Absolutely Positively Wellington

We celebrated Matt’s 40th birthday (Feb 13) in the southernmost capital in the world: Wellington, New Zealand. Wellington is a stunning harbor city surrounded by rolling hills and boasts a sufficiently vague tourism slogan… “Absolutely Positively Wellington”.

If Melbourne is like Minneapolis with its straight well-planned gridded streets, than Wellington is a sister to St Paul, with windy streets and twisting alleys that start and stop with no rhyme or reason. (Sorry, Mr. Ventura, I don’t know how many drunken Irishmen were on the city works payroll in the mid-1860s). St. Paul city “planning” aside, Wellington reminded us of Seattle – it has a similar climate and scenery, a diverse popluation, and a cool, young, urban vibe.

The birthday boy (did I mention he’s now FORTY??) found lots to do. First stop - satisfy dorky inner selves by visiting various Lord of the Rings film locations. This includes screeching to a halt in order to read all LOTR sign posts, exploring "Rivendell", and engaging in embarrassing behavior such as dodging traffic to nonchalantly inspect a small, empty gravel pit that once served as Helms Deep. Positively nerd-tastic!!!

After the dry, scorching heat of Melbourne we loved the mild sunny weather - perfect for exploring the surrounding area. We spent one day in Martinborough wine country (not to be confused with Marlborough which is on the South Island) and a day on the Kapiti Coast hiking along the Tasman Sea.

As the capital, Wellington has some of the best museums in the country. We visited the Wellington City Museum and Te Papa National Museum. The latter is their version of DC’s Smithsonian and has a fantastic permanent collection of New Zealand’s cultural and natural history, including exhibits on earth, plants, earthquakes, oceans, art, birds, marine life, the railway, immigrants, an extensive Maori and Tongan exhibit, and, currently, a temporary exhibit on Monet and the Impressionists. Whew! The pièce de résistance is the world’s only complete colossal squid. This huge mollusc was found and frozen in Antarctica and brought to Te Papa scientists in 2003 to be defrosted and examined (the catching, defrosting, examining of the world's largest invertebrate was captured on film by The Discovery Channel if you want to see/learn more.). How big is colossal, you ask? To give you an idea, its eyes are the size of soccer balls.

Wellington got high marks when it came to feeding and quenching our gastro - oenophile tendencies. With the kiwi dollar at near record lows (Hurray, global financial crisis!), we ate like kings. Our first night we lucked out and got a table at the eternally popular Matterhorn Restaurant (opened in the early 1960’s but won NZ’s top restaurant again in 2008). At the Matterhorn (of all names) we feasted on tuna sashimi, crispy veal sweetbreads, Wairarapa grouper, and Hawkes Bay lamb. We also went to the White House (not to be confused with Obama’s new digs) for carpaccio of octopus (replete with Japanese pickles, kelp sorbet and wasabi jelly), salt and pepper calamari, steak, and salmon. All washed down with crisp Sauvignon Blancs and perfumed Pinot Noirs.

Wellington gets a big thumbs up. Oh. And Matt is 40.

Absolutely positively 40.