back in Christchurch - 7/31

Yesterday morning we had a lazy morning in Queenstown before packing up and heading to Christchurch. We did enjoy a nice walk in the Queenstown gardens and a little drive around town, but that's pretty much all we did before our 12:55 flight back to Christchurch.

In Christchurch, we took a bus back to Hotel SO (wake up and sleep lights again!) and set out to explore the city. First stop was the Christchurh Cathedral. It's a beautiful building, but my favorite part was the ceiling. It was all wood and designed to look like the hull of a ship.

After the Cathedral, we explored along the river, noticing the British influence on the architecture and design of the city. We wandered toward Hadley park where the Christchurch botanic gardens is located. We were hoping to catch a local rugby match and weren't disappointed. As soon as we started walking along the path in the park, we heard screaming and cheering. We made our way closer and closer and realized that it was a high school match.

If you remember back to when we were in Picton and stayed at the Villa backpacker hostel, I forgot to mention that the proprietor's brother is one of the boys hs coaches at Kent high school outside of Seattle. He mentioned that the Kent team had come to New Zealand a couple of years back and gotten absolutely killed in all of their matches. Watching the hs match in Christchurch, we could see how that would happen. I mean...it certainly wasn't the best rugby we'd ever seen...it was still clear that we were watching high school kids, but...

After the match, we walked back to the hotel for a small half-dinner and a workout before heading out to watch the All Blacks play the Wallabies on the HUGE screen at the Holy Grail (home to the Canterbury Crusaders). The Holy Grail was a pretty great place to watch a rugby game. There were two levels of balconies and the game was played on a screen about the size of the screen in a smaller movie theater. (there were tv's all over with the game on as well) At first we thought we were going to have to stand, but it turned out we got there at JUST the right moment. The second level was the restaurant section, so they weren't letting people in to watch the game and then while we were standing there, the restaurant closed and they started letting people in. We ended up with a front row table on the first balcony!

It was really quite the experience to be around that many people yelling and screaming and cheering about a rugby match on tv! :) The game was pretty fun to watch too...lots of scoring! We couldn't believe there were back-to-back blocked kicks and resulting tries!

The match ended around midnight here and we needed a second small meal (that shared dinner at 5 wasn't enough!) We grabbed a kebab with all the drunk revelers and then went to the hotel and to bed!

This morning (8/1) I did NOT appreciate the wake up sun light! I told Mari "ok cheery cheery, you can go get breakfast!" and then pulled the covers over my head. It didn't work. We got up, did a quick workout and now that I've finished the blog, are heading out to do a few last minute things before our flight to Nadi, Fiji this afternoon.

We might be out of communication while we're there, but fly to Hawaii on Aug 6, so you'll definitely hear from us then!