December 20, 2010, 9am
Vanessa and I set off for Christchurch at the beginning of our long (and exciting) Christmas and New Year's holiday. Amidst the Glee sing-a-long and the chips and truffle gorging, we did see some stunning scenery - the colors were amazing!
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| no idea what the white field is, but we also passed a yellow field, and we think the purple is lavender - so pretty! |
Once we got to Christchurch, I went to
jail. No, my working visa is not in jeopardy, but it is a pretty cool backpackers. It's an old jail that they renovated into a backpackers. They kept a couple cells in their original condition, but they added clerestory windows and large picture windows, plus everything's white and bright so you don't actually feel as though you're doing time.
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| looking towards the back of the jail (there's a pool table in the loft!) - and towards the front of the jail, nice, eh? |
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| one of the original cells - doesn't actually seem big enough for 2 |
After checking in to jail, I was on my own - so I wandered all over. I went to Cathedral Square where, just in case I was completely out of touch, they reminded me that the 2011 Rugby World Cup would be happening in NZ.
The Cathedral was pretty - I'm sure the angels in the nave were supposed to be the eyecatchers...
But I have to pull the architecture card and state that I much preferred the ceiling in the apse.
After the cathedral, I did break down and stop at a Starbucks :-/ for my soy chai and to plan my afternoon. I ended up walking through Victoria Square and then over to the Botanical Gardens where I got a wee bit carried away with the flowers...
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| Victoria Square, and a punter |
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| Flowers, me and a sculpture in the Botanical Gardens |
That evening, I stopped at The Bog, an Irish pub that happened to have trivia night on Mondays. Lucky me, I shagged a table and was immediately entered as my own team for trivia night. The first round was all about movies, so I cleaned up, even though I was alone. The trivia guys seemed to take some pity/interest in my trivia team of one, and subsequently helped me out with the Kiwi-specific questions (i.e. Which town received the New World Town of the Year award in 2010? Motueka - duh). The table next to me (there were 3 people there) started to cooperate with me a bit. They helped me with Kiwi and sports questions, I helped them out with grade B American High School movies and American sports team names. It was a pretty good time - especially when one of the trivia guys came down and crossed out my incorrect answers and wrote the correct ones. So, fortunately, I didn't come in last place! I tied for second to last, but considering the other groups probably had multiple people, I didn't feel too shabby about my performance.
That night at the backpackers, I was sleeping in the top bunk over an epic snorer - I mean EPIC. He snored the way cartoon characters snore - loud and obnoxious so you don't think it's real. He also started speaking mid snore. A good 10 second one-sided conversation. But to deserve the title "epic"? He snored and sang a scale! No joke. He fa-la-la'd his way up a scale before a brief second of silence and then the snoring recommenced. Epic. Truly epic. And really hard not to laugh at. Ah, the joys of sleeping in backpackers with strangers :)
The next morning, I flew to Auckland.
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