It

My twenty-five minute walk to work is actually a significant part of my day. In celebration of having spent five hundred minutes walking to and from the Royal Society of New Zealand building, I have compiled my top five hundred (and by five hundred I mean ten) thoughts or moments or whatever that have come to me these past two and a half weeks.

1. Why do people read on their Kindles or Kobo E-readers or whatever while walking? Looking at a phone I can understand, but full-out dedicating yourself to reading a novel while hustling down a busy street? I don’t know if I should applaud the reader for his dedication or the author for her engrossing writing.
2. Cookies. There’s a store along Lambton Quay that is called “Mrs. Higgins Oven Fresh Cookies” or “Mrs. Higgins Biscuits” or “Mrs. Higgins Foodgasm Emporium” or something. The premise of the store is cookies and it is open to the street and it will make the fastest-walking pedestrian stop and smell the glorious smell of be right back sorry I’m drooling on my keyboard just thinking about it. Anyway, one day I will stop there and buy a cookie and eat it even though it is only 9:00am (who said that there was a restriction on when to eat cookies? …Mom…). And there is a small Indian man who works there in the morning and when I buy my cookie I will say “thank you, Mrs. Higgins” and hopefully we will laugh because I really doubt his name is actually Mrs. Higgins and that’s the funny part.
3. I usually have to wait at about 3 crosswalks on my way to work. The pedestrian rules aren’t the same in New Zealand as they are in Canada and you have to wait for the walking man to say go. As a result, I have gone back to my track and field sprinting roots (for those of you who don’t know about my running past, it’s true, I sprinted… sprunt?) and prepare for the green man to show up so that I can safely cross. People’s reactions times here are horrible and don’t realize that they can walk for anywhere from 1 to 2 seconds, so I figure I have saved upwards of two minutes with my preparedness.
4. I find it really ironic that there are usually a dozen smokers outside the building with the sign “Environment House” in front of it.
5. It is always good to walk behind someone with a good pace. It gives you a break while also challenging you to keep up, allowing you to arrive at your destination in good time. I’ve only been able to do this twice, though I have tried thrice. One guy was just too fast (I know, I was surprised that there was a Wellington walker faster than me as well).
6. Layers. Whenever my dad goes hiking in the winter he wears about a bajillion layers and I’m sure he ends up taking most of them off because even though it is winter, it gets hot fast. So that’s the mindset that has been drilled into my sister and myself, but in Wellington it is a little different… if you are walking at a good clip and you have a coat on, you’re probably going to sweat a lot if you are me. The entire walk faces the sun so it is boiling. Then on the other hand, you’ll need a coat if it decides to rain. Ok, so this point should really just be called “layer” but it is something I believe strongly in.
7. Happy thoughts. And just being positive. Sometimes work can get a little tedious just in its nature (staring at a computer screen for hours on end), so you just have to go into the day thinking about the good things that will happen. And walking home you get to think about relaxing and eating and spending time with your sister (d’aww)/
8. Something I really like is making eye contact with strangers. Not in a creepy way, but just doing it anyway. You kind of get a look into the person’s life for a second or two depending on how or if they look back at you, how long they keep eye contact, if they stop and then look back, if they do it from far away or at the last second… and there is something nice about being in a city and knowing that you aren’t going to see anyone you know at all. So you can be a little guilty and make someone feel awkward for a few seconds or wonder if they are purposely doing the same to you.
9. Keep to the left. New Zealand drives on the left, so rules of the sidewalk are the same. It has gotten to the point that I naturally move to the left, which is sort of nice/scary because it makes me realize how fast my Canadian self is leaving me, eh? sweet as!
10. Think. I know that this is a really meta point being that this post is about things I think about while walking, but just thinking is one of them. Thinking about things that are different than cookies and crosswalks that really allow you to reflect on what you are doing, how you are reacting to it, and the impact it is having on your life – whether “it” is positive, negative, constructive, or unhelpful. And you have lots of time to do this because there are so many “its” in life that you could spend five hundred thousand minutes walking to work and you still wouldn’t be anywhere near running out.