Wellington Adventures
I'm currently sitting in Wellington airport, New Zealand. It's the most civilised airport I've ever seen. Rather than standing in a queue forever with tickets, there are kiosks which weigh one's bag and prints baggage and boarding passes. One then places the bags on a conveyor belt, and walks to the departure gate. It's wonderfully laid back, with no screening for weapons, sharp objects, or dangerous liquids like toothpaste and coffee. At the departure lounge there are plenty of power points, and a completely open access point (albeit with the odd SSID of router). In about 15 minutes I'll be on my plane to I'm on my way to Rotorua, where I'll be a tourist for a whole 24 hours.
For those who haven't been following my dents or trips on dopplr, I'm ostensibly in New Zealand for Baa Camp, but that's not until the weekend. Until then, I'm travelling, and mostly staying with geeks while doing so.
For the last two nights, I've been staying with Grant and Anna McLean, who have a beautiful house and the nicest and best behaved kids I've ever met. Grant runs the local Wellington Perl Mongers, where both Jacinta and myself had the honour of speaking last night.
As I discovered, Wellington also has the most civilised Perl Mongers group I've ever seen. They provide beer and munchies during the meeting. I was very glad to see both Brenda, Andrew, and Sam at the meeting; Wellington is certainly spoilt when it comes to having distinguished people. It's also spoilt for cafes; I could hardly walk five steps in the city centre without encountering a barista.
My next public appearance will be at Waikato LUG on Thursday. If you're in the area, I'd love to see you there.
