Bob and I love our boys dearly. Having this year to explore the world with them, watching them learn about and process new things, and spending lots of time just hanging out with them......it is an opportunity that we are so fortunate to have. And, overwhelmingly, it is an experience that we are thoroughly enjoying.
That being said......we've been with our dear children almost non-stop for just under 8 months now. That's 8 months of Emmett talking pretty much non-stop during waking hours and 8 months of Colin asking when he'll next get to play on the iPad. On the road, alone time for any of us is at a high premium.
Bob and I have actually been fortunate to have had a few adults-only experiences on this trip. We enjoyed a night cruise in St. Petersburg, Russia, while Emmett and Colin stayed with our friends Helen, Alex, and Benny.
And in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the boys stayed with a hotel babysitter while we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Killing Fields. (As Emmett said later, "Least romantic date EVER".)
And, when my family surprised us in Malaysia for Christmas, they generously kept an eye on the boys one night while Bob and I went to dinner and a movie.
So, truthfully, we're far ahead when it comes to adults-only experiences for a long-term traveling family. But when my parents suggested that Bob and I take a couple of days to ourselves somewhere while they watched the boys........ummmm, YES PLEASE!
Wellington was chosen as the stop where Bob and I would go off and do our own thing. We lined up an AirBnb for my parents and the boys that even (Emmett's words), "came with kids!" It was a self-contained rental that was attached to a family's home, and their kids were about the same ages as ours. The whole family was very welcoming, and our boys literally got out of the car and ran off to start playing with their new friends.
Shortly thereafter, Bob and I took the train into Wellington, where our own AirBnB host was graciously waiting to meet us at the downtown station. Even more generously, she offered to take our luggage back to her house, called her husband for a dinner recommendation for us, and then dropped us off at a restaurant so we could get our "parents gone wild" extravaganza started as quickly as possible.
Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, is a very compact and lively city that is consistently ranked as one of the best cities to live in in the world. It even has more cafés, bars, and restaurants per capita than New York City! And, also of interest to us--it is the craft beer capital of New Zealand and one of the best cities in the world for craft beers. When Bob and I talked about what we wanted to do in Wellington without kids in tow, "try as many craft beers as possible without becoming drunk, crazy, kid-free parents" was high on our list. And try craft beers, we certainly did.
This was our very first stop, Fork & Brewer. It was here that our waitress helpfully gave us a "Craft Beer Capital Trail Map"--similar to our food map from Penang, Malaysia, but focused on craft beer. This map got a lot of use as we decided which breweries and bars we could reasonably fit in for the next 2 days. We prioritized the 3 breweries with on-site tasting rooms/restaurants and a few particular bars that were recommended to us by locals.
We ordered a tasting flight at Black Dog Brew Company.
We visited Golding's Free Dive, which definitely had an American dive bar feel (but with craft beers at non-dive bar prices). It was packed when we visited and a bit too loud for our tastes.
We went to Grill Meets Beer. The giddy look on my face is solely from being kid-free for a few days and certainly has nothing to do with the drink in my hand (Hi, Mom).
We'd take recommendations from people at one place about where else we should try, which is how we ended up at a place called Husk. It was brand new and very chill.
But by far our favorite place was Garage Project, which is a beloved and highly acclaimed brewery/tasting room that pretty much EVERYONE told us we had to visit. Not only were the beers great, but the atmosphere was so much like our favorite neighborhood tasting room back in Norfolk, Smartmouth. Clearly it's a neighborhood place, even with tourists like us who come in and take up space. It was the last brewery we visited, and we certainly ended our craft beer tour on a very high note.
Lest you worry for our livers, drinking beer is NOT the only thing we did in Wellington during our kid-free extravaganza. We visited Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand and definitely one of the very best museums in the country.
We walked through a great exhibit that explained the treaty, signed between the Maori people and the Europeans, that established the nation as it still exists today.
There was an excellent exhibit entitled Gallipoli: The scale of our war, which covered the first campaign that New Zealand soldiers undertook in WWI. These gigantic, oversized models were one of the most moving parts of the exhibit. They were created by Weta Digital (the same studio that did the digital effects for The Hobbit), and they were incredibly lifelike and emotive.
We learned about the technology used by the museum, and many other buildings in New Zealand, to minimize the effects of earthquakes. Basically, buildings such as Te Papa are not connected directly to the ground but instead rest on base isolators--shock absorbers made of rubber and lead that allow the building to move independently of the ground in an earthquake (it's the black cube-y thing in the picture below). New Zealand sits atop several fault lines, and many Wellington buildings were damaged by the most recent quake in November 2016. This technology was developed by a New Zealander, and it's been instrumental in helping to minimize deaths, injuries, and damage during earthquakes.
We rode the Wellington Cable Car from Lambton Quay up to the Botanic Gardens. We walked through a small museum dedicated to the history of the cable cars (our AirBnB guide remembered riding on the outside of the car when she was a child, but now passengers are completely inside), and we walked through the gardens as we made our way back towards the CBD.
We stopped into the New Zealand Parliament building (unfortunately the tours were already filled) and watched a brief video to get a better idea of how the New Zealand legislative branch works. The building has a very unique shape--Wellingtonians call it "the beehive".
We saw the New Zealand Supreme Court and marveled at how easily approachable the building was. It has only minimal barriers separating it from the sidewalk, and it sits on a main road in the CBD with traffic running directly in front of it. American federal and government buildings are so fortified, it's really refreshing to see countries whose government buildings remain more open and accessible.
We stopped in to Old St. Paul's church, which is constructed with beautiful timbers and stained glass.
Interestingly, the church flies the US and Marine Corps flags to honor the American servicemen who came to Wellington in WWII to help defend New Zealand against possible attacks by the Japanese. These Marines were "adopted" by Old St. Paul's families, and the congregation holds a ceremony to honor the men every year on US Memorial Day (in late May).
Our kid-free time in Wellington was really great, and we packed a lot in to our 48-hour getaway. We rejoined my parents and the boys at their AirBnB for our last night in the area so that we could all be out early the next morning to catch the ferry to the South Island. We got a thorough update on what they had done, which included taking in some of the same sights that Bob and I did...minus, of course, all the breweries!
