Sitting comfortably in Christchurch.

Here I sit...in Christchurch New Zealand getting ready for my couple of weeks of travel and hiking. The flight up from McMurdo was quite interesting. There were two 4 star air force generals on the plane, as well as a 3 star general and several colonels. I guess there are only twelve 4 star generals in the entire air force...so we had a pretty important flight. All the military types were really nervous and saluting like crazy. I only caught one of their names: General Chandler.

After returning all of my cold weather gear, and hopping a shuttle to my hotel, it was about 9 pm. A few of us went out for a cold beer but we were all too tired to stay out late. Before coming in to sleep, i stood outside the hotel staring up at the star filled night sky for about an hour. It was a bit hard to take in. It was as if my body said...."I can finally go to sleep properly".

This morning I got up and walked through the Botanical Gardens for a couple hours just smelling the flowers, and admiring the trees. It's amazing the things you take for granted when you are on the ice for 8 weeks. I went out for lunch with a fellow USAPer at a great vegan place. After that, I spent the afternoon just wandering around the city learning where things are. There's a huge city festival going on right now with a whole mess of street performers. It's a great week to be in Christchurch.

-john

Last time up on Observation Hill (2 hours before my flight left)

4 Star General on the C-17 Flight (3 star general behind him)

Punting on the Avon River through the Botanical Gardens