Friday in NZ

Another day in Christchurch. I’ll have to admit, I’m enjoying myself but I’m ready to get to the ice. I think we’ve walked 100 miles or more over the last few days. We’ve also eaten our way through NZ and would probably benefit from a bland dining facility not to mention a gym! There is a gym here at the Commodore but I’ve found myself too busy walking across NZ to even find the gym here. Today, we were all loitering in the hall outside of our room. I believe this was bothering the housekeeping staff. We started talking to her, making friends and she finally admitted that she had never had people just standing outside their rooms like us. I woke this morning and dressed in a wool sweater and jeans. Jennifer came out and asked if I had stepped outside today. I had not. The housekeeper piped in and told us that it was going to be near 20 degrees (Celsius), she did her own conversion and said “that’s near 90 Fahrenheit”. Twenty is more like seventy. So that became our running joke all day…”it’s damn near 90 today”. I did end up changing and it was a beautiful day…just not 90. Our plan today was to hit the mall. We went to the Westfield Mall near the hotel. Just outside the mall on Riccarton Rd we found Kathmandu LTD. For all of my AE buddies that follow me…this was a great store and we all bought lots of ‘stuff’. It’s an outdoor clothing/supply store much like Columbia Sportswear. They’ve got clothing, sleeping bags, backpack supplies. All those things that AE folks like to have hanging from and inside their “no-go” bag. The best part was that everything in the store, EVERYTHING is anywhere from 50-75% off. Some good deals to be had in there! Lunch was a quick at La Porchetta (fast food Italian) then I think we spent the better part of 2 hours inside Borders Books. The mall is great…for me it was nice since I don’t always get the mall where I’m stationed. None of us really bought anything…it was just fun to wander around. There was even a K-Mart! We returned to the hotel and ran into the Chief. She is kind enough to allow us to borrow the Support Forces Antarctica (SFA) van so we can go for dinner. I am dubbed the expert driver as I am the only one that is used to driving on the left side of the road. I will say that I’m excited…it’s nice to have wheels!! Dinner tonight was at The Bodhi Tree on Colombo Street in Christchurch. This is cuisine of Burma…none of us have experienced this cuisine. It’s similar to Indian but not spicy at all and we left there satisfied but not overly excited about returning for Burmese cuisine. On a side note, the drive was pretty funny. People were laughing at us as we would have to turn around and sometimes I wasn’t all that graceful. The van is large and awkward so hugging curbs became common. The van has Support Forces Antarctica plastered on both doors so we believe this is there to show that we are supposed to look stupid and hug curbs because we have a learners permit to drive in NZ. We return to the hotel to find that another delay will leave us in NZ until Sunday. Another day to explore…