~ The Best Dinner North of Antarctica

Well, it's officially embarassing. I think I'm picking up a Kiwi accent. Half the time I do it purposely. The for the other alarming half it's not conscious at all. My traveling buddies smile and are tolerant, but it DOES make me wonder when and how it will end.

We woke this morning to the sound of pouring rain, but by the time we had rolled out of bed, taken showers, had a lovely breakfast at our B&B, and gotten our stuff to the car, it had cleared up quite nicely. The day wasn't warm exactly, but it was sunny and beautiful out. We started out at the International Antarctic Center (which included a romp in the "Storm Room" - nothing like the real Antarctica, but enough like Wisconsin winters to be fun, Tom trying to eat a live penguin and failing miserably because of the darn cuteness of the thing, and learning all sorts of bits about Antarctica that we never knew [like that it's the dryest continent on earth, with fire being one of the biggest hazards of the place!]). That brought us to lunch time, where we met up with the other group and tried for the second time to eat at a highly recommended restaruant, Hay's (the Indonesian last night was second choice when Hay's was closed yesterday), found it still closed, and wound up eating at a comfy little pub. Then we went for a grand, long walk along the Avon River, which ended in the Botanical Gardens with a quick glance through the History of Christchurch Museum. The gardens were incredible - and I, at least, am hoping we get another shot at them before we leave the South Island - many of the roses (including some blue ones!) look like they're about to bloom. The trees were HUGE! We bid the other group farewell - we probably won't hook up with them again till we finish our 4-day hike next Sunday or Monday.


We then took off for what will definitely be a highlight of our stay in this incredible country. Neil (a friend of mine from Appleton) grew up in Christchurch, so when we called his sister Caitriona yesterday, she invited us for dinner this evening. Wow. We met her, her husband Ian, her (and Neil's) mum Alice, and her son Sam. They were so fun and informative. We talked for hours and they fed us an incredible meal (rack of lamb, venison sausages, foccacia bread, asparagus, roasted potatoes and tons more), followed up with a New Zealand specialty that Ian had made: Pavlova topped with boysenberries. I'm kicking myself that I didn't take a picture of it, but it was lovely - merengue topped with homemade whipping cream and fruit. If we had to leave NZ tomorrow, that visit alone would have made coming here worth it!
Tomorrow we have no certain plans whatsoever - we just know that we want to end up in Te Anau (on the opposite side of the island) by Wed!

Be a tidy Kiwi

As you may or may not know, New Zealanders refer to themselves as Kiwis. Kiwis (non-human ones) are small, flightless birds native only to NZ. "Kiwi" is also what they (the humans) renamed the fruit to when they wanted to market it worldwide! When we were in the food court of the Manakau shopping center today, Terry bought soda in a can and we had fun reading its label. My favorite - their encouragement not to litter (presumably with that can), came with the appeal, "BE A TIDY KIWI." That is an obligation and responsibility that we will undertake to discharge as honorably as we possibly can during our stay here.

And, yes, we've made it safely here to Christchurch. Today was a day of travel. We had a delayed flight in Appleton, a long layover in LA, and then got to Auckland later than expected - so took a short jaunt to the Manakau shopping center before hopping on a flight to Christchurch. So if we count wait times, the journey here took us... (calculating here...) 36 hours. Of course, New Zealand is 18 (although I think it's 17 now that Daylight Savings has presumbly struck back there) ahead of Wisconsin time, so between the mad travel changes and adjusting to being on the opposite side of the world, we're pretty bushed tonight.

We went to dinner tonight at an Indonesian restaurant (incredible!), and then barely made it back to our respective resting spots for the evening. *yawn!*. G' night!

... and we're off!

Already delayed flights and other normal travel weirdness have struck, but all of us are here, have tickets, and are happy to be on our way! Some of us thought it would be fun to try to stay up all night last night watching Lord of the Rings and packing, others were muche more smarte. We won't say who was who!

Finally, something to talk about

The weather!! New Zealand time & weather are now on the blog sidebar. I only want to include weather from one city (because of how much space it takes up!) - and since we start off in Christchurch, guess we'll use that one!

Well, we know we're going. We know things we'd like to do. We even have a few tee-niny reservations made. But we have a heap of planning still to do! Yikes!