The Civic Square was rather a revelation to me, I had not seen it before, everything is so much nicer, and the old library (haunt of my childhood) is now an art gallery. My father's old office building, Civic Chambers, is still there. When I was little, I used to get put on the bus in Oriental Bay by my mother, then my father would collect me at the stop by his office and walk me across the road to the library - I'm talking about when I was five or six, but it was a different world then, no problem about putting a child on the bus alone.And here are some carvings from the marae in Te Papa, the national museum:
I loved the high pastel colours of these, but my mother and sister were a bit dubious about the colouring. Te Papa is amazing, it's huge, so we didn't see nearly everything, but we did see some pieces we remembered from the old museum, and some new paintings, and we had coffee and cake in the cafe, which is a stunning setting, looking across the whole museum to a giant copy of the Treaty of Waitangi.This is Wellington from the terrace of the museum, a typical view of water, buildings and hills:
The whole waterfront area has been renewed, with walkways, marinas, restaurants and so on, and it seems well-used by Wellingtonians, there were a lot of people walking, cycling, skating etc.
The whole waterfront area has been renewed, with walkways, marinas, restaurants and so on, and it seems well-used by Wellingtonians, there were a lot of people walking, cycling, skating etc.I did wish I could have stayed longer, but sadly duty calls...... in fact, today I am sitting in the office in Nicosia, having flown back yesterday. I had a huge stroke of luck when I was checking in yesterday in Paris, the guy who was directing people where to go in the queues remembered me from last time, and told the woman behind the desk to look after me - this meant that I didn't have to go through the whole charade of where do I actually live, why am I going to Cyprus, do I have a visa etc etc. And now I've just checked my email, and I have another one from the new US lawyer, who sounds quite appalled by the whole saga of my work permit and says she has asked the Cypriot lawyer to send my whole file for review. I wouldn't be too sad if the Cypriot lawyer got into trouble over this, she's not my favourite person.
At least everyone seems pleased to see me, from flight attendants to taxi driver to receptionist and waiters at the hotel. And of course, Hotel Kitty was waiting for me - it was funny, she trotted over to my old doorway, but I am upstairs now, and she won't take the lift, but she realised where I was going and bounded up the stairs to wait for me outside the lift. My new abode is smaller than the palatial two-bedroom apartment I had before, but has a balcony, a new airconditioner and more cupboards than the old one, so it's not too bad. The balcony has a view over the pool area, so I will be able to watch wedding parties etc on Saturday nights.
The building I work in is on the far right of your photograph (just to the right of the yellow crane) :-)
Great photos!