A night at the museum and the Roxx

Nov 30: We were at the Canterbury Museum just poking around and hoping the rain would stop. When we went, I didn't know what kind of museum it was and I thought it was the local Christchurch history museum. Little did I know that it was was the Canterbury Museum of Natural History and Human Heritage. There were dinosaurs, local NZ history, petrified wood, an Asian exhibit, a British history exhibit and a plethora of other exhibits. There was a really old school bicycle that you could climb up and pedal on. A nice museum worker came up and asked if we wanted him to take our picture so obviously we couldn't refuse. Unfortunately, these bikes don't lend themselves to tandem riding. I did have bit of fun emulating the dinosaur. Since I thought this museum was just local culture, I was a bit surprised to find a dino, but I recovered well. We also looked at costumes of the first female pilot in NZ. If the mannequin is relatively sized to her then she had ridiculously tiny feet. Though the silliest and scariest moment in the museum came during a photo-op.

I asked Gord to take a picture of me posing as the dinosaur. Neither of us knew that he was going to unwittingly back into an exhibit of a piece of petrified wood, but he did. He set it rocking precariously forward and backwards. Had he not been able to steady the stand, he would have smashed a "Log of Late Cretaceous petrified wood (80 million years old)." The exhibit would have been glued back together with a new sign. "Was a Log of Late Cretaceous petrified wood (80 million years old). Unfortunately, unable to withstand the Gordon period." After that incident, it was definitely time to leave, rain or no rain.

We headed to the indoor climbing gym at the edge of the city called the Roxx. We met up with another flatmate, John. It was a lot of fun. I did a few climbs and belayed a few times. At the end, we did some speed climbing, which has to do with going up a fairly easy route over and over until you can no longer stay on the wall. I went up 3 times before my hands stopped being able to close.

Rapaki Peak

Nov 29: Strode up to Rapaki. There's a good climbing rock there and also a separate peak that Gord and I climbed up. A few streets down from the house is the start of a pretty wicked bike trail. It's all gravel and almost 45 degrees uphill in some places. After ascending the trail we reached the base of the peak. Then we had to clamber up and beat our own path through the brush. Once at the top we were greeted with gorgeous views and a stone monument. We took a bunch of photos at the top and then decided to climb down, as it was a bit nippy at the top. Our climb down was interrupted by a really sweet crevice. I decided that I wanted a picture of myself pretending to climb up it. After getting that photo, I realized that climbing down it and back up would probably be a fun challenge and victory would be sweeter if I actually completed the climb. So we climbed down the crevice and then back up. Life wouldn't be any fun if nature wasn't full of challenges. We had a little difficulty climbing down at a few places because there was a lot of lichen and moss. This created really slippery footholds and my hiking boots don't have the best grip. Even though it was cloudy, windy and a little rainy, this spot still had beautiful views.

Why so expensive?

Nov 28: Went downtown to open a bank account. There isn't much competition in NZ for banks so every single bank has a ridiculous number of fees. Transactions fees for everything from transferring money to paying bills. There are ATM fees, using your Eftpos card fees, depositing money fees and withdrawal fees. Basically if you go into the branch to make any sort of transaction in person, you'll pay a fee. However, there are also lots of fees if you do all your banking online. NZ uses the Eftpos card, which is the Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sales. It's exactly like a debit card and has a pin, but you can't use it online or over the phone. You have to be physically present at the "point of sales."

Also everything in New Zealand is more expensive than in the US and this is while keeping the currency exchange in mind. My face wash is about $7 in the US, but about US$10.50 in NZ. While that's not a huge difference, it adds up once you realize that everything is a bit more expensive here. I just find it annoying and it makes me reluctant to spend money. Sporting gear is a huge industry here because there are so many fun outdoorsy things to do, but the price is ridiculous! By buying in the US instead of NZ, you'll be able to save hundreds of dollars. I want a climbing harness, shoes and a helmet and it'll probably be about a $150 difference. Riddikulus! (HP spelling)

Downtown Christchurch

Nov 27: Walked around Christchurch City. There were cool side streets with little stores, cafes and bars. One of the buildings had about 15 bikes hanging as decoration.

There was also a mini cooper hanging on another wall. It seems that New Zealanders enjoy hanging vehicles on city walls. I also went to the main square and snapped a picture of the cone sculpture, it seems to be a fairly well known structure.

There was also a strange man with glasses who was dressed up as a wizard and climbing on a stepladder in the middle of the square.

He was preaching about the wickedness of women. The crazy wizard man said that women are superb liars and are very wicked. We walked by the main square several times and at one point, he had a map out and was gesticulating wildly at it. The Wizard man was probably pointing out the most concentrated areas of wicked women in New Zealand. He is apparently very famous and very crazy. Some NZ guidebooks mention the Wizard man. He also drives an interesting Volkswagen Beetle. It's actually two front halves of two different Beetles that have been welded together. After watching the wizard man rant for a bit, we went to the library.

I have a universal love of libraries. I checked out "Of Love and Other Demons" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers, "Silas Marner" by George Eliot and "The Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas. A life without reading would be a sad life indeed. Walking around Christchurch was fun, but it's not all that different from any other city.

Apples

Nov 24 to Nov 26: I got on a plane in RDU and headed towards Dallas-Fort Worth in Texas. I was seated between a Duke student and a UNC student. Needless to say I talked to the UNC student almost non-stop on the way to Texas. She had just returned to Chapel Hill, a few months ago, after living in Nelson, NZ for a semester. She gave me lots of advice and suggestions. My particular favorite was that I should go surfing at some nice little surf spot that she couldn't quite remember the name of it. At first she said "it's a great place to surf, my friend surfed there and really liked it because there weren't a lot of other surfers." We sat there for a while in silence and pondered why there wouldn't be a lot of surfers if there were good waves. Then she exclaimed "Oh, actually people don't surf there because are a ton of sharks!" Thus ended my interest in surfing this particular spot. However, I was very excited to hear that I could buy sweater pants in NZ. This is an item that Emily P and I have hypothesized about for quite sometime. I'm very excited about pants made out of a sweater material. It was pretty uneventful flying while in the United States. I got a little ill while landing on every plane, but there was no upchucking. Victory!

While waiting for my long flight from LAX to Auckland, I was contemplating if I should try and switch seats to get a row to myself. I sat there for 20 minutes and had an internal struggle on whether or not it was worth getting up and trying. Finally, I manned up and went to ask. It turns out there was one row of seats at the very back of the plane open. It was probably open because of it's proximity to the bathroom. I was worried about the distance from the bathrooms, but then I decided that sleeping quarters were worth any smell. It turns out this was a good choice because there was no smell and it was really comfortable. I flipped up all the armrests, spread out some blankets, propped up the pillows and passed out for about 8 hours. I don't think I'll ever want to fly any other way. I reached Christchurch on Nov 26, NZ day and time.

I'm glad mom warned me not to bring apples with me while flying. Even though they're a delicious treat, they aren't worth hundreds of dollars in fines. Whew. Apparently Australia's fines are worse.

Journey to the other side

Nov 24: My name is Molly and I grew up in North Carolina. I'm on my way to New Zealand for a year long adventure. My first stop is Christchurch. Maybe I'll try working in a vineyard or try climbing my way around New Zealand. I just needed a break from the job I had and some time to figure out a direction in life. Wish me luck!