our house...and the house that i wish was ours.

so this is our place (the building on the right). our flat is the second of six small townhouses squished together perpendicularly to fitzgerald avenue, one of the four major avenues named after early city superintendents that form a square around the central city area. it's all right, but the design is pretty blocky and when you look at the construction up close it seems a bit cheap. there are no locks on any of the interior doors (making the use of the bathroom during peak times a nerve-racking experience), and the front door requires a key to lock it from the inside. we've noticed quite a few of these less-than-attractive townhouses around the city, apparently the result of a rental housing boom in the last 10 or 20 years, and have been hearing about the city council's efforts to crack down on ugly housing construction. good move for them.

this is the house that i wish was ours - isn't it beautiful? i sneak a peek at the interior any time the lights are left on (a carryover habit from my snooping newspaper delivery days), and take great satisfaction in the victorian decorating style used inside. not my personal preference, but it suits the house well. we pass this house daily, as it's just a block from ours and along the river route that we take to church and to work.

-rachel

saturday morning at the metro

since oscar season has ended, taking with it the quality films that we had been viewing regularly every tuesday, we've initiated a new weekly date: saturday morning reading at a coffee shop. can you tell which one of us came up with this one? :) bryan's nice enough to go along with this indulgence of mine, as he's got some books to finish up for his internship anyway. this morning's locale was a hit - just check out the picture of our shared mixed berry and pumpkin chocolate muffins for the evidence of its greatness. my mom makes a mean pumpkin chocolate chip muffin, so this brought up fond memories of home.

the spot was cafe metro, a very cute coffee stop next to the town hall in victoria park, which we'd been meaning to visit for months. when a young dad and his 6ish-year-old boy got drinks and read the paper together, bryan and i, both suckers for cute parents and kids out in public together, gave collective sighs of adorableness.

i just love christchurch. i can't possibly leave in the next few months - there would be far too many great coffee shops left unvisited!

-rachel

cupcakes!

Three days a week I walk a different route to work in order to pick up the office mail from a PO box. While I fully expect to be paid for the extra 15 minutes that it takes me, I secretly look forward to the walk which leads me past a stretch of adorable antique shops and cafes. Though I'd passed by it many times before, somehow I had never noticed this little gem along the way, the Cupcake Parlour, which serves its collection of tasty treats on vintage-style dishes.

So I wondered who to take with me. If I were in Minnesota it would be an easy decision, as my friend Mandy and I are frequent samplers of the delicious items available at Cupcake near the University of Minnesota campus - this s'more cupcake (below) has been calling my name for a long, long time. But I'm not in Minnesota with Mandy, which made the decision-making process much more difficult. But a quick mention to a couple of friends from church led to what I think is a brilliant idea - hosting a month of cupcake tastings around Christchurch in an effort to determine the best cupcake in town.

So for four Saturdays in May, we'll invite the teenage girls to come with us to cupcake shops, bakeries, and farmer's market stands where we'll mutually indulge our sweet tooths and start the morning with some girly conversation. But the best part of the whole thing has been embracing my inner crafter with the help of the ever-awesome Alice, the youth intern who makes her own 50s-inspired clothing and whose primary method of transportation is a very cool periwinkle scooter. I'm jealous every time she rolls up to church wearing that helmet and leather jacket. We spent Monday afternoon shopping at boutique stationery stores, where we located a perfect designer paper with little retro cakes printed all over it, which we're planning to cut into strips to wrap around the gift boxes that we'll be making to house a homemade cupcake and an invitation for each girl. Should have them done by the middle of next week - if they turn out well, I'll post a picture. If not...just forget I ever mentioned them. :)

-Rachel

5 things we love about the english language in new zealand

1. the way they turn As into Rs and Rs into As (i.e. "dora the explorer" becomes "dorer the explora")
2. the way that the letter Z is pronounced "zed". we're totally bringing that home with us.
3. the way that the emphasis is reversed in the word "Samoa" from suh-MOA to SAA-moa
4. the way that our pastor said "indentations" in his Southland accent and both Bryan and I heard "indian nations". also, whenever he says "person" it comes out "parson": "she's just a wonderful parson".
5. the way that they say "drink driving" instead of "drunk driving", yet don't say "i went to the bar last night and got completely drink".

-rachel

update: i thought of a one more that i just had to include.

6. what i'm calling word cute-ification: flatmates=flatties, presents=pressies, slot machines=pokies, and so on.

my friend samantha

our church is filled with adorable little girls. the boys are all at the age where they've moved beyond cute and into annoying, but most of the girls are still young enough to enjoy twirling their skirts and applying messy coats of overly vibrant lipsticks. they're currently in the middle of a two-week school holiday, so i've scheduled a couple of "dates" with some of the girls during the week. last week i took almost-seven-year-old samantha out for lunch at her favorite restaurant (dennys), then back to our apartment to watch her favorite movie (barbie: princess and the pauper), eat the dessert of her choosing (ice cream sundaes), and play her favorite game (hide and go seek). the two of us had a great time, but i think the ones that really benefited from our day out were her four siblings - apparently her older brother was looking forward to our date just as much as she was :)

this week i'm hoping to hang out with abby grace, the youth pastor's youngest daughter, who intercepted my invitation to samantha and now keeps asking me when i'm going to ask her out on a "date". apparently she wants to go shopping...hope she likes the dollar store!

-rachel

hiking the port hills

last weekend, being unable to resist the fantastic easter sales at the outdoors stores, we gave in and bought daypacks, excusing the splurge purchase with the rationalization that we needed a smaller luggage option for our upcoming trip to australia. and since we now have these handy new packs, we figured we'd try them out on a day hike in the nearby port hills on the south side of the city. the fantastic thing about this area is that it seems to spring from nowhere out of the flat city, so great hiking is available with the purchase of a $2.80 city bus ticket, not $100 with a private track transport company.

we couldn't have picked a better day for the hike - though it's clearly been fall for a few weeks now, this particular friday escaped from summer and snuck its way in. in total we covered just shy of eight miles in four very leisurely hours, having nothing in particular hurrying us along except the prospect of fish and chips in lyttelton at the end of our trip. our route was the central section of the crater rim walkway, which follows the summit road along the ridgeline, branching into multiple trails as it passes through prime mountain biking territory and then merging again later on. we wouldn't have had any idea that these great trails existed had it not been for a well-placed brochure at the city library, as the department of conservation either doesn't manage the trails or doesn't promote them very well. i think the trail management is jointly shared between DOC and local parks, but i could be mistaken. the expansive park that formed our starting point, victoria park, is famous for the parker-hulme murder of 1954, which was made into the movie heavenly creatures by peter jackson.

as usual, our hike offered fantastic views - looking west from the ridgeline we could see the region of canterbury stretching out before us all the way to the mountains halfway across the country. looking south we could see the city of lyttelton and the harbour, christchurch's earliest european settlement and a hot spot for early 20th century antarctic expeditions making their way south to the ross sea. and looking east we could see banks peninsula jutting out into the ocean and the curvature of the land as it stretches up towards the north island. we weren't the only ones enjoying the views - we came across a wedding party taking what must be gorgeous photos in a rocky spot overlooking the harbour.

wish you could be here to see what we're seeing! how will we ever come home?

-rachel

successful advertising project

no pastors in the office this morning = surprisingly productive day. here's what we cranked out for our upcoming family movie night:

we decided to embrace film imagery with all of our printed materials for the event, so we created advertisements in the style of celluloid strips. we even found a use for the old printable transparency sheets in the back of a closet and fairly easily made what we think is a very functional and cool-looking product on a $0 budget.

using the same basic images, we created registration forms/tickets that we're hoping will achieve a few things:

1) give us a helpful estimate of how many attendees to expect, for food ordering and setup purposes

2) serve as a second form of advertising

3) allow us to offer excellent customer service - the registration forms and the tear-off tickets have matching numbers, so in theory the usher can check the ticket number on the pre-registration list and greet families by name. "hello, johnson family - i see you've prepaid, so let me take you directly to your seats. we'll be bringing out your 2 adult and 3 child portions of fish and chips shortly after intermission."

on the list for the rest of the week - communicate with volunteers about their roles and a pre-event meeting, finalize seating and projection plans, help with the editing of our video announcement (which was shot today), figure out how to prepare the fish and chips (it can't be that hard!), and start talking it up. how fun is this?

-rachel

putting out the pineapple

judging from its generous visa options, accessible national parks, and vast and (mostly) affordable transportation and accommodation networks, new zealand is among the most tourist-friendly countries in the world. but over the past 7 months, we've been tracking the progress of a debate that seems to signal that backpackers are wearing out their welcome. i should clarify that i'm talking about backpackers in a very loose sense here, referring to on-the-cheap travellers in general rather than serious backcountry hikers. every day while walking to work or the supermarket or the bank we watch these travellers, weighted down with heavy packs on their backs and miscellaneous smaller bags dangling from their arms, dragging themselves from the bus stop to their hostel and think, "we're so glad that's not us anymore". it's really an exhausting lifestyle. i commented to bryan a few days ago that we don't see anywhere near the number of backpackers at home, but before i even finished my sentence i remembered that we live in minneapolis - middle of the country, far north, seven hours' drive from chicago...hardly a backpacker destination, and definitely not a place that just happens to be "on the way" to anywhere.

so the problem that has new zealanders up in arms about overseas visitors stems from the large number of "freedom campers", travellers who sleep in rented or purchased campervans or converted vans in locations that are not established campsites. while in almost all cases a driver can find a public or private campground within an hour's drive in which to dump their waste, connect to water and power sources, and take advantage of shower and toilet facilities, frugal backpackers have increasingly ignored these options in favor of free and secluded spots wherever they might be found, even if it means a busy city street in central christchurch. these side-of-the-road sites, not being intended for camping, don't offer toilets or trash cans, and locals who find themselves stepping into piles of human excrement or picking up campers' litter in city parks are none too happy about the issue. one newspaper article that i stumbled across is headlined "they should be shot!", a direct quote from an obviously enraged city council member about the issue.

so what to do? the problem is being addressed differently in each region and each city, meaning that visitors may soon have to update themselves on local freedom camping regulations every time they visit a new area, which doesn't seem like a very user-friendly solution. some groups are targeting the rental companies that provide the vehicles in the first place, requiring self-contained toilets in all vans; others are zealously erecting signs in newly-designated "no camping" spots, and others are launching campaigns intended to teach tourists freedom camping etiquette. i don't know what will work in the end, but as an environmentally responsible visitor i sure hope they come to some solution, lest my fellow tourists embitter this friendly nation.

if it were up to me, i'd ignore the toilet issue and target the ugly graffiti designs that so obnoxiously decorate the vans of the major rental companies.

-rachel

does this make me a "published" photographer? :)

last week i submitted two or three photos to msnbc.com's "it's a snap!", where each week they post 20 travel pictures sent in by readers. today i popped on the site, having completely forgotten that i'd sent mine in, and was surprised by my own picture of a pedestrian bridge in whananaki north staring back at me. you can take a look at all of this week's photos here if you're interested. i think it'll only be up until april 8th, so you'll have to jump on there pretty quickly. most of the photos are pretty amateurish, so don't expect anything of incredible quality.

why take a nap when you could take a map?

just thought i'd throw this map up for anyone who wants help visualizing our travels since september. start at picton (top right) and travel counter-clockwise around the outside until you get to christchurch, then head west and connect the dots clockwise until you get back down to christchurch. the thick black lines are the routes we've traveled by car, bus, or train, the orange bits are sections that we've completed on foot, and the circled city names are places that we've stayed at least overnight. as a reference, the length of the south island is roughly the distance from washington, dc to bangor, maine, or from san diego to redding, or from san antonio to albuquerque, or from minneapolis to indianapolis, or from orlando to nashville. these are my finger measurements, so i'm not claiming precision with these comparisons.

-rachel