Last week in Christchurch!

---

I can't believe how fast time has gone by! Tomorrow I haul by backpack to the airport to fly to Sydney. I should probably finish packing soon! This week has gone by in kind of a whirl. Lots of goodbyes and long walks around places that I want to cement into my mind. I'm surprised how much Christchurch already seems like home!

Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving so I spent the day cooking up yummy things. Turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, veggies, and pumpkin pie for dessert! Sarah brought some roasted kumara and ambrosia salad. Overall I was very impressed with myself, did the whole meal on my own pretty much, with some minor setbacks. My flatmate Anna had a good laugh at me trying to remove the giblets and stuff with gloves on and some squealing. I obviously didn't reach far enough inside the turkey because some of the giblets were still inside in a bag when we carved the bird... oops. It was interesting to see the reactions of my flatmates to pumpkin pie, as they seemed to have some reservations about pumpkin being used in a pie; though they all asked for small pieces to start, they all had seconds!! We had a lovely evening, sat around the table for a few hours, laughing and talking and eating.

The rest of the week I mostly wandered around the city, saying goodbye to all my favourite places. I went for a nice walk through Hagley Park one afternoon, now all colourful with blossoms instead of barren branches as when I arrived. One evening I decided to go into town for a coffee and a stroll, it never occurred to me that the shops might not be open after 8 pm... I eventually found a coffee shop that was open and ended up walking all the way home from town which is about a 45-55 min walk. It was a nice evening though.

Friday was the end of term for the university students so a bunch of us hung out at the flat and had some snacks and drinks and played card games. Later we went to some house parties around campus. It was a fun night as I got to see a bunch of friends I hadn't seen in ages. I stayed out a little late, Saturday work I was a little slow but it was worth it!

Tonight we're off to Soho one last time for $10 pizza and hopefully some good conversation. I'm really going to miss the people I've met here in Christchurch! Hopefully I can keep in touch with them via Facebook and who knows, maybe some of them with eventually come out to Vancouver!!!

---