Wellington, New Zealand

Known as Windy Welly, and should adopt the motto: "Our wind will punch you in the face."  Holy crap it's windy there.  It is the capital of New Zealand and sits on the southernmost point of North Island (New Zealand is two large islands, try and guess the name of the other). 

The Beehive.  Unique and ugly.  A government building of some sort.  It sits next to the Parliment building and other government buildings.

Neat little door handle.  

Old St. Paul's Church.  

This US Marine flag hangs inside Old St. Paul's Church to commemorate the help they gave New Zealand during WWII.  

These wooden "gingerbread" row houses on Tinakori Road are neat to see.  They sit near the US Embassy, where I got in trouble for taking pictures.  

An alleyway between Terrace Road and Lambton Quay. Terrace Road runs parallel to and sits some 100 feet or so above Lambton Quay. We had to take an elevator down about a dozen floors to get down.

The Te Papa Museum of New Zealand houses Maori history and artifacts.  The Maori tribe was native to New Zealand when Captain James Cook first visited New Zealand in 1769. At first the British just wanted to exploit New Zealand's wealth of natural resources, but eventually so many British subjects were buying land and settling in New Zealand that the British Government decided that they had to take action. Major wars occurred between the two groups until the Maori finally surrendered and signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. This sounds familiar to another country's history.  At the museum, there was a huge exhibit on this treaty, and the controversy that still exists between the Maori people and the British crown.

A waka- a Maori river canoe.