church hill

rain! so we slept in. rain! so we waited. rain! are we ever going to be able to walk around? finally the rain stopped and a little sun came out just before 2pm. so we left the hostel. i strapped on my laptop bag so i could catch up on things at an internet cafe. i'm at one of the cafes that is actually open and the charge for using a laptop is so high that i'm using their computer! of course!

in the morning i took a bad shower. bad because it was cold. i remembered about my worst showers ever taken mental list. i must write it out. this one might enter the list. it was just warm enough for me to shower. any colder and i wouldn't have bothered. when the rain cleared enough and we were leaving the hostel, one of the workers told us not to use the showers on our side because the hot water is out. thanks, we already know that.

the first place we looked at was christ church on church hill. it's anglican, which to me is catholic lite. it was interesting. they painted a labyrinth on the floor and you can walk it as part of a religious experience. i was not familiar with this concept. no, i did not participate. i did walk around and read the photocopies of saints on the wall. not all were saints in the traditional sense. they included bach, einstein, cesar chavez, harvey milk, etc. the photocopies were taken from some magazine, i think an american one. there was a drawing of each in saintly style with a small bio on them, except for einstein which only had quotes that didn't seem to relate at all.

christ church

then we walked to south street, which is a street of restored cobb homes from the 1860s. i guess it is what some parts of new england must be like. it was pretty boring actually. none of the homes seemed interesting. a lot of them seem to be vacation homes or bed & breakfasts. perhaps they are nice on the inside.

south street

we're trying to walk around and see what we can but since everything is closed the town feels dead. not waiheke on christmas dead, but close enough. needless to say, this internet cafe is packed with travelers. i'm hoping we can see more of nelson today but i really doubt it. i looked at a map on a lot of things i had read about that sounded interesting require a car to get to. i'll try to see what i can but since daylight savings is over, i have 1 hour less of sun to guide me.

queens gardens

tomorrow we kayak abel tasman on an overnight trip. really looking forward to that. it's supposed to be gorgeous and great for kayaking. hope the weather is on our side!

uh, i don't think this place is vegetarian