Today was our only full day in Christchurch. In the morning Colin and I went for a walk to the botanic gardens and walked along the Avon River beside a huge park. Later we discovered that this park was not, in fact, the botanic gardens: they were two blocks further down and we had missed them entirely. Oh well, the park and the river were lovely. After mailing some postcards and admiring the busking talent on show (Christchurch is currently hosting the World Busking Festival/Championships, but Colin and I have decided that any busker that can afford to travel to Christchurch doesn't deserve to be called a busker), we met up with Doug and Fred and headed out to our ECW (extreme cold weather) clothing fitting. I took a picture of all the stuff they want us to take with them - multiples of some things! On the plane alone they want us to wear 17 items (we counted). We sat through the first of many briefings, tried on all our clothes (my hats were too small, must have a bigger head than I thought....) and were finally let loose on Christchurch again. Doug, Fred and Colin took the oppurtunity to visit the International Antarctic Centre but my immune system had suddenly realised it was in a completely new country and went into overdrive mode, sending me home with some very soggy tissues for some RnR. When I got there I realised somewhere I had lost my key (pulling tissues out of my pocket all day will generally do it) and I drippingly retraced my steps until I got to the last option, the shuttle bus that had driven us out to the Clothing Distribution Centre. It's always the last place you look, isn't it? Anyway I found it and saved myself a $20 replacement fee, so hooray. After searching central Christchurch high and low for some nice dark chocolate (Kiwis obviously don't believe in it or something) and some duty free absinthe (I discovered later they're not allowed to sell it duty free, which is probably which I was having difficulty locating it), I rejoined the boys for a nice Italian dinner.

- Jessie