The curious healing powers of a good soy latte!

Travel is a funny thing...for me, it isn't so much the actual time in the air, it's the total time it takes from leaving our home with freshly packed bags to dragging myself through customs and arriving at the first hotel. I've added it up...door to door from Chicago to Christchurch (with a stop in San Francisco and one in Auckland) comes to 34 hours of travel. When you add the whole international date line craziness of loosing an entire day just for dipping a bit too far to the west, it makes me tired to think of it.

I'm trying to keep myself awake until something that resembles evening time so that I can get onto the schedule (It looks like we will be getting out at dawn every morning for the next two weeks to catch the best light) which meant dropping my bags off at THE CAMELOT MOTOR LODGE (yes, there is indeed a suit of armour in the lobby - with a new Zealand scarf on it.)

I walked through the center of Christchurch (that's Canterbury Christchurch by the way) and then around a large park and over to a wonderful little coffee shop called VIC's. A shop full of tasty treats all made from organic veggies and eggs, with a staff that brought me a second latte for free when they found out how far I had traveled to be there. An interesting mix of two people studying physics books and others who are debating who is going to win the "races day" tomorrow. (horse drawn carriages no less!)

Parts of Christchurch very closely resembles those small countryside towns right outside of London. Little cottages line the streets and every garden is so crammed full of roses and other flowers that the scent is intoxicating.


















The photo tour starts tomorrow, we'll be at the harbour and light house location first and then moving on from there to to the Banks peninsula.

I'll be posting the photos from this trip (the ones that don't belong to our clients, or the book I'm working on) once I get back to the states.. the photos in the blog will be from my iPhone = which was exclaimed to be a "magic tool" by the clip board carrying flight attendant who's name was actually MURRY! (if that means nothing to you than I must insist that you join our social discourse by going to itunes and downloading at least one episode of "flight of the conchords")

Even after only a half day here I feel safe in dubbing this the land of the painfully polite... When handing you your coffee the shop staff say thank you, and when you leave even the smallest of tips (man the money here is COOL!)
you get such an effusive "LOVELY!" that it's almost embarrassing. hmmmmm, maybe I better check the exchange rate again and make certain that I'm not doing the conversion backwards and leaving 120% tips eh?



More tomorrow after a day of exploring the Christchurch area with a proper guide...