this morning we walked over to moore wilson's to see if they sell film. we went to the second floor because we hadn't explored that area yet. damn, this place really is like costco in a way, but centered around household goods in a suzie homemaker way. as we were walking back on courtenay place, i saw a few signs that i hadn't noticed before. i made sure to take pictures as i am collecting new zealand road signs and other signs of interest.

no liquor for rugby fans

saw this during the bus ride

we took the bus over to the parliament building area. we passed by the high court, national library, and went to the wellington cathedral of st. paul because it's supposed to be a church worth seeing. i don't know how to describe the inside other than it had an art deco feel. it is 3 churches in 1. there is a small side church called the lady church. i can't remember what the third part is, probably because we didn't see it or it merged in with something else along the course of history.

wellington cathedral of st. paul

after that, we walked over to the parliament library to take a free tour of parliament house and library but not the beehive. it was 12:10pm and we had just missed the 12 noon tour. luckily new zealanders are pretty laid back and easy going so they let us join the tour once it came by the lobby again. the only thing we missed was talking about how the building got reinforced for earthquake safety. big deal. i am from california! the tour wasn't very long and it left you wanting to learn more and see more i guess. that's a good thing because you don't want to be on a tour that drags and makes you sleepy. we bought some things at the gift shop so that way we had some stuff that had 'parliament' or 'house of representatives' on it.

beehive, parliament library and house

sculpture just outside of parliament buildings

on the way back, we walked past another war memorial. i swear, new zealand must have more war memorials per capita than anywhere else "in the world" (said with extra emphasis). even the smaller towns have something. i find it odd for being such a small country, they can't have possibly been in that many wars. but because it is a small country, it seems most of their troops get injured or die when they do engage in combat. oops. most of the war memorials i have seen are for the two world wars or this other battle that i'm not really knowledgeable about because i think it was something britain fought in and not america.

in the evening, we made a liquor run. we went to one of those stores that only sell liquor because we want to bring back some new zealand beers for family members that drink beer. personally, i can't stand the stuff but i have been trying it in new zealand to say that i tried it and gave it another chance. i gave up beer when i was about 4 years old. haven't liked it since. we bought common man working class sort of beers because that's the kind of stuff our families drink. once i bought my mom a set of higher quality beers from around the world and she didn't like any of them. we bought tui, speight's, and steinlager.