A Day Out in Wellington with Friends

Ah.  Here I am sitting at my ease in my luxury flat with CNN on doing my laundry.  There are few things More Luxurious on a trip than clean clothes.  I have a full size washer and drier in my suite, and the lovely, good people at City Life left me some washing powder.  Also I discovered this morning that my suite had an Actual Teapot. I'd been getting along with improvisations, so a teapot in which to steep my breakfast tea was a real treat.
Presently I will pour myself a glass of some nice Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc--my white of choice.
This is a nice story.  During World War II my mother lived in San Francisco while my father was away in the Navy, and she connected with some folks from New Zealand.  One woman who returned to New Zealand after the war remained in touch with my mom.  In short they were pen pals.  When she died, her daughter Jan took up the pen, and she and my mom stayed in touch until my mother died.  Jan is also in touch with some of my other relatives, and my mother went to see her in New Zealand, and they came to see us in California.  My cousins hooked us up, and we arranged to meet today.
I did some chores before that.  I confirmed my tour tomorrow, and I booked my bus trip to Rotorua for Wednesday.  I'm glad I did because the seats available had dwindled, and I'm back in the fancy  seats, but I'll be able to go direct instead of having a nasty wait and transfer.
I also went to Te Papa--the Museum of New Zealand, which is a large modern facility near the waterfront.  I was after Maori and Pacific Island Art. Auckland has a better collection, but Te Papa has some incredible pieces created by contemporary Maori Artists and the exhibition is accompanied by haunting Maori melodies.
Also not to be missed is the justly popular exhibit on Gallipoli where so many soldiers from Australia and New Zealand died in World War I.  The story is told though eyewitness accounts and artifacts and recreations of the battle.  Weta Workshop contributed some giant models of featured soldiers.
Then I went to meet Jan and her husband John.  They took the train in from their home, and then we took the cable car up the hill to the Botanical Gardens and strolled down through them to the rose garden and the cafe where they took me to lunch.  It was so pleasant catching up with them.  After lunch we came back here for cooling drinks and more chat.  Then I saw them off at the train station.
It was a hot day, but it turned out well.