Museum of Wellington City and Sea - Wellington, New Zealand

Since I moved to Wellington a few months ago, I haven't really had time to check out a lot of what is on offer.  Which is basically a constant stream of cool things in this city.

But one free thing to do is to visit Wellington Museum down in Jervois Quay, in contrast to Te Papa which is basically our National Museum and exhibition style space, the Wellington Museum is more directly about Wellingtons history.

The Museum is housed in The Bond Store, an 1892 premium heritage building designed by leading architect Frederick de Jersey Clere.  It was renovated during the 1990s and reopened in November of 1999 as the Museum of Wellington City & Sea.

To be completely honest I was a bit slack about recording details about things, so these replica crowns and things, well I am just assuming they're there to show our links to the EMPIRE!

Or to taunt anyone who doesn't have a crown of their own..... I don't know make up whatever story you feel would justify a collection of fake blinged up headwear.

And a few swords, because nothing says YAY MONARCHY like medieval weaponry!

This is a statue, not a ghost, I just don't have a steady enough hand for slightly long shutter times.

Because this museum started its life as a maritime museum there are obviously rather a lot of things related to the Port of Wellington, various boats, figureheads, and things of that nature.  There are probably a few very impressive knots in some big old ropes there too, but I didn't get pictures.

Basically the bottom two floors are things of this nature, as well as some history about the Bond Store itself.  There are also some cool interactive displays around the place as well.

This is a really big crab, I should have stood beside it for some perspective, but it was bigger than my head.  And I don't like knowing that there are crabs this size in the universe.  What kind of loving god creates these atrocities.

In case you are unfamiliar with New Zealand history, on the 10th of April 1968 a ship called the Wahine was bringing passengers from Lyttelton to Wellington, but as it came in sight of its final destination it was caught in a storm and ran aground at Barrett Reef.  Attempts were made to tow the ferry but it was impossible, and eventually the order was given to abandon ship.  52 people lost their lives over the next 48 hours.  For more information about that follow the link at the bottom of this entry, OR! visit the Museum of Wellington City and Sea, where you can watch a short documentary film and look at various salvaged parts of the ship.

This wall of notes is basically a space in the museum where you can write whatever you like on a small piece of paper and pin it to the wall.  There are some gems up there already including one from a young British girl who claims she is royalty.  I encourage you to write your own and put it up there! I certainly will next time I am there... it seems like something I would want to think about a lot before posting.

Honestly I have no idea what all of these canes were about, again create your own story, since I fully encourage the use of a vivid imagination when details don't present themselves.

What We Do In The Shadows is a New Zealand film about a bunch of vampires and werewolves living in Wellington, filmed in a documentary style it is friggen hilarious, written by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi (Boy).  And starring all of the NZ comedy mainstays.

And at the museum you can see some of the costumes! In a kind of miniature version of the living room from their shared house in the movie.

This vampire is just hanging out in the corner of the ceiling... as you do when you are a vampire.

Okay so most of the rest of the pictures here I didn't get stories for, they're just cool things out of context, and that's one of the best way to view cool things I think.

For some reason this reminded me of Return to Oz, how the witch had all of her heads in the cupboard.  Only this actually had nothing at all to do with that.

The history of broadcast television in New Zealand, the little TV even plays clips of old timey shows.

This lion was the last one stuffed by Wellington Zoo before they stopped being jerks and stuffing any animals that died in their care.  So it's actually a bit sad, but I guess if you've already stuffed an animal like a massive asshole then it probably should remain on display somewhere.

I for one welcome our Meccano overlords!  This is actually Captain Cook the first European in Australia and New Zealand.  Do you know how he died?  In a fight with Hawaiians when he turned up there pushing his shitty colonial attitudes...

Last but DEFINITELY not least, these cool vacuum tube looking lights are actually displaying the time until the next screening in the time machine Ngā Hau which displays cool little vignettes of Wellington history on a cool octagonal display.  It was really fun to watch, and there is all kinds of cool environmental lighting and effects to make you feel like you are traveling through time.

Up Next:  I am honestly not even sure where I will be heading next, quite probably Zealandia which is a nifty wildlife sanctuary type thing.

Links:
Wellington Museum
The Wahine Disaster
What We Do In The Shadows - Wikipedia Article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license.

Barcelona, Spain

This is another relatively extreme tourism type entry, basically I was in Barcelona one week for a work conference.
While I could have made it out of the hotel more than I did, I really only spent one afternoon taking photos and being a tourist.

SO! 3.....2.....1.... lets do it... first up I went for a leisurely stroll through Barri Gòtic (the Gothic Quarter), this was basically a recommended area for anyone with an interest in old buildings, and trendy alternative type individuals sipping lattes.

As pictured here... some old buildings! And a statue of a man on a horse!

One thing I really liked in the Gothic Quarter were these cool little side streets that were super narrow... when us dirty foreigners think of Europe, this is exactly the kind of James Bond shit we are imagining!

Here is a pretty old church, the Cathedral of Santa Eulàlia, or more simply the Barcelona Cathedral... if you are a savage mouth breathing foreigner.

Then we wandered a little further to Plaça del Rei, the "Kings Square" which is a 14th century medieval public square. Inside of which is the Museu d'Història de la Ciutat, which sadly we did not have the funds or time to visit.

This was a beautiful big statue thing... the funniest part was the creepy owl on the other side of it...

That owl wants to eat your soul.....

Here we finally made it to Sagrada Família which is a famous church designed by Anton Gaudi, to be honest one of the most hideous churches I have seen in Europe, it looks like somebody consumed a lot of psiloybin mushrooms a handful of LSD and then created a church.

And next up some photos of the venue for the conferences party, at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

And a bonus pug I spotted while out and about!

Barcelona - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona
Gothic Quarter - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_G%C3%B2tic
Barcelona Cathedral - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Santa_Eul%C3%A0lia
Placa del Rei - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pla%C3%A7a_del_Rei
Sagrada Família - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia
Anton Gaudi - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaudi
Museu Nacional Art de Catalunya - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museu_Nacional_d%27Art_de_Catalunya

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license.

Berlin, Germany

In November, in fact one month ago today! I was in Berlin with my friend Lisa to see Garbage play as a birthday treat, and since I had absolutely no time at all for tourism the last time I was there I thought I had better see some sights the next day.

Berlin is an absolutely amazing place I definitely recommend people go there at least once while in Europe, all the better if you enjoy clubbing since there are some phenomenal venues in East Berlin.

So here are a few pictures I took, sadly we ended up in LEGOLAND for a lot of the day, and missed a lot of good opportunities for other pictures hehe.

First up the Berlin Cathedral, we didn't go inside, but it is a fairly impressive building as cathedrals go.

 

The Altes Museum (Old Museum) is a museum for antiquities, and was really rather impressive too, sadly didn't have time to go inside for a look around since we were running to catch a tour group, which we also failed... we were not great at the whole tourism thing that day.

 

 

These various statues were all scattered about the place between the museum and the meeting point for the non-existent tour group, but they were quite pretty and more than a little disturbing so I had to take pictures of these too.

I have no idea who this man on the horse is since I had no local guide to tell me, but I would imagine he was probably quite the local badass in his day. (revision note: apparently this was the King of Prussia, so I may have understated how much of a badass he actually was a little bit)

These next two photos are of the Ampelmännchen, he is kind of a big deal in Berlin, since he has a whimsical hat and a brisk stroll about him compared to most pedestrian crossing characters, you can buy this on T-Shirts, Mugs, Shot Glasses... whatever you can imagine as a souvenir gift.

 

Next I will cover a few of the important landmarks, as represented by LEGO, and then their real world counterparts! Firstly the Berlin Cathedral again.

Here is the Brandenburg Gate, originally built to symbolize peace, later used as a crossing point for the Berlin Wall, now just a rather cool piece of architecture, you can learn more about this in the Wikipedia link below.

This is the Reichstag, which is basically the government building, it has a rather cool inscription on the front "Dem Deutschen Volke" which translates to "To the German People"

 

And here is the real Brandenburg Gate (We got out from LEGOLAND a little late to take any better pictures, and didn't yet have a tripod to get nice night shots)

And here is the real Reichstag! And that people is a wrap... sorry this post is not more exciting, but writing a post so long after actually doing it makes it harder to recall interesting facts.

References:
LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Berlin - http://www.legolanddiscoverycentre.de/berlin/en/
The Brandenburg Gate - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_Gate
The Reichstag - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_(building)
Berlin Cathedral - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Cathedral
Altes Museum - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altes_Museum

NEXT POST! Shall be Edinburgh for the Hogmanay Street Party on New Years Eve!

Historiches Museum, Hannover, Germany

*NOTE* This post will be a little shorter simply for the fact that a lot of my photos did not work out that well this time, must learn how to take a stable and accurate shot without flash (for museums and certain nightshots)

We decided to visit the Museum of History since it was a very rainy day, and that eliminated our first choice which was to visit some spectacular gardens and a fun park, however the museum turned out to be really quite fascinating.  Even though it is a fairly unassuming small building located within Hannovers old town area, it still manages to be home to some really interesting exhibits, and for a 5 euro entry fee it really was quite special.

Our first stop was the "Life on the Land" area, this basically showed life in Hannover in the very early years, when farming and agriculture were more important, as well as some of the implements and routines required to live in those days.

Some scale models of houses and their methods of construction

And also one which showed the layout of a general farm

And what stroll through the history of farming would be complete without an awesome looking scythe!

Next was kind of a mish-mash of era's as well as pieces significant to them... I suspect we walked through this backwards, so in the interests of preserving my own stupidity... we start with the 50's and all of the amazing advertising which came with it, as you can see German advertisements were much the same as their American counterparts, if you have watched a lot of Mad Men the style should be quite familiar to you.

This jukebox contained most of the standard tracks of those years, I think it had some Chubby Checker on it, classy!

And the German lounge circa 1955, doesn't look too far from most other lounges of the era

BMW.... they really have come a very very long way

Since we were going back to front, we then encountered the WW2 area, this first picture was actually really interesting, this is the formal dissolution of the Nazi party. If you view this at full size, you should be able to read that it actually specifies all of the different organisations under the Nazi party which must also be dissolved etc

Various currency and food stamps of the time

This poster reads "Youth serves the Fuhrer"

This poster reads, "Our last hope Hitler"

Next we visited an area which I guess would be best described as "Local history" it contained various items of interest to Hannover specifically.

And I think for now that will actually do... I may do a second post of the few scattered other cool things there, but this post is already longer than I had really intended any single post to be.

Much love... Abigail