Day 7: A night inside.

Day 7: 01-05-2005 A night inside.

This damn sunburn is starting to peel. I look like an onion. I leave a trail of dead skin wherever i walk. Breakfast sucks. Fortunately, these are the worst parts of my day and everything gets better.

Nothing eventful happens in class, except the feeling of impending doom that hangs in the air of Economics class. This teacher hasn’t taught study abroad before, and she’s not about to go easy on us. Damn. Geography continues to be fascinating. Problem is, whenever he turns off the light to show a slide, I pass out. Gotta look into that.

INTERNET: You don’t know how good you have it back in the states. The internet at this university is awful. The first few days, it was so slow I was contemplating just paying for a dialup account so I had something that worked. Later, it sped up, but I found out they charge us $.15 a megabyte! I’ll be burned through that in a matter of minutes if I don’t keep an eye on myself. I wonder if they’re loading up data on a ship and driving it back to the states. It also cuts out every hour or so for no reason at all. I am going through withdrawal.

Needless to say, Internet Cafés here are pretty popular and they’re found on nearly every block. I found a good cheap one which gives me an opportunity to upload pictures (with unlimited data transfer), and take care of other bandwidth intensive tasks. Jeff, Elisha, and I run down to take care of some pictures and e-mail after class.

After the café, Jeff, Elisha, Dan, and I decide to grab a bite to eat at a nearby Kebob place, aptly named “Abra-Kebob-bra”. I love the name, as it makes use of three great words: “Kebob”, “Abracadabra”, and “Bra”. Fortunately, the food reflects the name. Homemade bread, fresh lamb, and yummy hummus. Delicious. I opt for their fettucine this time, and I’m blown away. We run into a group of girls from class and eat dinner with them. Good times.

DOWNTOWN: Downtown Wellington is a great city. The city feels proportional to a small city, such as Savannah or Macon. It’s quite hilly in parts. Everything is modern, with LED crosswalk signs and well marked roads and signposts. It seems to be pedestrian oriented in spots, with some roads closed to pedestrians only. The city is obviously trying to improve its image as well, sporting a snappy slogan “Absolutey, Positively, Wellington”, but the style of the logo looks like the “PARENTAL ADVISORY” label on explicit CDs. My first reaction is that we accidentally wandered into Amsterdam, with foul language and hookers on every corner, but I think they just have an American marketing guy playing a joke on them.

The city is situated on the shoreline, with parts of it extending onto a little peninsula that protects a nice-sized bay from the ocean. The rest of the city winds up into the hills, which at points has the feel of San Francisco. The combination of waterfront and hills makes for a great day of walking around. The house we’re staying at, Weir House, is located at the University of Victoria, Kelburn Campus. Unfortunately for us, it is located on the side of a huge hill, which makes it really easy to go downtown, but really hard to come back. Apparently, the locals thought the same, so they built a cable car right by our dorm which goes up and down the hill.

CABLE CAR: This cable car is exactly what I have been planning to install on the Bobby Dodd hill for years (any Georgia Tech student who was a freshmen on east campus will know what I’m talking about). It’s a neat little system which consists of a single track, split in the middle, and two cars that act as counterweights for each other as they go up and down the track. In the middle of the track, there’s a split so the cars can pass each other. Ingenious. The whole setup is about 50-60 years old it seems, but it’s been updated. Rides cost $0.75 NZ a pop at the student rate, and it sure beats trudging up the 186 stairs that are on the walkway.

CROSSING THE STREET: The cross walk signals here are interesting. Every intersection has a button you can push to activate the signal. Once you push it, it starts beeping as feedback to let you know it’s trying to get you across the road. Very clever. Once the signal changes, there’s an artificial whistle which blows to tell you it’s safe to cross. The signal also makes this little go noise which sounds like a ray gun, and starts beeping really fast to let you know the signal is still green. I suspect the noises are there to simulate a policeman blowing his whistle, and also to help blind people find their way across the intersections. It scared the shit out of me the first few times, but I’ve gotten used to it and it still amuses me.

BUSES: Another interesting thing I’ve noticed is that the city is wired for electric buses, but there are none in sight. It appears the city has gone BACK to diesels and gotten rid of the electrics. I need to find out why this is. On the same token, the bus drivers here are absolutely insane. Not only are there a lot more buses than in Atlanta, but they drive top speed down tiny roads. Jeff dodged a few the other day due to looking the wrong way crossing the road.

PIZZA: Anyway, that night, we decide to stay in and just hang out. I enjoy the opportunity to get to know some other people on the trip better, and a few beers help that out. The pictures tell most of the story, but I’ll just say that we like Scrumpy. A lot. At some point, we order some Dominos pizza. One of the guys haggles with them to get them to deliver to us, as apparently we are pretty far away. Like they had a tip coming anyway! Hah!

Another aside:

PORTIONS: It’s true, we Americans are fatasses. We ordered large pizzas from Dominos, and here they are only 12-14” pies, or the size of the average medium. At McDonalds and Burger King, the extra-large drinks are 16oz, or the same size as a small drink in America. At the gas stations, there is nothing that is even remotely close to a Big Gulp 64-Oz Corn-syrup-loaded Insulin Bomb.

Anyway, back to pizza. The idea of tomato sauce down here is different. I thought the pizza would taste the same as the states, but it is actually quite different. Besides the miniscule portion size, the toppings are significantly different, and the tomato sauce is much sweeter. The cheese tastes slightly different, but I can’t figure out how. Maybe it’s made from sheep milk or something. The crust is also different, but in a better way. I think the overall pizza is a higher quality than a typical dominos pizza. I noticed a flyer from a place called “Hells Kitchen”, which sounds like a tasty meal. The lack of a religious right down here is extremely relieving.

Cheers and Beers,
--P