Day 326: Room Switch — Cuba Street in Wellington — Central Park Playground
Last night after we checked in we noticed the air condition wasn’t working. We told the staff here at the QT and they quickly said we could switch to a new room tomorrow. No mention of even attempting a fix — maybe they knew it wasn’t working and were hoping we didn’t mention anything?
It was a little warm last night but not terrible. This morning during home school the front desk called and said we could take a look at a different room. Turned out to be a better layout so we sorta packed up, threw all our stuff on a luggage cart and moved two floors down.
(I stumped Margaret and the kids with this Trivia question: name the only other time this year that we switched rooms in the same hotel. Llewellyn and Jim might remember… it was at the Steigenberger in Cairo because they first put us in a tiny room with a laughably small pullout couch that James and Willa were *both* supposed to sleep on.)
We are definitely happier in the new room but the AC situation was one of several examples of poor management and maintenance here at the QT.
Another was at breakfast this morning. It was 9am, there were probably 25 people seated for breakfast and several more streaming in but there were only two people working that shift at the allegedly fancy restaurant here called Hippopotamus. The two women were running around working their asses off but there was no way they could seat people, take orders and clear tables fast enough — even if most of us were just eating from the buffet. They started having new guests just sit in the cocktail area near the bar and telling them to hit the buffet and bring their food back to their couch and little cocktail table.
After breakfast, home school and the room switch we headed out to explore Wellington. The “Windy City” of New Zealand lived up to it’s name today. The gusts were up over 25 mph. Margaret kept having to hold on to her “scarecrow hat.”
We walked to Cuba Street for lunch at Fidel’s. Sat outside, enjoyed our food and hoped the wind wouldn’t blow the roof of the patio. Willa read Harry Potter while Margaret and I chatted up James.
After lunch Margaret and Willa hit Cuba Street for some shopping and I headed to Central Park Playground (yup, and it was on Brooklyn Street!). There was a nuclear zip line. They call it a “Flying Fox.” It had three parallel wires next to each other and each ride was long, fast and had a crazy ending where the seat pole would hit the tires at the end of the line, but your momentum would fling you up horizontal with the ground.
The safety signs actually recommended watching someone else ride before you do.
James of course jumped on it as soon as we got there and rode twice, but on the third time the ending was so aggressive that it freaked him out a bit and from that point on he made me hold the rope attached to the seat and let him go about 20 feet beyond the start to he wouldn’t gain as much speed.
James and I checked out all the swings, spinning seats and climbing structures then played catch for a bit — but he was anxious for Willa to join him.
When she did, as expected, she wanted to do nothing but ride the zip line. Margaret and I took a few rides too.
Overall it was a successful playground visit. Wish we had kept count of how many we’ve visited this year. Definitely over 100.
One other highlight before we left: a girl attempting to put her dog in the baby swing. His name is Wilson.
Walking back towards Cuba Street we stopped at an awesome little shop called Good House Keeping. It’s a little independent run home good store that hit all the right notes in design + vintage + eco friendly + satisfying, especially for a Type A neat freak like myself.
We got a mini broom and dustpan (kids will be doing Molly’s under-table work when we get back), two white tin bathroom cups with gold rims and a spinning top each for Willa and James (they played with the whole bucket so we felt we should buy a couple).
Across Cuba from Good Housekeeping was Heyday Beer Co, which Margaret and I had both separately eyed earlier in the afternoon. We each had a beer, the kids split a lemonade while playing Corn Hole and we indulged in a Crisps and Kiwi Dip (potato chips and onion dip). The Wellington happy hour crowd took over the tables around us.
We made a quick stop at an all-too-organic grocery store to pickup dinner. We ended up getting a couple scoops of wheat pasta for the kids and a pumpkin / feta roll of some sort for me. We prepped everything back at the room which is like a mini apartment with a semi-functional kitchen. Margaret nibbled on crackers and cheese which would be her preference every night!
We watched the trailer for Frozen II before bed — getting pumped for a 4pm Thanksgiving showtime tomorrow!
MISC:
A joke Willa made up today…
Q: What did the plug say to his buddy?
A: Hey, wire! (get it, haywire)
I asked James where he believes he’s improved the most out of three areas: math, reading, catching balls. We’ve practiced all three a lot.
He said reading.
