I woke up quite late and was absolutely convinced that we only had half an hour before the farmer's market closed. I was in the car within ten minutes, bleary-eyed and morning-breathed, waiting impatiently for Claire to get going going going! Because she contains infinitely more patience than I do, it took her until we were on the motorway to say, "You do know the market closes at one, right?" and I said, "Er, right. Yes. Yes," and stopped speeding.
In either case, because we had more than ten minutes to trawl the market, we both had time to stop by our favorite stalls. It turns out that we are bonafide regulars now. Roti Man's Brother asked me why I didn't show last week, and Salami Man made a joke to Claire about how she probably didn't need the little salami information half-sheet (this week we got the hot chili salami. Oh my goodness, so delicious.). I think Wolf Sausage Man recognizes us, but he seems perpetually harried, so we don't really talk much.
Anyhow, after we made our rounds, Claire's robot gears broke down a bit, and we ended up heading to Te Papa to make sure she wasn't going to fall apart. After some routine maintenance, we decided to go up to the balcony we had watched fireworks from on Guy Fawkes Day. It turns out that the balcony is just a tiny part of this awesome and expansive exhibit called Bush City. We walked onto the balcony, only to turn left and realize that there was an entire jungle ecosystem in the middle of Wellington Central. It was such an amazing feeling to walk through this dense forest and then walk through the darkness of a cave and touch a huge rock wall and know that the rest of the city was a shout away.
Then, after we were entranced by the giant squid exhibit (again), we went back to the quay and to the horrifically named Kaffee Eis. Unlike the name (why not just call it "Cafe Ice"?), the gelato is fantastic. I feel like I have had more ice cream in the past three months than I have in the past three years, and the quality of everything here has been infinitely better than anything back in the States. Indecisive as ever, I tried several samples (tiramisu - delicious but too sweet for me, sour cherry - extremely tasty but not quite what I wanted) before settling on the lemon yogurt (perfectly tart and cold and melty). Claire went with the old standby of strawberry. Then, we sat out by the harbour and ate our ice cream in the sun.
The day was already wholesome enough, but then as we walked back to where Zigfrond was parked, we noticed some Stormtroopers making their way down Cuba Street. It turns out that we were walking past the very end of Wellington's very own Santa Parade.
Despite the name, the parade was much more focused on general parade revelry than on Christmas. There were the oddly ubiquitous bagpipers and ethnic dancers as well as a giant Jigglypuff and Pikachu. Girls in brightly coloured dresses danced down the street and the local high school's gymnastics team did flips and handstands down the way. Just to make sure that everyone was on the same page, though, the occasional float would drift by, blaring "Feliz Navidad."
The parade did end on a fantastically over the top Christmas display, with Santa resplendent in his red coat and white beard, his sack of toys carried in his (plastic-) reindeer-driven sleigh. He waved to the children and ho-ho-ho-ed.
This was made wonderfully absurd because we could see palm trees across the street and everyone was wearing shorts and tshirts.
It was so perfect.
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