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 …