Well, it’s been quite a week. This time last week, Aimee and her parents and I were eating dinner in the backyard after a day spent visiting me at work, taking a tour, and going out to lunch. Late that night, Aimee’s water broke, and we were on our way to the hospital.
Now, I haven’t even mentioned her being pregnant over the last nine months here – just to catch everyone up, she was pregnant – and last Wednesday at about 3:45 in the morning, we headed to Cedars and so began a very long day. They were out of the smaller pre-delivery rooms where we were supposed to wait until her actual delivery, so instead, they put us in a delivery room from the very beginning, which was nice. It didn’t have any windows, so we quickly lost track of just how long we’d been there. Aimee seemed pretty comfortable for the first few hours, say, between 4 a.m. and 2 p.m., and by the time she opted for the epidural, the contractions hadn’t yet gotten to the unbearable stage we’d been warned about in the childbirth videos.
Around 8:30 or so, she started to push, and just before 9:00, our daughter Grace was born! I think we were all surprised – we had really been thinking nothing but boy for the last five or six months – but there she was, cute as a button at 6 lbs., 9 oz. and with what a number of folks have deemed to be notably long feet. It was pretty overwhelming; I broke down when she was born, and stood in a daze watching the nurse go through her routine, weighing the baby, washing her off, and so on, but no one screamed, no one fainted, and much like mother and so far, daughter, there was precious little drama involved.
We spent that night and the next in a post-partum room down the hall, and started to get to know our girl, her noises and faces and the way she jerks to life during sleep as though she’s having a falling dream. The hospital stay was great, with very helpful nurses introducing themselves to you every few hours, checking on the baby, but we were happy to get home.
It’s been a series of sleepless nights since then, punctuated by feedings and time spent with Aimee’s parents, who have been invaluable in cooking for us now and for the future (the fridge is stocked with enough to feed an army) and for taking care of everything else so we could concentrate on the baby.
We’ve had a couple of uneventful but reassuring pediatrician visits, and I’ve managed to catch a cold over the past few days, which is cutting into my ability to help out Aimee, but we’re figuring it out. Grace is mellow, sweet, and, it goes without saying, completely adorable. It’s hard to believe it’s been a week, but the whole thing is so strange, so both overwhelming and completely normal feeling that trying to describe it doesn’t seem very useful. She’s lying next to me right now, snuffling and holding her legs in the air as she sleeps, and she looks perfect to me, so I’ll leave it at that.
We took care of the most important improvements when we first moved in more than a year ago – getting rid of the floor-to-ceiling mirror, replacing the green tile in the bathroom, taking down every last inch of wallpaper – but the shed out back always seemed to me to have a lot of potential. Over the last six months or so, I’ve spend a lot of weekends out back making some improvements, and at this point, I’d call it mostly done.
When we moved in, the interior walls and ceiling were bare studs and beams, with one lightbulb and one working outlet. I finished off the walls and ceiling with plywood, cut with varying degrees of skill over the course of the project, and added in some wiring (thanks, Keith) to bring an additional power outlet to the workbench side of the shed.
The bare bulb in the ceiling became track lighting, with a leftover track from the lighting my dad and I added to the office, and I painted everything, including the bench, which, ugly as it was, I decided to leave in. With a new paint job and a particle board top, it doesn’t look so bad anymore. Finally, I added shelves around the window, cork board on one wall, and the required pegboard tool display on the other.
Now, who knows what I’ll actually do out there, but it’s nice to have a workspace. Maybe I’ll get a letterpress out there one day.
UPDATE: Here’s an mp3 file of a live radio interview I did on Radio New Zealand on Monday night. While the host oversells the drama of the events, he was well-informed and a pleasure to talk to.
UPDATE 2: The story reaches its logical conclusion: incorporated into Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night monologue, rolled in with Segway and Viagra jokes.
I’ll recap the highlights of our weekend in San Diego before it fades into oblivion… Rather than driving there, this time we drove to my office, walked to the subway station, took the Red Line to Union Station, and took the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner to San Diego. All in all, it was a pleasant trip, with some great ocean views as we got closer to our destination.
After dropping off our bags and checking in, we visited the Maritime Museum in the afternoon and enjoyed dinner in Little Italy at night.
On Sunday, I spent the morning taking photos around the Gaslamp, after which Aimee I did some more exploring in the neighborhood, full of majestic buildings and hundreds of restaurants.
We stopped for lunch at The Field, and headed to PETCO Park for the Padres – Nationals game. We lasted ten innings, but the game lasted eleven; we heard the cheer of victory as we walked back to the hotel.
We ate at a busy Thai restaurant in the Gaslamp that evening and marveled at the huge number of restaurants, as well as the massive throngs of people, throughout the neighborhood. We headed home the next morning, refreshed from a weekend away.
We’re in San Diego, staying at the Holiday Inn Express, across from the landmark El Cortez. It’s apparent from the look of the hotel that it used to be something else, something noteworthy; little did we know that it used to be the Travolator Motor Hotel, linked to the El Cortez by the world’s first moving sidewalk. The sidewalk is gone, as is the first exterior glass elevator in the U.S. across the street at the El Cortez, but we can still enjoy the strange exterior elevator that takes us from street level to the lobby of our hotel, advertised as “Park & Glide.”
We arrived yesterday on the Amtrak Surfliner, about two and a half hours from Union Station. After checking in, we walked through most of the ships that make up the Maritime Museum, including the Star of India, a Soviet sub, and a 1970s replica of a man-o-war that seems best known for its role in Master and Commander.
We had very nice dinner at Bencotto in Little Italy, followed by some tasty gelato, and today, we plan on wandering around the Gaslamp before catching a Padres game.
It’s been a busy month so far, and a pleasant spring, with mild weather and productive, fun weekends. This past weekend, we started off on Friday night with dinner at Osteria Mozza, finally (thanks for the gift certificate from two years ago, Paul!), which was delicious – I had squid ink pasta with lobster and sea urchin. Afterward, I attended a night of cartoons and classical music hosted by Michael Giacchino, Pete Docter, and Bruce Broughton, which was a lot of fun.
I spent much of the day on Saturday, like a lot of days recently, working in the shed, as I bring it closer and closer to completion. The wiring is done, the ceiling and walls all finished, trim added to the corners to neaten things up, the bare bulb in the ceiling replaced with track lighting, and the shelves moved outside under the neighboring overhang. Now it’s time to fill in a few more of the cracks, and then get painting. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be using it for once it’s ready to be used, but you can’t use it until it’s ready, right?
We went to see Andrew Bird at Largo on Saturday night, and he was as impressive and enjoyable as the last time we saw him, back in Boston six or so years ago. His voice is as pure as his whistle (which is saying something), and the way he can build a song out of violin, voice, whistle, and guitar is just amazing. I didn’t recognize many of the songs, because he made a point of not playing anything from the three albums of his I know, but it was still a feast for the ears, and always nice to return to Largo.
The next morning, I ran the Santa Monica Classic 5k, and managed a pretty good time, 21:19, a little slower than what I ran in New Zealand a few weeks ago, but enough for a domestic personal best and top ten in my age group, which is now, frighteningly, 35-39.
I feel like most of my blog post titles refer to time passing quicker than expected. Maybe it’s just that I’ve run out of titles for posts that aren’t about some sort of event. Anyway, it’s been nearly a month since I returned from New Zealand, and it’s high time I get caught up on what’s been going on.
It’s been a month of film festivals, actually, beginning with the World Cinema Showcase I attended in Wellington, continuing on to this year’s installment of the Film Noir Fest at the Egyptian – just one double feature for me this year (plus a $50 parking ticket, thanks Hollywood!) – and then to last weekend’s Turner Classic Movie Classic Film Festival. We provided some material for the screenings, so we got four passes to share among the staff, and I attended screenings of Breathless and North by Northwest at Grauman’s Chinese. There were firsts all around: I think it was the first time I’d ever seen either of those, two of my favorite films of all time, in 35mm on the big screen, and I’d never been to Grauman’s, four years after moving here. If you’d asked those films’ stars if they’d be around to celebrate their films’ fiftieth anniversaries in 2009/2010, I wonder if they’d have said yes. While Cary Grant and Jean Seberg are no longer around, Jean-Paul Belmondo spoke before the screening of Breathless and Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau did the same before North by Northwest. Both films looked great, and both screenings were very memorable.
We’ve been doing a lot of work around the house lately, and I’m happy to say I finally got the electricity working in the shed, which now has both a light and a newly-wired set of outlets near the workbench. I don’t think it should have been as much of a challenge as it was, but I’m glad to have figured it out, and I’m now ready to finish off and paint the walls.
We also started on our weekly hikes again, and visited Griffith Park last weekend to check out Amir’s Garden. I think it might have taken longer to find the start of the hiking trail once we got into Griffith Park than it did to actually do the hike, but it was a nice little spot, and had some great views. Neither of us had ever been to that part of the park, so it was nice to see more of the area, even if it was mostly golf courses.
We also took a walk to our local Clover Park for a picnic last weekend, and got there just as the sun set.
Over the course of yesterday and this morning, we had our windows replaced, which was long on our to-do list for energy efficiency, noise reduction, and the ability to open windows without letting insects in. The combination of new windows and no shades makes the house feel much brighter and lighter; Aimee’s tempted to keep the shades off, but do we really want everyone to watch the movie along with us from the sidewalk? Either way, we’re really happy to have our new windows in and done.
I think I was a little premature in declaring that winter was on its way yesterday. This morning was as beautiful, blue-skied and cloudless as any in my nine day here. I decided to take advantage of it by heading for a run up to the Mt. Victoria lookout. It was about a 20-minute run, just about all of it straight uphill, for about a 600 foot elevation gain. The view from the top was just spectacular, from Wellington Harbor on one side, and off to Island Bay, Lyall Bay, and the other spots where I’d been rained on yesterday to the south. Oh well. The run back down was fast, needless to say, with mind and feet working at breakneck pace to avoid roots, rocks, and other obstacles.
My planning didn’t quite work out; I thought leaving my “museum day” to the last was wise, but then that day happened to be beautiful… Anyway, I started with a tasty breakfast at Scopa on Cuba Street, as I’d run out of muesli and thought it would be a good reward for a tough run. From there, I continued my fruitless search for a good New Zealand t-shirt, a search that was actually leftover from our trip here last year. I’d seen some I liked being worn by people over the last week, but either couldn’t quite find the right one, or couldn’t find the right size. I’ll be back…
From Lambton Quay, I headed to the Wellington Museum of City & Sea, which we didn’t have time for last time, but which was a quite wonderful, a very impressive small museum.
I found the exhibits, and especially section dealing with the Wahine disaster of 1968, really fascinating. The film dealing with the shipwreck was surprisingly moving; I think everyone who was there watching it was left a little shaken. The whole museum was very well done; the exhibits on 20th century Wellington as well as the city’s maritime history were great, and the 10th anniversary exhibit was surprisingy strange and creative.
I had lunch at Joe’s Garage, a repeat visit that was a bit of a mistake, but they can’t all be winners (I eventually gave up in my quest to see how long it would be be until my order was taken because I thought it would never happen without my intervention). I headed over to Te Papa, the massive and massively popular national museum, for a look around. It turns out we had pretty much seen everything the last time, and I wasn’t particularly interested in their special exhibition on Pompeii, so I decided to change course and try to catch a ferry across the bay to Eastbourne, a recommendation from the folks at the film archive.
The trip over was quick and calm, with the only turbulence coming when we crossed over the wake of of the passing Interislander. We arrived in Days Bay, and I headed south on the 1.4 km route to Eastbourne, a walk which hugged the coast and was dotted with idyllic houses.
Eastbourne was an adorable one-street town, with about half the businesses shuttered for the Easter holiday. I had some gelato, headed out onto the historic wharf, and then made my way back to Eastbourne in time for the last crossing of the day at 5:30.
After a quick break at home, I went back to The Craftsman to cash in my winnings from last week’s movie trivia night, and see how it went the second time around. This week was significantly easier, and my team of one ended up triumphant, beating out ten other teams for the $50 first prize. Turns out that was a bit of a curse; apparently, I had to use it all at once, and couldn’t use part of it tonight, as I’d planned, and give the rest of it to someone at the film archive to use.
I spent as long as I could there after trivia was over, watching the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Canterbury Bulldogs play rugby. Seven out of eight Fox/Sky Sports commentators picked Canterbury to win; naturally, it was the Rabbitohs’ night. Maybe it had something to do with the repeated cuts to Russell Crowe cheering his team on from the stands – who knows? I had a few beers and some apple cobbler, and left the rest of my winnings to the bar staff. The bartender said “Sweet As!,” which I’m pretty sure is about as high a compliment as one can get in New Zealand.
After a week of beautiful, warm weather, it finally felt today like the seasons might be changing, and you could hear people around town talking about it. “Winter’s on its way…,” which is a little strange to hear in April, but I’m getting used to it.
I decided to rent a bike and do a little exploring further out today, so I headed up the street to Base Hostel and chose my bike and helmet for the day. I had found a few walking tours of Mt. Victoria, right nearby, as well as a longer walk from the city center along a greenbelt to the coast, all of which I thought I’d try. After a few minutes of fiasco involving wi-fi, my phone, Dropbox, Instapaper, email, PDFs, and eventually a trip back up to the apartment to use the computer, I eventually got started around 9. I was still having a little trouble getting everything together (and dealing with the scale of my maps; I kept overshooting every turn, because it didn’t take long to get anywhere on the bike), but was able to see some of what the Mt. Victoria Historical Society pointed out.
From there, I headed past the National War Memorial, through several detours, and up to the Aro Valley, home of a recommended video store, coffee shop, and general atmosphere I wanted to check out. I stopped in Aro Coffee and enjoyed a mocha and a “Magic Slice,” which was, to be honest, pretty magical, some combination of fruit, nut, and chocolate, on an extremely dense biscuit base. Mmm. The who little block had a great feel to it, lots of nice houses and cafes, and people out with their kid and dogs for a Sunday stroll.
I had decided to tackle to “City to Sea” walk, which would bring me south to Island Bay, and then I thought I’d add on and come back a different way, around the bays past the airport and around into Wellington. As I followed the path using a combination of the Welly Walks iPhone app and some Google Map screenshots, I was quickly discovering that it was a walking path for a reason: there was almost nothing about the path that was flat or sloping; instead, it was all either a steep uphill, or steps downhill. I ended up walking and carrying the bike more and more, and eventually, as I scaled a massive hill overlooking a local rugby pitch in some unnamed suburb, I gave up on the route and hopped on the nearest street. I was in Island Bay in a matter of minutes, which was good, as it had begun to rain, lightly.
I followed the road as it hugged the bottom of a cliff on one side, and faced out to the ocean on the other. As I rounded a corner, I suddenly saw something Aimee and I had looked out for last time but never found, one of Wellington’s famed private cable cars. We saw a short film on them at the Cable Car Museum last time, and I’d now come upon one that was actually just dropping its owner off at the top. It was an impressively steep incline, and led to a house that must have had quite a view.
As the day went on and I continued to ride along the coast, I saw more and more, probably have a dozen in total, of varying degrees of both engineering achievement and trustworthiness, I’d say.
I had a tasty lunch (of breakfast, actually) at Elements Cafe in Lyall Bay, and then finished making my way back to Wellington, into the fierce wind around Oriental Parade and back to the apartment. After a little break to dry off, I headed out to take a walk around Mt. Victoria, the Art Deco tour I had meant to do with the bike in the morning, but which didn’t happen. The neighborhood is filled with (appropriately) Victorian homes, perched on the side of the mountain (hill, really), but there are a few deco gems hidden in there.
I walked from spot to spot in the fading daylight, and then headed to the Embassy Theatre, beautifully refurbished for the blowout Lord of the Rings final installment premiere a few years ago, to watch Nowhere Boy. Time for bed, and one more day of vacation.
This morning, I met my tour guide, Wally, and the rest of the tour group (a retired couple from Sussex), at the i-Site in town, and we headed off north out of Wellington. Our first stop was a brief one, pulled over to the side of the road to look at Dry Creek Quarry, where the Helm’s Deep section of “The Trilogy” was shot – I thought I could avoid it, but I couldn’t – and then we headed onward, into the Hutt Valley. We passed through farmland and horse country, and wound our way up to the top of Paekakariki Hill, with a beautiful view of Kapiti Island to the north, and the South Island to the south. Naturally.
From there, we stopped off at a little chocolate shop for a look around, marveled at the holiday traffic backing up on the road, and then made our way to the Southward Car Museum. Now, from our experience last year on both the North and South Islands, I’m beginning to wonder: how many car museums can one small country have? We visited at least three, and passed up one or two more, almost all of which we came across by chance. There’s something in the Kiwi mentality, a love of cars, a fondness for engineering and restoration, a pioneering spirit, an interest in a bit of the mother country way out in the middle of the ocean – who knows, but they’ve got it. We spent about 45 minutes wandering through the cars, trains, airplanes, motorcycles, and so on, which was lots of fun, as always.
We then stopped for cheese-tasting and tea at a little farm complex that was very popular with families, but for which Wally felt the need to make excuses, as a number of its tenants hadn’t survived the recession, and it was looking a little bare. That Kikorangi cheese sure was tasty. We headed back to Wellington, which gave Wally and the other guests time to share their common dislike for “the government” and “the way things are these days,” regulations, political correctness, immigrants, and so on… The old and bitter, always the same wherever you go.
I did some shopping at the Old Bank Arcade and at Frank Kitts Market; one’s a beautiful and stately bank building turned permanently into shops and cafes, while the other is a subterranean parking garage that doubles as an art and craft market on Saturdays. I had success in both locations.
I hadn’t yet stopped at the Mac’s Brewery building right near my apartment, and this sunny afternoon seemed as good a time as any to take the time to do it. It seems they’ve recently stopped producing beer there, so there was no brewery tour to be had, but I had the next best thing, a flight of six of their beers. I spent the afternoon reading and periodically scooting my chair and table to follow the sun, and enjoyed watching clumps of teens in strange costumes (Star Trek, Pokemon, Alice in Wonderland, unidentifiable, and so on) emerging from the Armageddon Pulp Culture Expo at the arena next door. I should really get my photo with Bonita Friedericy from Chuck, right? After a little break at home, I headed out for dinner at Olive Cafe on Cuba Street, and then to see Gentlemen Broncos at the Paramount. I also investigated renting a bike, so I think I’ll give that a shot tomorrow.
Thursday brought a lot of progress on the film front, and I’m nearly finished with my inspection work, with next Tuesday still remaining at the Archive. On Thursday evening, I went out to dinner with Steve from the archive and his wife at Floridita on Cuba Street, not to be confused with El Floridita, across from the office back in L.A. They were attending the opening of the World Cinema Showcase that evening, a screening of A Single Man, at the Paramount Theater. Having seen the film already, I went with them to the reception but didn’t go in for the film; instead, I stuck around for the weekly movie quiz at the theater. I ended up playing on a team with the staff from the festival, and though we had a lot of fun, the quiz was really tough and we finished in the middle of the pack. Somehow, we managed to go 8 for 8 in the category “Christ in the Movies,” which we’d chosen in advance as our double points round, and was about the only thing that kept us from being dead last. I enjoyed being a bit of a fly on the wall as film festival folks, a film critic, and some producers talked about movies all night.
Now that I’ve finished four days of film work, I started my four days of vacation today. I had tried yesterday to book a rental car so I could head out of town for a day or two, but it seems every rental car agency was “fully booked,” as I was told repeatedly. I made a few reservations online as well, but each one was cancelled a few minutes after I made it. So, I went with Plan B, which was to do more exploration around town. I downloaded a very helpful little iPhone app called Welly Walks, and headed out the door.
I had chosen a walk around the parliament and Lambdon, Wellington’s oldest suburb, home to many historic houses. It was another beautiful day, and a remarkably quiet one, with businesses closed for Good Friday, and not too many people on the streets. Some of the sights:
The Hotel Waterloo, one of many terrific deco buildings on the walk:
A quiet day at the supermarket:
The various buildings of Parliament:
One of many great buildings downtown:
After a break for coffee and internet at Esquire Coffee, I rode the cable car up the hill to the Botanic Garden. Here’s the view from the top, where I could spot my apartment building (click through to see it marked):
I had a little more time in the Botanic Garden than Aimee and I did last time, and I enjoyed strolling around looking at the trees, plants, and sculptures.
I also enjoyed an Eggs Pacifica and some tea at the café, which was really nice:
After a long day on my feet, I headed back to the apartment via the I-Site, where I booked a trip up the coast for tomorrow morning – the only tour that didn’t involve The Lord of the Rings, and the only one that did involve a car museum, which, as we learned last time, is a required component of any day out in New Zealand.
I relaxed at the apartment for a bit, and then headed out for a quick shawarma and then a screening of the Kiwi film Boy, which had been recommended by the folks I was hanging out with the night before. It was a good little film, and I enjoyed seeing it with a Kiwi audience, who got all the jokes and references that went over my head.
I’m now more than halfway done with my work here, though I’ve still got six days left in the trip. It’s been great so far, a really nice mix of work and fun; in fact, I’d go so far as to say this is really the way to do it. Work during the day, doing a job you enjoy, and have the evenings and weekend to explore. No more exhaustion from going to museums all day long, plenty of time to get a feel for the place. This is as close as I’ll probably get to living here, and it’s nice to feel like I’m part of the office, going to the vault to fetch my films each day, sitting around the table for tea, leaving work as the streets fill with people walking home.
On Monday night, I looked around online to see if there were any races going on this weekend, and the only thing I found was a Tuesday night 5k on the waterfront. So, yesterday morning I got up a little early and ran for about 20 minutes, the first I’d run since the marathon, just to make sure I still could. I could, and I left work at 4:30 to zip back to the apartment and then head to The Loaded Hog, where I got my number written on my hand and waited for the start. The race was run by the Wellington Scottish running club, who seemed like a really nice bunch of people who get together on Tuesday nights to run and drink (as well as competing more seriously throughout the year). I can’t remember the last 5k I ran, but my marathon training seems to have helped, despite the fact that I was a little sore and hadn’t run in a week. I took almost a minute off my PR (which was about six years old), even with the stiff headwind. I felt good, enjoyed my complimentary beer, and headed back home.
I thought I’d try another pub quiz, but got there a little late, at which point it was all full. Turns out it was run by the same guy who’d run the one the night before – quite a racket. I had passed by The Flying Burrito Brothers the day before, but it wasn’t open for lunch, so I came back for dinner. It was packed, but I managed to grab a stool by the window in the corner and had a tasty burrito. I ended the night with a gelato from Kaffee Eis and headed back home.
This morning, I headed out along the harbor at 7:15 or so to catch the sunrise I’d seen the day before when I was out on my run. It was pretty spectacular, and I enjoyed watching the sky slowly lighten and took some photos.
At lunch, I strolled Cuba Street to take pictures of the architecture:
And after eating at Fidel’s yesterday, it only seemed appropriate to dine at Ernesto today.
I did some paperwork for the project for awhile after finishing at the office for the day, and then headed out for a walk. I scaled the steps to The Terrace and had a look around.
For dinner, I went back to Sweet Mother’s Kitchen, the tasty Mexican/Cajun restaurant Aimee and I went to last time we were here, and I sat in the exact same spot at the bar. It was, as always, super-crowded. I had a very tasty bowl of gumbo and some cornbread, and read the first 45 pages of Richard E. Grant’s autobiography. Yep, that’s right, the story of the making of Withnail and I, washed down with a pale ale. I talked myself into, out of, and into (again) a milkshake, once I heard they could make it thick, and mix peanut butter and chocolate. I ran a race yesterday, right? It was a tasty end to a good day.
Today was my first day at the office, as it were, and it went very well, between inspecting some interesting films, meeting lots of nice folks, and taking a break for tea and a crossword mid-morning. I feel like this should be a tradition I bring back to L.A.
So far, almost everything I’ve looked at has been in great shape, and I’ve managed to uncover lots of useful information that will help the project.
Here are some of the more interesting shots; please appreciate the pink tinge that my trusty old camera adds to each photo.
Here are outgoing “Silent” Cal and incoming Hoover “Ville” in a Pathé newsreel:
Drivers in a 100-mile race “around the board saucer” in Akron:
For lunch, I headed to Cuba Street and had some salmon cakes in the warm sun, which was really lovely. After work, I had dinner at Wagamama and then tried my hand at Monday Night Movie Trivia at a downtown pub. Against 11 other teams, mostly of five or six people, I managed to come in third, and won a $20 bar tab. I guess I know what I’m doing next Monday… The questions focused on a lot of obscure films (Lakeview Terrace? Hart’s War? Turner and Hooch? Beverly Hills Chihuahua?), and most of my misses were on what stars looked like when they were kids. Oh well.
It’s been an extremely long day, which began when I got up and went to work on Friday in L.A., and is now about to end on Sunday night here in Wellington. Even just the Wellington part has been long: getting in from Auckland, checking into my apartment, walking around, catching a documentary at a local theater, more walking, dinner, grocery shopping, more walking, and so on. It’s ending with the Melbourne Grand Prix and some Top Gear, and a Tuatara Pale Ale.
I had brunch at Joe’s Garage – yes, that is both bacon and sausage, with tomato, fries, eggs, mushrooms, and toast…
