Wellington, New Zealand -- first impressions

It’s wet and windy here. Wellington in January is like Melbourne in August. Even locals are complaining now. Still, I would take a wet, windy summer over 40° heat, any day. Wellington is compact and the population is small, but it still feels like a vibrant, active city. A vibrant, active city that I can mostly cover on foot. I think I could get used to this.

This is my first visit to New Zealand, after 26 years living in the big country next door. I never got round to crossing the Tasman because ‘New Zealand is just there and it’s not about to go away’ (just like Uluru and other Australian landmarks that I haven’t seen). It’s about time I made the effort.

I visited the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa today, and choked up a bit at the exhibit on the Treaty of Waitangi. The context and the history are different, but I feel angry and ashamed that a treaty like this is still impossible in Australia.

My LCA2010 presentation is nearly ready – I just need another dry run or two. I have even started building a schedule of other presentations to catch, which will probably be revised frequently over the course of the week. My DrupalSouth presentation is at a more embryonic stage.

I have a photo album on Picasa – I’m using Picasa largely to manage photos on this laptop, as I can’t update iPhoto on this machine. (I know, I should be using Linux, but I’m not.) Conference photos might reappear later on Flickr or elsewhere.