This post­ing brought to you by Sandy Mamoli (deeply hon­oured inaug­ur­al guest blog­ger).

Have you got some­thing to say about Wel­ling­ton? Would you like to guest on the Wel­ling­tonista? Drop us a line and we’ll add you to the door list.

I dis­covered the Wel­ling­tonista on day two after my arrival. It took them almost year to dis­cov­er me …

In fact, it took them exactly a year. I cel­eb­rated my one year New Zea­l­and anniversary last Fri­day with the con­tra­dict­ory emo­tions of someone who sim­ul­tan­eously feels like a true long-term Wel­ling­to­ni­an and a rook­ie who has just stepped off the boat.

I am still strug­gling with a wee bit of cul­ture shock – com­plain­ing about Wel­ling­ton’s pro­vin­ci­al­ity and second-world infra­struc­ture while mar­veling at the vibe, friend­li­ness and genu­ine feel­ing of com­munity one can only find in Wel­ling­ton (I think).

Apart from being with a Kiwi part­ner who has been too long out of the coun­try to remem­ber any­thing use­ful and hav­ing read halfway through a travel guide I did­n’t know much about New Zea­l­and a year ago. And my former life in Vienna, Copen­ha­gen and Ams­ter­dam proved to be way too lim­ited an exper­i­ence of the world to shel­ter me from the sur­prises I was in for.

What threw me most were the tech­no­lo­gic­al ana­chron­isms in the form of slow inter­net con­nec­tions, broad­band caps and parts of Wel­ling­ton being without any mobile cov­er­age what­so­ever. I had­n’t come across a dial-up con­nec­tion for at least half a dec­ade and def­in­itely was­n’t pre­pared for the bizarre “Back to the Future” time travel exper­i­ence in a coun­try I was told used to be on the abso­lute fore­front of the inter­net revolu­tion.

I some­how learned how to cope with liv­ing in the tech­no­lo­gic­al back­wa­ters but I am still strug­gling tre­mend­ously with the stand­ard of hous­ing in Wel­ling­ton: Wooden houses without insu­la­tion, double glaz­ing or cent­ral heat­ing. You have to be kid­ding me! Espe­cially as one should think that the col­lect­ive sport of com­plain­ing about the weath­er would give people a hint that Wel­ling­ton, con­tra­dict­ory to com­mon belief, is not a trop­ic­al island. I won­der if per­haps New Zea­l­and immig­ra­tion could con­tem­plate issu­ing free visas to Scand­inavi­an archi­tects …

Des­pite the above Wel­ling­ton is a vibrant and wickedly worldly city that provides every oppor­tun­ity to lead a rather enjoy­able and pleas­ant life: Not being much of a nature girl myself I can­’t but appre­ci­ate the amaz­ing beaches around the city – espe­cially since the unex­pec­ted dis­cov­ery of the pur­pose of wet suits. My latest idea of a close to per­fect life­style now includes liv­ing in a Scand­inavi­an house right across the city beach on Ori­ent­al bay (dona­tions wel­come).

If someone asked me what I appre­ci­ated most about Wel­ling­ton I would­n’t point out nature or the vibrant arts scene, great as they are, but the num­ber of small inter­con­nec­ted com­munit­ies in the city. Espe­cially the tech­no­logy, inter­net and blog­ger scenes are unlike any­thing I have ever exper­i­enced in Europe. The amount of know­ledge shar­ing achieved through vari­ous inform­al gath­er­ings such as Kiwi Foo Camp and ran­dom cof­fees is truly incred­ible. I believe I have been exposed to more inter­est­ing ideas with­in my broad­er pro­fes­sion­al field since I came here than dur­ing my last 10 years in Europe.

My per­son­al the­ory as to why the feel­ing of com­munity is so strong and why know­ledge flows so freely with­in Wel­ling­ton is that kiwis are con­stantly aware of their remote loc­a­tion and are pos­sibly over­com­pens­at­ing for a com­plex caused by liv­ing “on the edge of the world”. They some­how have to prove they exist which not only mani­fests itself in the shared goal of help­ing each oth­er achiev­ing some­thing remark­able but also in the daily dis­play of logos and images rep­res­ent­ing any­thing kiwi. Is there any oth­er coun­try in the world in which wear­ing a t‑shirt with the logo of your own coun­try is not only socially but also fash­ion­ably accept­able (read required)?

For all the good and the bad I have learned to accept that I live in a vil­lage where it is impossible to have lunch in the CBD without bump­ing into at least three people I know, where my life is more pub­lic than it has ever been and where I have been freez­ing in my own apart­ment more than ever before.

I won’t ever pub­licly admit it but I actu­ally quite like liv­ing Wel­ling­ton …