To Wellington and Back

惠灵顿三日游

Day Three: Finale

第三天：大教堂，大炮，Te Papa博物馆

I don’t think I’m that kind guy who’s exceptionally good at keeping promises. I mean, last night I promised myself that I’m going to go for a run six o’clock in the morning, but immediately after that promise I realized that I was just lying to myself. Well, it wasn’t technically my fault that I couldn’t go for a run: the hotel alarm clock is notoriously hard to set and in the end, I realized I couldn’t do it.

我这个人好像不太习惯遵守我的那些承诺。昨天晚上我答应自己要明天一大早跑步的，但是不幸的是，答应完了以后， 我马上发现我其实仅仅给自己撒了一个谎而已。而且这个宾馆的闹钟我根本不知道怎么设，后来这个计划也就不了了之了。

It was rather unfortunate that when I ‘tried’ setting the alarm clock, I somewhat managed to set the clock one hour forward—which consequently meant that we were awake an hour before we should, thus losing one hour of precious sleep and thus meaning mum was growling at me for at least an hour. I think I’d rather leave the running till I’m back in Auckland. After all Wellington does have some pretty high winds and I’d prefer not getting blown off the harbor.

不幸的是，我在尝试设这个钟的时候，一不小心把时间调前了一个钟头，结果我们被迫六点半就起来了。为此老妈把我骂了一顿。看来还是万恶的宾馆把我弄醒了。跑步{zh0}还是回到奥克兰再跑，毕竟惠灵顿风实在太大了。

Our first stop was at the St. Mary of the Angels Cathedral (or church, but the building was seemed so majestic and ‘holy’ that it deserves to be called a cathedral; least that’s what I think). Now you might be quite surprised by this, but our group is technically a catholic group (even though the behaviors of some of the ‘Catholics’ are rather upsetting) and we have church on Sundays. I rather liked this stop at the St. Mary of the Angels Cathedral, because every thing seems to have a spiritual quality to it, a tranquil, almost mystical atmosphere that made the whole process of worshipping and praising the lord a heap more meaningful. Mum said that if I pray at a church that I’ve never been to before, my prayers will most likely be answered. I hope she’s right!

我们今天‘玩的’{dy}站是新西兰很有名的一座大教堂：St. Mary of the Angels大教堂（好像仅仅是一个教区教堂而已，但是看起来十分的宏伟而且极其庄严）。事实上，我们这个旅游团是一个‘天主教团体’，不过这些‘信徒’在教堂里的表现就不敢恭维了。我们在这里做了一台弥撒，心里感觉非常的舒畅，在如此漂亮的教堂里祈祷，感觉就是不一样。老妈说如果在一座新的教堂里祈祷，所祈求的东西上帝肯定会给的。我希望我的梦想成真！

(Coincidentally, we actually found Father Barry here! Father Barry has been the priest of the St. Mark’s Church not far from our house and we used to go to his service every weekend—too bad I didn’t recognize him and it was mum who realized it was him)

我们在这里居然碰到了以前在我们教区工作的神父，Father Barry，他居然转到这里来了，真是巧合！我看他觉得有些面熟，但是没看出来。老妈一眼就看出来了，向他打招呼——与此同时我已经在大巴士里打瞌睡了。

Our next stop is at the ‘highest point of Wellington’ where they commemorate a guy called ‘Byrd’. This guy apparently helped setting up the Treaty of Antarctica and invented the Wind-Temperature Relationship Chart (or at least I think that’s what it’s called). I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt when I was climbing the hill and the wind literally sheared away any body heat I had left, so when I reached the summit I was basically a chilly hunk of meat dressed in clothes. The view was fantastic: you could see the azure ocean, the bustling metropolis, the rolling hills and the dimming contours of the South Island, though it’s too bad that I could only take one look because the wind was literally blowing into my face! It felt much better when I went back down the hill and I found the time to take a photo with a cannon—a cannon that used to be fired everyday at midday to keep the time.

我们下一站到了‘惠灵顿{zg}点’，在那里有一尊雕像，纪念一位叫做‘Byrd’的科学家，据说他发明了一种计算风速的方程式，而且还促进了南极条约的签订。这里的风可真大！我爬上顶峰的时候，都已经快站不住了，感觉像一块穿着T恤的‘冻肉’一样，风非常的冷！我承认这里的景色非常的美，惠灵顿繁忙的市区，深蓝的大海，巍峨的高山和远方的南岛，这里都可以看的一清二楚。我虽然只看了一眼（风实在是太大了），但是这里给我留下了深刻的印象。我在这里还跟一尊大跑照了一张合影。

If there’s a place in Wellington that I’ve always wanted to go to, it’s the Te Papa Museum. They are currently holding an exhibition with artifacts unearthed from the ruins of Pompeii and we decided that this was going to be the piece de resistance, so to speak! There was even a woman playing on a hand accordion just so that we feel as if we’re in Italy (though I doubt they had hand accordions back then).

惠灵顿有一个地方我非常想去，那就是Te Papa新西兰国家博物馆。这个月Te Papa正在举行一个庞贝遗迹博物展览，我相信一定会很精彩。博物馆好像还雇了一个人来拉手风琴，感觉还真的有点像意大利呢！

I must say that I’ve already seen a lot of the objects at the Pompeii exhibition from those books and websites I read and visited back when I had to do a research project about the Roman Empire. It was however, a lot different when I looked at the real thing, for those objects sitting in front of you are actual things they used thousands of years ago and they seemed charmingly familiar. Romans were brilliant architects of the plumbing system and were masters of making life comfortable, therefore many artifacts shown are reminiscent of the kind of things we use in everyday life (I could take one home now and it wouldn’t feel out of place—except for the fact it’s been buried in volcanic ashes for thousands of years, of course), such as vases, bowls, oil lamps and even a section of lead pipe that was used to transfer water from the aqueducts to the homes of the Romans.

这里展览的很多东西，我其实以前在书上都已经看过了，但是亲眼看到这些物件感觉还是不大一样的。那时候的罗马人对于生活品质的追求跟现代人差不了多远，展出的很多东西感觉跟我们家里用的坛坛罐罐没什么不同。罗马人也是非常聪明的建筑师和工程师，他们设计的排水系统足以和现代排水系统媲美。这里展出了很多日常用品，这包括坛坛罐罐，锅碗瓢盆，小油灯，甚至还展出了一节下水管。

We entered a darker room that contained the plaster casts of the victims of the Mt. Vesuvius eruption. The only light came from the tiny lamps that illuminated the plaster casts themselves. For me it was a rather disturbing experience to see how agonizing it really would have been for those poor people to have died to suffocation. They were obviously either trying to run for it, or were trying to cover their face with their tunics, before they were buried under layers and layers of ashes and molten rocks. Their last impressions on this planet are forever preserved in plaster, as if time had stood still at the moment they came to their demise. I was speechless.

看这个展览，印象最深的不外乎那些庞贝死者的‘石膏化石’。老实讲看这些人的遗体心里感觉有些沉重。这里的死者，有些是窒息而死，有些被火山灰活埋，有些是在逃跑的时候被火山石冲倒了。他们死亡的那一刻，被火山灰xx的保存，他们葬身的那一秒钟成了永恒。时光在那一刻不再存在，时间被彻底冻结，成了被后人参观的牺牲品。

One of the good things at the Te Papa Museum is that almost every single exhibition is free (though the Pompeii exhibition did ask for a fee as most of the objects are from Italy) and mum and I took the time to explore the museum in full. There was an exhibition about the formation of New Zealand and how seismic movements created the contours of our nation (there was even a house that shook from side to side to give you the experience of going through an earthquake—it was gay). Another exhibition told of the history of the animals in New Zealand and how unique they are from the rest of the world. The colossal squid exhibition was slightly disappointing, because once you get up and close, the squid doesn’t look so colossal after all.  

到Te Papa博物馆参观的好处就是这里大多数的展览都是免费的，我就干脆把这里的展览看了个遍。这里的展览很多，包括：地震展览（不过地震体验屋感觉很差劲），新西兰动物展览，还有世界{zd0}的乌贼展览。老实讲乌贼根本没有想象的那样大，而且看起来都有一点腐烂了，悲剧呀。

I think the real highlight of our visit to the museum has got to be the modern arts section. I really do think that art is dying. People are just no longer aware of the kind of crap they’re producing. For me, art is supposed to express in a way that is most acceptable (or understandable) so that the public can understand what you’re trying to actually express. Picasso made his paintings difficult to understand, but at least they’re still understandable—what I saw here at Te Papa was completely meaningless. Someone (renowned artist as they say) painted a couple of strips on canvas and calls it art. Someone else drew a cross on a black background and says that is the most brilliant creation he’d ever thought of. People like them should be sent to an asylum, at least that’s what I think. Make your art understandable! Or don’t be an artist at all.

应该说这里的{zd0}的亮点{jd1}是现代艺术展览。我感觉艺术已经快死了，所谓的艺术家们根本不知道他们在搞什么东西。艺术就是应该让人知道你到底在干什么。虽然说毕加索的画理解起来有些困难但是毕竟还是可以理解的，不象现代艺术越来越SB了。这里的艺术连想表达什么东西都不知道，画一杠就可以算是艺术了。这些所谓的现代艺术家都应该送到疯人院才对。

The ‘Reactive Architecture’ exhibition really opened my eyes to how future architecture would look like. A couple of students from the University of Auckland thought of producing a façade that can change color to suit the mood of the room. An architecture office in Berlin produced a wall (at least that’s what I think it was) that allows light in or out depending on how much light is received by the individual ‘umbrellas’ that makes up the wall itself. My favorite one was that of an apartment block that is mounted on a giant sail-like structure which rotates so every room could receive the sun at any time of the day.

这里的‘复合建筑’展览却让我打开了眼界。这里展出了很多未来建筑的蓝图，一群来自奥克兰大学（简称奥大）的学生设计了一种能转换颜色的天棚。一名德国建筑师设计了一堵用雨伞做出来的墙，太阳光如果晒得太厉害雨伞就可以自动张开。奥克兰甚至还有人想出来把公寓设在一个大帆上面，随着太阳转动。

Te Papa was our last stop at Wellington. We headed towards the Wellington Airport and the flight back was incredibly quick (compared to our long, if not almost agonizing train trip) and by eight o’clock, we are back in Auckland. The great adventure was over.

Te Papa是我们的{zh1}一站。从惠灵顿飞回奥克兰的飞机一个小时就到了，不像火车做了整整{yt}！

冒险终于结束了。我已经成了传说。

* * *

My trip to Wellington has been a bittersweet one. On the sweet side, I found that Wellington is probably more suitable for me than Auckland is—in terms of the metropolitan lifestyle, of course. Just thinking of going for a run in the morning, coming back for a coffee and spending the morning taking a good read at the National Library (then it’s socializing in the afternoon) excites me, but to be honest, Wellington is too small for me and even though it is an exciting place, it’s not the best place for me to live in. It’s just not big enough.

惠灵顿算是我觉得比较好玩的地方了。惠灵顿这个城市很适合我，早上跑跑步，运动运动，喝喝咖啡，读读书，跟朋友出去玩，非常合我的心意。不过惠灵顿比起奥克兰还是小了些，如果以后发展还是去大城市好。

不过这次的旅游团实在是不能忍！不仅讲话大声，而且非常的不礼貌，把像我跟老妈这样的安分守纪的旅游者都弄的脸上抹黑！这是我{zh1}一次跟旅游团出去旅游，以后要旅游就跟朋友出去。我当业余导游总没问题吧？