Saturday, February 17: Christchurch

Laura: What day is it?
Me: (pause) ... The 17th, I think.
Laura: Saturday?
Me: (pause) ... probably.

(Later in the day, I will give someone selling me gloves the wrong date for her receipt. Oops...)

I couldn't quite sleep the whole night. Eventually I realized that this was because 5:00 am NZDT is the same as 11:00 am EST, when my body would normally be saying "I don't care what happened last night, it's time to get up." Fortunately, this still added up to a real night's sleep, and has probably mostly dealt with jet lag.

The breakfast buffet was pretty similar to what we got in the U.K. — i.e. missing some of my favorites from a U.S. breakfast buffet, but probably much more healthy for it. I did not try the Vegemite on my toast.

There were poached eggs at the buffet! My brain first tried to identify them as buffalo mozzarellas.

At 9 sharp we called up the Punting company, and got scheduled [for Punting On the Avon, the first of our "freedom of choice" activities] for 9:30. Our navigation was successful, despite a last minute attempt by a pigeon to distract us by alighting on the head of a statue near the river. This moment was full of omens. Our navigation would decline as the day wore on; and everywhere, we would explore the implications of digital camera storage space being (essentially) free.

Dave's camera, in particular, is a New Toy, and thus he must take pictures of all the ducks.

While punting, we found that the punter was an American Football fan sufficient to know that Boston is Patriots territory, and that the Patriots should have won that darned AFC championship game, where they led by 18 at the half. He also knew that A-Rod chokes in October, which marked him as a savvy baseball fan as well. He also told us that Auckland is hopelessly sprawled, and that housing prices in Christchurch are going through the roof.

(This comment will be repeated by our tour guide for an awful lot of places we pass through. Nearly as frequently as the comments about imported animals turning into pests.)

After the punting expedition, we head on towards the Botanic Gardens, pausing only to be tempted, and have our pocketses lightened, at a craft fair. The Botanic Gardens were very pretty, including a spectacular Dahlia display and a rose garden without about a hundred varieties of rose.

(I took particular pictures of the orange-brown Hot Chocolate variety for the readers who are fans of hot chocolate.)

We briefly thought that we might have lost Dave in the Building of Carnivorous Plants, but it turned out later that he'd found a mysterious second floor instead.

Near the Botanic Gardens is the Arts Center, which looks like a connected European renaissance university campus, or a church. Among its attractions is a Fudge (Kitchen?) which you could get a tour of on a weekday. But not to fear! The Fudge Outlet store was still open, still giving out samples. Very yummy samples. Derrick and Laura bought some, while Dave hung around hoping for more samples. There was also a Wool and Yarn store, but it was a little more spinning-oriented, rather than knitting-oriented.

Eventually I expect to be tempted into getting a merino/possum something, but not yet. "Possum"s here are, while serious pests, cute long-haired things with very soft fur. Until this was explained to me, I was totally boggling at knitting with possum hair — there are tons of possum/merino blend knitted things, and they're all very soft and comfy.

We headed back toward Cathedral Square, catching lunch at a little Japanese place. One thing that's surprised me a bit about Christchurch is the frequency of ethnic restaurants. Given that Christchurch isn't a transit hub (except for Antarctica) I had expected a little less variety. American chains are here too. There are, of course, at least two Starbucks's.

Those things which are spelled "gyros" at Greek restaurants in the U.S. are spelled "yeeros" at Greek restaurants here. Like "entree", it makes sense.

In Cathedral Square, I got a hat as part of my anti-sunburn strategy. The upper part of the hat is a canvas-mesh type thing, which lets the air through, which is brilliant. I like my hat.

It was now, in the early afternoon, where our navigation and memory skills started to fray... First, we looked at a list of interesting things to do, and determined that some of them were away from the city centre. We'd heard that there was a municipal bus system to get to these places, but the bus system here is apparently a closely guarded secret. Even the information kiosks had links for everything but the city buses. From an obscure hint in a tourist guide book, we started back and forth, spiraling in on the central bus exchange. Once we got there, it was a little late to be heading out. Alas...

We finish the afternoon with side quests, like finding the "Mouse Love Tea" tea place, that has hamsters on the menu, and finding the mill wheel on the Possum-Proof Island in the Avon, and then watching the ducks some more.

We eventually regroup, and (finally!) meet our tour guide. We are not, as it turns out, most of the tour, but we are about 1/3 of it. The fact that we are all together goes a long way to explain "why are there so many Americans on this tour?" which had been previously puzzling her, though the fact that nine of us are from Boston, two are from Salt Lake City, and one is from San Francisco, removes some of the previously won enlightenment. A random tour-goer pokes me with his baggage tag and says I'm very quiet. At a loss for words, I prove him right.

Tomorrow: Mount Cook!