.
Right. After that I wandered around some more, went back to the hostel for late lunch, went grocery shopping, and then met up with the organizer of the volleyball league I just joined and a bunch of the players. I'll be playing Sundays and possibly Wednesdays for as long as I'm in Wellington. I'm pretty super stoked about it. I've been itching to play volleyball since I arrived here and have only been able to once. This league seems awesome too cause it's free (sensing a serious theme here) and the group is really tight knit, almost like a family. They welcomed me with open arms and are already helping me out with things outside of volleyball. I'm really excited to be a part of a team, a sport, and a friend group.
Okey dokey. That's about enough for now. Haha. Oh, I'm thinking I'll join a Zumba class at a local church too. Horray for dancing/working out.
Kisses!
Julia