On Dec 9th I turned the big 3-0. I decided that we should make it a fun day and hit the museum so we went to the War Memorial Museum which isn't what it sounds like. While there are some Memorials on the top floor it is NZ's Smithsonian as far as I can tell. They have a little bit of everything in it from antiques to natural history to paintings to war paraphernalia. Some of my favorite things were the girl scout patches, the barcelona chair, and the volcano exhibit (which was great). The whole museum was about the size of a single museum in the Smithsonian but if you compare the size of the US to NZ it was a good sized museum and very well done. I was a little surprised at the tiny room that was the Holocaust memorial. I got the feeling that the Holocaust didn't have the same affect here as it did in the US and the memorial felt a little like an after thought.

Unfortunately we also got some crappy news which put a little black cloud over the day. The marina we were planning on taking the boat to insisted on charging us the 15% GST that we are exempt from paying so we were back to square one as to where to put the boat.

After the museum we went back to the boat and relaxed while trying to solve our boat haul-out issue.

I finished the day with a great lasagna and glass of wine at Portofino and White Christmas.
Here's hoping my 30s will be great!

Check out the pictures from the museum