Free Jandals!

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Christchurch is a nice town - kind of like Victoria, BC, but smaller and not quite as fancy. We stayed at Greatstay, a cozy, modern B&B. The owners were really nice (when haven't they been?) I mentioned that I wanted to try the NZ breakfast of Pikelets, and the hostess made them for me the next morning! Her husband was an old car collector, and had several cars brought in from the States and refurbished them himself. He took us for a drive around the city in the car and we took lots of pictures.

In the city there are really nice walking streets with cafes and shops. J finally got a haircut in this trendy place by a guy we figured was gay "not that there's anything wrong with that". Scissor Sisters - Europe's most popular US band was on the radio and the guys says, "Have you seen the video of these guys? That lead singer is as bent as a ..." It was a funny comment, and even funnier because I went to high school with the lead singer of that group!

We met the meanest person in New Zealand at the airport from Queenstown to Christchurch. Now, of course since Kiwis are super nice, this guy wasn't horrible, but... We had booked this flight because we were running out of time for the 8+ hour drive. Plus, saving the car rental rate, gas and parking while in Queenstown nearly paid for itself. For some reason we booked on Air New Zealand for the trip. Arriving at the airport, they weighed our bags and told us that we were way overweight. We had the same baggage as we had had since Singapore where we picked up an extra suitcase for our purchases. The limit was 15 Kilos a person, which is a little over 30 pounds (this is for a jet airplane - not a prop plane that is adding up everyone's body weight). We had 3 bags at 45 pounds each, plus 2 backpacks at nearly 20. They wanted to charge us over a dollar a pound, which would have been nearly $200 in overages - more than a full priced adult ticket! To make long story short, we should have booked with Qantas, because the domestic weight limitation is waived if you buy a domestic ticket on a carrier that you're international portion is with. After about 20 minutes of stonewalling with the rude gate agent, we agreed to pay half the overage cost. We actually said "so you're telling us we should have booked with your competitor?", and he said "yes."

Our gate agent also brought up a standard non-criticism of the USA. We said "All flights in the US allow this much weight, even if they're domestic." He responded "Well - this isn't the USA is it?" J responded - "No, it sure isn't!" How is it that something is bad just because we do it in the Greatest Country on Earth?

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Photos

Carrot Cake
And a thin plain yogurt sauce.

Free Jandals
Apparently, this is what they call "flip flops" in NZ.

Lilly Pads
Ducklings were scrambling over the pads.

Comments

[Jess]

Bent
Finish the quote! There are many ways to say it . . . bent as a nine bob note? Bent as a bottle of chips? Bent as a ? ? ? Inquiring minds want to know. also, what exactly is a pikelet?

[CM and J]

Bent
Unfortunately I didn't censor it - I just couldn't remember what he actually said since it was pretty awkward coming from him. The Aussies and NZers have so much slang that it's hard to remember this stuff.