Five, six, sevens!

It was another quiet day in Wellington. 

Just like any other Friday. 

You know, weekend's almost here, lots to get done at the office. 

(Points if you know who this character is in the Where's Waldo books.)

Those crazy kiwis!

This isn't the New Zealand version of dress down Friday; this is how they celebrate "Sevens Weekend" which is more about costumes and drinking than about the rugby game all these people are going to watch!  For context, these pictures were taken before 11am. 

We popped into one of Lacey's standard coffee shops before we headed onward. 

The Te Papa museum, also known as the museum of New Zealand, was our tourist attraction of the day. This is one great museum - and it's free any day, any time.  Please take note, Ottawa museums. 

It was busy with visitors because not only is it the start of Sevens Weekend, it's also a national holiday here - Wataingi Day. A perfect day to learn more about the country! And by country I mean colossal squids and Air New Zealand. 

I should have taken a picture of the squid but it was being surrounded by tourists. Trust me, it was rather gross in a fascinating kind of way. 

We had a picnic lunch outside and watched wild children chase pigeons. And then their parents chase the kids, who continued to chase the birds. 

And those birds pooped on both me and Lacey but we stayed anyway. Too much sun to enjoy to head inside!

We checked out the Air New Zealand exhibit after lunch. Another well done section of the museum. 

We made our way to the kids dress up area, as I'm sure most adults without children do. 

Stewardess dress and pilot uniform circa, umm, now. 

After the museum, we went to the chocolate factory. Why?  Why not?

There wasn't too much going on inside the place, but there was chocolate to be bought (and eaten) so that's what we did, as an appetizer to frozen yogurt. Wataingi Day is great.

The rest of the day was spent half asleep in another set of bean bag chairs in the sun, listening to live music, watching semi-pro swing dancers and having lots of good laughs. 

Our flight to Queenstown is very early tomorrow morning, hence the double blog post tonight.  We will be spending the day organizing gear and food when we get there before we take off on a four day hike that I'm confident we will both survive. Half of our bodies might be eaten away by sand flies but that's part of the experience, we are told.