Wowington

Late report on my trip to Wellington at the end of November. It started out with me being a klutz at the airport and spilling my water bottle all over the floor. Then it was a beautiful day so I had a lovely aerial view of The Mountain on my way out.

I'll take their word for it...?

After checking into my room, I spent the first day walking all over town. I was taking some photos to use for one of my VA client's projects. Then I went to Te Papa the great museum they have. However, even though it's been a couple years since I went, I remembered lots of it! Which just meant that I could whiz through some parts and that worked out well because I was meeting people for lunch.

There was a big outdoor screening of some other hobbit movies that night. I did not attend. Also, the market wasn't open yet in this photo but later I went back and tried stilt walking - maybe hobbit stuff is fun!

I missed my first NZ celebrity sighting though! Outside the little taco place where I was meeting friends sat none other than Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords fame. I was preoccupied in trying to spot my friends and walked right by him. However, the friends had seen him and said they made a small spectacle so did not want to go up and ask for a photo like I did. And from our table we couldn't see him out the door so for all I know they could have made the whole story up! haha. No, they didn't but alas, I didn't want to fuss because NZ celebrities don't go for that.

After an afternoon of wandering, a couple of beers, a dinner and a dark horse quiz placing that night - it was time to sleep because I had a couple days of activities yet!

I packed up my gear the next morning and went pancake hunting. I found a giant stack with bacon and bananas that even I couldn't finish! Then I walked across town along the red carpet (ok, beside it sort of for the several blocks it ran!) to the youth union conference I was attending. There was so much buzz around with The Hobbit premiere taking place that night. I couldn't be bothered to get interested though. Not only have I not seen any of those films but after a talk by the trade union leader at the conference, there sure was a lot of shady dealings going on to get that movie made and to bend over backwards to please Hollywood and screw NZ workers. So, couldn't really get behind that...

Blog name inspiration!

The fun thing about the conference was that all the attendees were under 35 years old and most of the organizers were also around that age. So it made for an easygoing atmosphere where people were friendly. We learned about the union and had talks from a couple professors at Auckland University. I highly recommend a book written by one of them that you can download for free here:

http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/about/our-staff/academic-staff/niki-harre/psychologyforabetterworld

We put together a submission to send to parliament opposing proposed changes to their minimum wage laws - along the lines of the "training wage" BC used to have, ripping off young workers. There were people from all over the country as the union covers all public service entities in national and local government.

Thursday evening rolled around and with inspired meetings and lots of laughs the conference wound up. I am hoping to get involved at the local level if I can. As I am sure I've mentioned before, joining a union is optional here so the power that we're used to unions having is diminished. It would be amazing to see them grow and regain power they had before some legislation changes took it away. I think my union is smart to engage the youth contingent because of course we're the workers who will be around for another couple decades or so to fight for changes.

So it was a trip well worth taking a few days off for!

Waterfront art!