Day Twelve January 23, 2008 Wednesday

Today we were able to sleep in a bit, which was really nice. We ate breakfast around 9:30, got ready for the day, and headed to Christchurch around eleven. Luckily, the weather couldn’t have been more opposite from yesterday, it was beautiful!!! When we first arrived a bunch of the girls decided to go to the jade factory. I got a couple of presents for people, but nothing for myself. I was tempted, but my rational side reminded me that I really don’t wear necklaces, and green doesn’t look that great on me anyway! After the jade factory we broke up into smaller groups. I ended up spending almost the entire day with my tent buddy Julia. I totally love this girl, she is easy-going and probably the sweetest person I have ever met. First when we got to cathedral square we checked out the little souvenir shops. We didn’t really find anything that was well-priced and non-tacky. After the shops we saw a man that was called Lord Livingstone, and that was exactly what he was. It was a man dressed in a stone-like outfit that pretended to be a statue, it was incredible! After the funny man we checked out some of the statues and went into the cathedral. Our first reaction was shocked awe. The cathedral was done in the neo-gothic style, and it was so incredible inside we were both amazed. We decided to fork up the two dollars to climb to the top of the tower so we could look out over the whole city. I have to say the view was worth it, but there were so many steps we both decided they should be paying us! After the cathedral we went to the little outdoor marketplace. It was full of all sorts of cute little shops and fun handmade knick knacks. Again I was tempted, but decided not to splurge. After the little market place we went to lunch at a little coffee house called the coffee club. Words cannot describe how good my sandwich was after a week and a half of pb&j for lunch! Julia and I decided to split a slice of boysenberry cheesecake, and I’m not even going to try to describe how amazing that was, I’ll just end up salivating uncontrollably! After lunch a bunch of people went back to the jade factory, but Julia and I decided to check out the local art gallery. The pieces were mostly by students, but they did some truly amazing things with everyday oils and materials. Finally we ended our trip to Christchurch by getting pulled over for not wearing our seatbelt! (just our driver, but still it was $150!) When we got back to our little apartments we had some dinner and hung out and talked a lot. I played a super competitive game of Ultimate with some of the kids, but it got dark really fast so we had to cut it short. We finished the evening by starting the Holiday on my computer, but most everyone fell asleep, so I ended up turning it off after an hour.