Soames Island, Parliament

Yesterday I took a ferry with some of my friends to Soames Island, just off the Wellington coast. We went with the intention of spotting some of the island's blue fairy penguins (seen above-isn't it adorable?), but we were informed when we arrived there that blue fairy penguins fed during the day, and were only on land at night. In spite of this disappointment, the trip ended up being really pleasant. It was a perfect day out, so we hiked on a loop around the island, and marveled at the tons of beautiful and interesting plants. The water was very blue and inviting (although when I felt it, the temperature seemed slightly less inviting).













After walking around a bit, I sat on a rock next to the sea and just stared at Wellington from across the bay, and had a really nice moment of total carefree complacency. The air is so much cleaner than Los Angeles here, and the sky and the water are much bluer. It's very refreshing.



Other than that, I've been doing a bunch of random stuff. Classes, tramping club meeting, shopping, cooking with friends, going to parliament, going out at night... I've found that one of the best ways to meet locals is to literally just start talking to one of them at a bar or club. Many of them are friendly and social, and since there are only a few blocks where people really go out on weekends, I tend to see some of the same people out.

Observing Parliament was actually very interesting and enjoyable, although next time I'm going to do a little research on the questions being posed beforehand. Many of the issues presented were related to current events and national incidents that I wasn't aware of, so it was really difficult to follow the questions, supplementary questions, and subsequent debates. The questioning session was a very rapid, orderly, and oftentimes lively process. A member of parliament would pose a question to, for example, the Minister of Education about school funding, and then the minister would provide what was often a pre-written answer. After the initial question, however, any member of parliament could follow up with supplementary questions, which were not submitted for pre-approval thus which were often more confrontational and to-the-point. Some of the more impassioned members would yell out things during the session, like "bah, that's rubbish!", which I found amusing. The dynamics of the New Zealand Parliament are very interesting in that they are mixed member proportional (MMP), meaning that third parties are able to make it into the parliament. Besides the two main parties, the National Party and the Labor Party, there's the Maori party, the Green party, the New Zealand First and more; this means that there is not a Parliamentary majority, which requires a lot more inter-party cooperation rather than domination.

Anyhow, I have laundry and cleaning to do, so cheers for now!