After breakfast, we drove in to Christchurch and parked near the bars we visited the night before. We all walked downtown to the Christ Church Cathedral and purchased a pass to climb the spiral stairs to the tower. The view from the top was lovely--we could see the whole city and a couple of the surrounding volcanos (including another Mt. Victoria).
For a while we watched a couple guys play chess with very large pieces in the courtyard below the cathedral. We split up after we returned to street level--the boys headed off in search of more adult stores; Mom, Scott, and I stopped for Starbucks--prime location on the edge of the square, of course--and then walked to The Arts Centre. We spent several hours at The Arts Centre (Mom bought a bunch of wool), had lunch, and then walked around the Botanic Gardens, where we ran into the boys in one of the conservatories. We also saw another New Zealand Pigeon; there are/will be pictures in the photo gallery. After leaving the gardens, we headed back toward the cathedral and did a bit of shopping. (I love the store Simply New Zealand. They have just the right mix of beautiful products and fantastically tacky souveniers. A vast majority of presents I brought people are from there.) I bought an awesome chicken kabab (seriously yummy), since I was starving after having yet another less-than-exciting restaurant experience. Everything has dairy, I swear. Then we met up with the boys and headed back toward South New Brighton. On the way we stopped & bought groceries. They didn't have any ice for the chilly bin (cooler), so we went to the nearby bottle (liquor) store, where we discovered they had an entire wall of things on tap. Probably 10 or 15 beers, a couple ciders (including scrumpy, which is 8% and very yummy; we bought 1.5 litres), and even Alex's bourbon & cola (though not as high a percentage as he likes). Awesome place. We went to bed early knowing we had to leave early to meet Elyse at the airport first thing Saturday.
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