Goodbye to Windy Welly

For my last weekend here, I was given the parting gift of a 'Weather Bomb.' Though I am not exactly sure whether this is an actual meteorological term, warnings about the 'Weather Bomb' were all over New Zealand's new's television stations and newspapers. Though a rather dramatic and fairly comical term, it was really a quite accurate description for what actually happened. I was unable to sleep Friday night as my little room was literally shaking, and through Saturday the pouring rain was moving in a horizontal direction. It started and stopped very quickly though (hence the 'bomb' term), and wasn't all that much worse than a regular storm in Wellington.

Now, I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but Wellington, New Zealand, is very appropriately nicknamed "Windy Welly." I am from hurricane country and have never experienced gale winds there like I have here. From where we live at the very top of Wellington, one of these gale storms sounds as if there are about a dozen tornados outside of our windows. A particularly large one about a month back actually ripped the window out of my old bedroom. Even without the gale storms this place is usually fairly windy. I used to worry about the wind problem and try to avoid wearing clothes to work that had the tendency to blow up in the wind. I quickly grew tired of choosing my wardrobe according to the weather. I now wear biker shorts underneath my work skirts and dresses, so yes, not only am I one of those women who wears tennis shoes with dresses to work, but every time the wind blows passerbys get to see my snazzy biker shorts, too. 

Enough about the weather, as I said in the above paragraph this weekend was my last in Wellington. Tuesday was my last day of work, Wednesday was my last pilates and dinner date with Alice, and on Thursday night my friends had a nice little goodbye dinner for me. Due to the 'Weather Bomb' (I just love saying that), this weekend was spent mostly indoors where we watched about four movies and several hours of Louis Theroux documentaries. On a related note: I may be in love with Louis Theroux. 

Also worthy of mention: on Saturday morning I made myself a delicious celebratory grilled cheese. What was I celebrating, you ask? I GOT INTO THE SMITHSONIAN'S HISTORY OF DECORATIVE ARTS MASTERS PROGRAM! They even gave me a scholarship! Woohoo! Still waiting to hear from one more school...

Tomorrow I set off for a two month adventure with my little backpack, a fair amount of nerves, and a lot of excitement. I start in Nelson where I will WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms, an organization that trades farm work for accommodation and food) for about a week. When that week is over, I have ten days to travel through Golden Bay, down the West Coast, through Queensland, and the Catlins. I will spend the next week on a farm close to Dunedin, travel more, then a farm on Timaru, then travel more, Christchurch with Alice and her family for Easter, then a farm in Kaikoura, then travel more, then I fly to Australia for two weeks, and THEN I fly home! I am leaving my laptop with the rest of my stuff in Wellington, and probably won't have a lot of internet access. I will still try and update this thing as often as I can.

My boss and coworkers minus a few at my goodbye morning tea! Oh, they are all such wonderful people, I will miss them lots!

The view from the top of my running route. GOODBYE WELLINGTON!